INTRO:
Doom 3 was a bold move by id Software, which threw off traditional designs of run-and-gun shooting seen in the likes of the previous Doom games in favour of more emphasis on story-telling and atmosphere, at least in its story mode. Resurrection of Evil appears to cement this change, but does not appear to add much of anything original to the franchise. In fact, one can say that it borrowed many ideas from other games that came before it.
PREMISE:
Resurrection of Evil has a single-player mode with a story that is a continuation of what has happened in Doom 3. Despite the mayhem of the events in Doom 3, there were too few survivors and evidence to tell of what has happened; thus, the UAC remains almost in ignorance of what has happened, though it still made the wiser choice of having a much larger mercenary army the second time around.
The second time around certainly did happen, no thanks to the UAC's eagerness to unearth more of Mars' secrets. One of these secrets happens to be a rather grisly artifact that unleashes yet another demonic invasion when it was touched by a none-too-bright but determined soldier.
As is typical of a story in a sci-fi shooter, the story of Resurrection of Evil is really only there as an excuse to have the player romping through legions of daemons and undead towards a goal that involves killing some big, bad villain with dastardly plans – if the corny name of this expansion for Doom 3 does not suggest so already. The story is not lackadaisically done, of course, and may even appear earnest in many moments.
More importantly, Resurrection of Evil perhaps makes use of its premise for some entertaining game mechanisms in its single-player mode, perhaps even more so than Doom 3. These will be described later.
STORY MODE – GAMEPLAY BASICS:
Much like previous Doom games, the player character is a soldier that starts off lightly armed. His physical capabilities, as a regular mortal, are not that much different from those of the player character in the original package.
However, it has to be noted here that the player character does not get to accumulate up to 200 points of armor as his predecessor can. He can only have up to 100 points of armor. As the amount of damage reduction that a player character gets appears to be proportional to the amount of armor that he has, this is a significant nerf.
On the other hand, it does make the story mode more challenging, regardless of any difficulty that is chosen. After all, the story mode of Doom 3 would have been quite easy, at any difficulty, as long as the player plays conservatively. The story mode of Resurrection of Evil is still best played with conservative tactics, of course, but there is less room for mistakes that send the player to the game-loading menu.
As with previous Doom games, the player character adheres to the "walking armory" convention, meaning that he can carry a sizable selection of weapons on his person at any one time. Throughout important points in the progression of the story mode, the player character comes across yet-encountered weapons and adds them to his arsenal (though the player can of course choose not to by simply avoiding them), stowing them somewhere unseen.
Some new weapons are introduced via in-game cutscenes that show off their capabilities, but otherwise the existing ones are inserted into the story mode without much fanfare.
Typically, the player character dies when his health reaches zero, or the player has him unwittingly getting into instant-death hazards, of which the most common are bottomless pits. The player character can regain health by collecting medical kits and drawing treatment from healing stations, which would have seemed quite unremarkable by the time of this game.
(In hindsight, this was a game design for health systems for player characters in shooters that was losing favour among game developers.)
As in Doom 3, weapons have magazines that need to be reloaded or chambers that have to be refilled when they run out, thus inserting breaks into the player character's shooting. However, in Resurrection of Evil, the magazine sizes of many weapons have been reduced, apparently to reduce their damage output; the changes will be described later.
Killing enemies – which will be described later - is mostly what the player would be doing in the story mode, though there are some segments where the player needs to solve some timing puzzles to get past certain obstacles, as well as some amount of jumping and crouching - all the while killing enemies, of course. These segments involve the use of the aforementioned artefact, which is associated with a game mechanism of its own, and which will be described shortly.
There is noticeably less hunting for codes to get past obstacles this time around, though these are compensated by the timing and jumping hurdles as have just been mentioned. If there are any codes to be had, they are usually for the unlocking of containers that have ammunition, armor and other goodies.
The player character can sprint in lieu of merely moving and shooting, and he can sprint indefinitely, which can be handy for simply bypassing enemies, especially when powered up by the Artifact, which will be described later.
WEAPONS – EXISTING & MISSING ONES:
The player character can still bring up his fists when ammunition runs short, but as before, without the influence of power-ups, they are quite worthless. The flashlight also returns, still having better value as a portable light source instead of being a club.
The default firearm, which is the Pistol, returns mostly unchanged, if at all. The pistol is still a weak weapon that is best suited for taking down weak creatures that are not worth wasting bigger guns on. This remains a disappointment, considering that the pistol had its own niche in previous Doom games as the only weapon that is efficient over long ranges.
The Shotgun also returns mostly unchanged, as it was already quite well-balanced (though some players would call it underpowered). There may be changes in firing and reloading animations, but if there are, they are subtle.
The Assault Rifle marks the first of the significant changes to the weapons, but it has to be mentioned here first that these changes are described with the perspective of comparing Resurrection of Evil with Doom 3.
Anyway, the Assault Rifle has had its generous magazine size reduced, making it a somewhat less reliable weapon now. Of course, considering how general-purpose it was for most situations in Doom 3, this may have been for the better, as the player would be forced to consider which weapon to use more wisely.
However, the Chaingun's reduced magazine size may not be as welcome. It is still a weapon that has a high damage-per-second rating, but the diminished magazine size particularly highlights its bothersome reloading animations.
The Rocket Launcher and Hand Grenade have not changed by much, which would perhaps be a relief to players who consider them to be quite balanced already.
The Plasma Rifle seemingly has reduced magazine size, but this is actually a correction of the display for ammunition remaining in the magazine. In Doom 3, each shot took two points ammunition; in Resurrection of Evil, each shot takes only one, out of 25 points in the magazine, which has half the capacity of that in Doom 3. Therefore, there has been no significant change for the gun – which remains one with blindingly bright particle effects.
The BFG also has reduced chamber size, which somewhat provided the once overwhelmingly-powerful weapon with a much-needed nerf. However, it has also made the weapon more hazardous to use, because it retains the risk of overloading if the player puts one too many rounds into the next shot; the reduced magazine greatly shortens the time to reach a full-power shot, or a mishap.
Some weapons in Doom 3 have been removed though, such as the Chainsaw, which was somewhat useless compared to its predecessors because enemies in Doom 3, and Resurrection of Evil, do not go into looping animations of staggering when continuously damaged, unlike those in previous Doom games.
WEAPONS – NEW ONES:
There are only two new guns in Resurrection of Evil, and they may happen to highlight id Software's lack of original ideas and conservative design policies.
There has been clamour for a double-barrelled shotgun since Doom 3 launched; one of this gets into Resurrection of Evil.
As to be expected of a double-barrelled shotgun, it unloads two shells for every shot, which makes it much more powerful per shot than the regular pump-action shotgun. However, this is balanced by a brief reloading animation after each shot, which makes its damage output much the same as that of the regular shotgun. Still, some players would prefer the bigger shotgun as it can unload a lot more damage per shot and thus remove a single threat more quickly than the smaller shotgun.
The other new weapon is the Grabber, which can be considered as id Software's take on Half-Life 2's popular Gravity Gun. The Grabber, expectedly enough, is used to pull in and suspend objects before its bearer, if only to be dropped onto something or launched forward at fantastic speeds.
However, unlike its counterpart in Half-Life 2, it would be mainly used for purposes of combat or retrieval of supplies; there would not be many physics-based puzzles to be solved using the Grabber.
Depending on the player's response to Half-Life 2, if any, this could have been for the better or worse. If id Software had designed some of such puzzles, it could have been seen as imitating what Valve has done, though it could also have been praised – or chided – for adding puzzle-solving elements to a franchise that is otherwise known for having players shoot the heck out of things.
Id Software had not, so it could either be praised for simply adding a weapon that does not involve shooting or blowing things up when killing enemies, or criticized for not doing much with it.
However, the Grabber would be notable for being able to catch and throw back the projectiles that are hurled in the first place by the demonic opposition. This is an efficient if somewhat risky way of getting rid of enemies. The Grabber can also pick up and throw explosive barrels, which better utilizes said barrels. In a pinch, the player can always throw a hard object at enemies to harm them.
The Grabber is also able to get rid of small enemies in spectacularly efficient manners, namely pulling them in, suspending them before the player character and then forcefully launching them in manners similar to inanimate objects that the Grabber usually interacts with. This is especially useful against the Lost Souls, Cherubs and Ticks.
Moreover, as Resurrection of Evil uses the same system for physics as Doom 3 did, which means that objects can be scattered around willy-nilly from explosions, the Grabber can be very useful in retrieving objects that the player cannot reach, assuming that they have not been thrown too far out of the limited range of the Grabber.
As a side note, the Grabber can be used to circumvent a restriction on shooting non-hostile NPCs; the player can chuck objects at them, which is a work-around for the fact that the player character lowers his weapon when looking in their direction. However, this is not recommended, as it might break the game.
STORY MODE – THE ARTIFACT:
The simply-named Artifact is a rather disturbing object, which id Software deserves kudos for. Instead of some solid object of metal or other rigidly solid substances, it is instead a large, floating beating heart with an ominous nimbus of otherworldly energy.
Its powers, and associated game mechanism, would not be a surprise to experienced gamers though.
It is a device that is powered with mortal souls, which is a noteworthy change from the artifact in Doom 3, which fed off demons. However, the player would only come across dead mortals whose souls have not been taken in specific points throughout the levels in the story mode; there are many of these points such that a conservative player would not be running out of charges for the Artifact so quickly, but they are still ultimately limited in supply.
These mortal souls are trapped within corpses of slain humans. There is a distinctive visual effect that informs the player of corpses that have souls and those that do not, so the player can recognize which ones are innocuous cadavers and which ones may be possessed humans that are waiting to rise. However, engaging in combat near them comes with a risk of damaging the corpses that have souls, which will be freed upon destruction of their rotting prisons.
Retrieving the souls is as simple as getting close to a corpse and "equipping" the Artifact, which then gobbles the soul if it is not full already. Oddly enough, the Artifact, despite its obvious malevolence, can only carry up to three souls at a time.
The Artifact can expend a soul to grant the player character one superhuman ability or more for a short period of time. It does not have any ability initially, though eventually it can have one and more as the player progresses through the story mode; these occurrences are very obvious and have plenty of visual indictors, so the player should not have a problem knowing when the Artifact has been improved and what the improvements do.
It should be noted here that the Artifact grants all of its powers to the player character from the expenditure of one charge. This means that the player character becomes a lot more powerful as the story mode progresses, which is perhaps appropriate as the challenge certainly increases in the later stages.
As for the powers that the Artifact grants, they are a mix of powers that have been seen in earlier Doom games and that have been quite ubiquitous in games with outrageous settings.
The first of these is "Hell Time", which as its name suggests, is id Software's take on time-slowing powers that have been seen in the single-player modes of many action-packed games. Against the opposition that the player would be facing, this may seem to be already devastating enough, as only a few demons can be considered as speedy.
In addition to the player character gaining an increase in speed relative to his enemies, the environment is also slowed down as well, which is a handy fact as some secret stashes of supplies are located behind moving hazards; there are also hazards that the player must pass, but which can be passed more easily with Hell Time.
However, this also means that doors open slowly too, which can be a nuisance (albeit a minor and short one) when the player wishes to quickly progress to the next area after clearing one with Hell Time but is still under its influence.
The second power is Berserk, which is of course the powering up of the player character's fists. In Doom 3, it was coupled with invulnerability in the story mode to make the use of the fists feasible. In Resurrection of Evil, being coupled with Hell Time makes it a lot more balanced and perhaps even more useful, as the player can punch a demon to death before it can even react.
The third power is Invulnerability, which works as intended. The player will need this, as the challenges increase after the power is added to the Artifact.
STORY MODE - ENEMIES:
Practically all enemies from Doom 3 return, without much of any change in terms of behaviour and other gameplay designs, so the player can use the same tactics against them, though the reduced magazine sizes for many weapons have to be taken into account.
Also, some of the enemies that are noticeably rarer than the rest in Doom 3 are now more numerous in Resurrection of Evil, such as the Revenant and Mancubus.
There are a couple of new creatures, though these can be considered as upgraded versions of existing ones.
The first is the Vulgar, which is as hideous as its name suggests. Technically, it is an upgraded imp that happens to be faster, tougher and keeps a low profile, making it a lot more difficult to deal with. In fact, the Vulgar virtually replaces the Imp after it has been introduced, which is quite early in the story mode.
The second is the simply-but-aptly-named Bruiser, which can be considered as an improved variant of the Mancubus. It is faster, but makes a lot of noise when it approaches, which makes it easier to track (though it is also a lot more unnerving than the Mancubus is).
Then, there are the bosses. They would not be described in detail for fear of spoilers, but it should be noted here that one of the bosses is introduced surprisingly early on in the story mode, when the player does not have much in the way of armaments. However, the player would have obtained the Grabber by then, which will be instrumental in this encounter, which in turn makes this boss fight a little less dull than simply shooting the boss. On the other hand, it would not seem remarkable to players that have a lot of experience with boss fights that require the use of physics.
The other ones are typically bosses with behavioural patterns and/or weak points that can be exploited, though the final one is a bit more notable as it is a tough battle of attrition.
GRAPHICS - MODELS:
The entertainingly disturbing presentation of the Artifact when it is wielded has been mentioned earlier, though how it would look like when it sucks up souls has not. This occurrence is quite the ghastly sight, as the unwilling mortal soul appears to be ripped out of the corpse and not without agony too.
Most of the enemies return from Doom 3 with the same models, though the most obvious change is the change in the models of the Lost Souls. Previously, they resemble hideously deformed human heads, but in Resurrection of Evil, their models revert to updated versions of the sprites of their predecessors in the previous Doom games.
This would be pleasant to fans of the older games that have been clamouring for a reversion, though this is at best just a cosmetic overture as the rest of the game remains tremendously different.
Some other changes to the models for the existing monsters include zombies with their faces peeled off, which is certainly quite the ghastly sight.
The looks for the two new "regular" monsters are exceptionally noteworthy. As mentioned earlier, the Vulgar is a hideous creature, looking like a deformed skeleton with thin skin that crawls on all six limbs. Its warping-in is also accompanied by bursts of green lightning, which make it easier to spot in the general darkness of the levels in Resurrection of Evil.
The Bruiser may have a simple name and behaves little differently from a Mancubus, but most of the effort that went into its design can be seen in its model and animations. It is a creature with a television screen for a mouth, which does somewhat make it look comical, though the images that appear on the screen are not exactly pleasant to the eyes.
However, most of the new bosses are visual let-downs, because most of them appear to look like variants of the Hell Knight. However, they do have plenty more particle effects that highlight their different capabilities. For example, instead of a lower body, one of the bosses has a shroud of otherworldly gases, which should inform the player that it does not exactly move like Hell Knights are expected to move.
The final boss, however, is a lot less derivative in design, though it is not exactly entirely original. Nevertheless, it is very impressive and hideous to look at, as befitting the tradition of the Doom franchise.
Doom 3 may have had an engine that is certainly more advanced than the engines that powered previous Doom games, but Doom 3 was criticized for having models that apparently have low numbers of polygons, which it attempts to disguise with shadowing and normal mapping.
Resurrection of Evil somewhat addresses this with models, or at least model parts, that have more polygons; this is evident through the new enemies and the Artifact, as well as the faces of some new characters, especially the expressive one for the player character, who has more facial animations than the Marine in Doom 3.
Some of the environments, especially Hell and the ruins on Mars, also look noticeably more detailed than those in Doom 3. The first few levels, which are ancient structures that are sculpted out of the red rocks of Mars are examples of these; in Doom 3, the ruins on Mars were only shown for a while.
GRAPHICS – TEXTURES, DECALS & NORMAL-MAPPING:
Doom 3 was known for placing detailed textures and decals across otherwise unremarkable polygons and then applying very efficient normal-mapping to them. Resurrection of Evil continues this, albeit with the benefit of updates to the game engine that made such graphical processes more efficient than they were at the launch of Doom 3.
There are indoor, man-made environments with a lot more grills, grates and such other features that can be depicted via the game's excellent normal-mapping than there were in Doom 3. Of course, a closer look would reveal that they are actually flat.
Textures for existing creatures do not appear to have been updated, though they still look quite impressive and still hide the simple polygons for their models quite well. The textures for the new creatures are just as impressive; for the aforementioned bosses that resemble beefed-up Hell Knights, their textures do somewhat help differentiate them from the regular Hell Knights.
Then, there is the Artifact again, which has outstandingly heinous-looking textures that make its veins and arteries stand out. In contrast, the Double-Barrelled Shotgun and the Grabber look dull by comparison, though they compensate through having entertaining animations or dazzling particle effects, or both, as will be described later.
Most of the decals in this game concern blood spatters, charring and signs of injuries on characters, which are to be expected and which happen to be quite competently done, as they were in Doom 3. There are more impressive decals, such as the bright residues left behind by plasma shots and BFG bombs.
If there is any complaint about decals, it is that they disappear eventually, especially after the player has looked away from them; this is not unlike Doom 3. Considering that Resurrection of Evil is a game that has themes of carnage, it would have been more visually satisfying if the decals from a hard-fought battle stayed.
GRAPHICS – ANIMATIONS & PARTICLE EFFECTS:
Like Doom 3, where Resurrection of Evil falters in polygon numbers for models, it attempts to compensate with more-than-average animations and particle effects. There had been some subtle changes since Doom 3 though.
For one, the Plasma Rifle does not appear to have as many particle effects as it has in Doom 3, in which it was a blindingly bright weapon that obscures the wielder's vision as much as it does its targets. It is still dazzlingly bright, which suggests that having the Plasma Rifle obscure the player's vision is a deliberate gameplay-balancing decision on the part of id Software. (If this is true, it may not exactly be a sound design decision, as it theoretically cannot affect bots.)
The two new guns are impressive to look at, for different reasons. The Double-Barrelled Shotgun has a very simple model, as to be expected of such a (comparatively) primitive weapon, but it has very slick reloading animations that make using the gun quite enjoyable, provided one can manage the reloading time.
In comparison, the Grabber doesn't have the same kinds of animations, but depends more on plenty of particle effects to show players that it is doing something. It can be a bit obnoxious though, especially if one is more used to the modest particle effects that the Gravity Gun in Half-Life 2 has. On the other hand, using it to suspend a Lost Soul or Cherub while they are tortured with the energies of the Grabber before launching it can be entertaining.
The existing monsters in the game have mostly retained their sets of animations, though modifications have been made to accommodate the time-slowing effects of Hell Time. The new monsters are more impressive to look at than their existing brethren, especially the spindly Vulgars.
Speaking of Hell Time, ragdolls can seem entertaining when watched in slow motion, especially those that are created as a result of being hammered with fists while the player character is in Berserk mode. Of course, such sights are only available in the story mode. On the other hand, most enemies still disintegrate when they die, much like in Doom 3, so the player should not expect to be able to appreciate the ragdolls for long.
GRAPHICS – SHADOWING:
Resurrection of Evil uses the shadowing techniques of Doom 3, albeit having tweaked them to be a bit more efficient. Therefore, the player can expect to see the same harsh and foreboding blend of lighting and shadowing as seen in Doom 3. The game can still achieve pitch-black darkness with eerie lighting that often betrays the presence of threats, so the player can expect the same spooky atmosphere in Resurrection of Evil as in Doom 3.
SOUNDS – VOICE-OVERS:
Doom 3 perhaps surprised many people with its inclusion of voice-overs of average or above-average performance in its story mode. Resurrection of Evil would do just about the same, including having next-to-no voice-over for the protagonist.
There won't be much remarkable voice-acting to be had, but what there is in the story mode is clear, as well as appropriate in terms of tone. If there is anything notable, it is that the voice-acting for Sarge in Doom 3 is not present in Resurrection of Evil, which can be seen as a plus as Sarge was perhaps too terse for many. Replacing him is a certain lady scientist with theories and ideas on how to defeat the next demonic invasion, which may be a welcome change.
In Doom 3, the villain, which is also the villain in Resurrection of Evil, has many utterances that are intended to warn the player of impending threats, such as deep, warped chuckles that briefly overtake the ambient noises. In Resurrection of Evil, they return, and can seem a bit tiresome as a result.
SOUNDS – SOUND EFFECTS & AMBIENT NOISES:
Most of the sound effects in Doom 3 have been recycled for the expansion, so the player should not be expecting changes in the way existing monsters and guns sound. The new sound assets in Resurrection of Evil follow the same design policy: sounding skin-crawling creepy and/or terrifying.
The Vulgar has a lot less utterances than the Imp, but the ominous skittering that it makes as it moves gives away its presence, and when battle joins, it has shrieks that would startle some players the first time around.
The Bruiser is similarly an aural surprise when encountered the first time around; it is unusually loud. Its roar clearly has an electronic quality, probably courtesy of the screen with speakers that it has as a 'mouth' of sorts.
There are also new sound effects for the bosses, though to describe these is to invite spoilers. It should suffice to say that they make the encounters satisfactorily exciting and aurally different from each other. Otherwise, they would not be something that experienced gamers have not heard before.
MULTIPLAYER:
Most of the multiplayer match types in Doom 3 have been retained for Resurrection of Evil, though they may have somewhat benefited from the magazine size reductions for some of the existing weapons.
The new match type, or at least it is new to Doom 3, is Capture-The-Flag (CTF). It is developed by Threewave Software, a game developer of sub-contractor status that designs multiplayer mechanisms and maps to go with them.
Threewave Software is not exactly exemplary at doing so today, and it wasn't during the time of Resurrection of Evil either. Therefore, the CTF mode in Resurrection of Evil is competently done at best and unremarkable at worst.
CONCLUSION:
Resurrection of Evil doesn't add anything remarkably new to Doom 3, though it does appear to cement id Software's new direction for the Doom franchise.