We recently watched a portion of Doom 3's single-player game in action. The graphically impressive game is the successor to id Software's groundbreaking shooter series--a series that arguably put first-person shooters on the map. However, the previous Doom games' single-player modes focused on fast-paced action: You played as a lone space marine in a futuristic moon base that had somehow become infested by demons from hell, and, using only an arsenal of heavy-duty weapons (provided by the good folks at Union Aerospace Corporation) and the occasional health pack, you were a one-man army who single-handedly drove back the demonic onslaught by blasting the living daylights out of successive waves of monsters. We previously played the game's multiplayer component, but the new game's single-player portion instead focuses on providing a creepy and suspenseful atmosphere provided by the game's cutting-edge graphics engine. The engine provides extremely advanced dynamic lighting and shadows, as well as advanced physics that support rag-doll death animations and realistic behavior of inanimate objects, like ventilation grates, boxes, and other environmental fixtures.

Fortunately, these creeping, crawling demontrites won't pose too serious a threat.

Doom 3 retells the story of the original Doom, and, as such, you still play as a lone space marine in a base on the Phobos moon of Mars in the year 2145. However, you fight your way through a much more detailed world than the ray-casted, sprite-based world of Doom. This is due to the new game's highly realistic character models, which are adorned with bump- and normal-mapping to smooth out their polygonal edges and make them look more convincing. Developer id Software is also hoping to scare the pants off of you with roaring demons and groaning zombies whose voices are articulated by six-channel Dolby surround support.

Designer Tim Willits and id Software president Todd Hollenshead took us through an early level of the game, at a slightly faster pace than id expects most players to play at, but we were able to get a good idea of what the game was about. In the early part of the game, we were accosted by a few relatively weak, gray-skinned zombies who were wearing ragged clothes. They were easily dispatched by a few good shotgun blasts and flopped on the ground from the force of the shot. We later rounded a corner and came up against a much tougher opponent: the zombie commander. The commander looks far less human than the zombies, especially since one of its arms ends in an angled tendril that it lashes out at you like a whip and impales you with if you can't dodge out of the way quickly enough. After defeating the commander, we proceeded through an extremely dark corridor, which we navigated with the help of our flashlight.

The flashlight is present in both single-player and multiplayer modes. It serves as an exploration tool that realistically cuts through shadows, and it also serves as a last-ditch-effort melee weapon. But if you have your flashlight in hand, you don't have any kind of decent weapon equipped. This point was driven home by the sudden appearance of another zombie, who leaped from the shadows of the heretofore strangely quiet hallway. As we dodged away from it, we watched as it lunged for us and closed its arms around thin air in a failed attempt to grab us before we blasted it. We also came to a short stairway. At the top of the stairs was a heavyset zombie who noted our presence. He then grabbed a nearby barrel and hurled it at us. We dodged the barrel, but it tumbled off to the side, and the sound of it crashing to the ground reverberated realistically around us.

After clearing these areas, we came upon a downed marine who indicated that he wasn't "going to make it" but encouraged us to find the means to call Earth for support. This, Hollenshead explained, is one of the game's major goals. We took a closer look at the marine's face, which was convincingly contorted in pain, thanks to Doom 3's highly detailed skeletal face modeling, then made note of his remarks in our PDA. You carry a pocket computer to make note of important hints that characters give you. It also provides you with updated objectives and security clearance keys, and both are sent via e-mail.