DOOM 3 – Everybody’s Got A Little Light Under The Sun

DOOM 3 was a game I watched land at a distance. By the time it launched I had grown weary of FPS titles and the criticism from the fanbase sort of pushed it to the wayside for me. It was a game that polarized. DOOM 3 made many changes to the format established in its predecessors. DOOM’s previous installments and many clones forged certain expectation with this series. And DOOM 3 would catch flak for changes to the format, to enemy redesigns, to the deliberate focus on dark environments. But how much is warranted?

To preface, my DOOM experience is much more limited than many who would have anticipated this title. I am by no means well versed in the series, and I’m looking at this game in total hindsight. The truth is – there _are_ a lot of changes in DOOM 3 and stalwart fans of the series might mind that much more than a more casual fan of the series, such as myself. But I’m also a fan of devs taking risks with their series, for better or worse, and while DOOM 3 will remain divisive I feel it’s worth a play.

One of the first things you will notice is the amount of dialogue, reading, and backstory in this game (a fair bit) compared to classic DOOM (very sparse). The flavour is there in personal audio logs, videos, e-mails, and NPC monologues that fill in the gaps. The lore is not particularly deep, but it fills the player in and I found myself taking it in. The game plays at a [much] slower pace than the classic titles so setting an audio log playing and proceed to sweep the dark corridors of the UAC labs.

And dark they are. A lot of the early jokes and derision of DOOM 3 was how dark the game was. Your flashlight is your best friend, spotting zombies and imps in the dark before they can get the drop on you. I actually like the light mechanic but I’m playing on the BFG edition (PS3) which puts the flashlight on a toggle separate from your weapon. Am I to understand that previously the flashlight was wielded like a weapon, and you’d have to put it away to attack? While the toggle would be a great quality of life upgrade, I feel I missed out on a lot of the horror because I had the security blanket of having my flashlight out all the time

But the flavour is still there, the game tries to be spooky and unsettling and it can be. Hallways going red and babies crying and stuff like that are “hellish” but they’re not particularly spooky. It’s very camp and cheesy at times with humourously posed skeletons. Very Halloween kitsch, DOOM 3. Where the atmosphere actually shines is when you are anticipating enemies.

You can hear something in the dark storage room so you’re sweeping shelves with your flashlight. You know the spiderlike Trites are probably in this room because of those low openings and then you see their long shadows skittering towards you from around a corner… You are afforded a rare peek of the Martian surface as an Imp’s silhouette is cast against the stark orange-brown landscape. DOOM 3 does shadows really well, especially long creeping shadows. I wish there was more moments like these than the red haze demon beckoning because the simple moments with shadows were genuinely more unsettling for me because I couldn’t laugh at them.

And of course there were some cheap jumps. I opened a door at the top of a staircase to be greeted by a Revenant, a rocket launching skeleton demon. My toes curled, as I made Doomguy leap back returning fire while somehow remaining unscathed. You got me game, good show ha ha.

The Revenant is very similar to its original DOOM II representation, at least conceptually, though other monsters had huge changes. The Hell Knight and Pinky are particularly different, though sharing similar functionality to their original showings. I admit it – when I saw some of the redesigns years ago I was skeptical. But seeing them in motion and in the context of DOOM 3’s atmosphere they work. The demons have more design cohesion here, which means they aren’t as colourful as DOOM 1 and II’s rogue’s gallery but they fit the tone they were going for. New monsters like the Cherub and Trites try to go for more of the creep factor. They’re a bit funny, but you can panic a little when you’re surrounded.

I would be remiss not to talk about Cacodemons. The Cacodemon is one of the most iconic demons in the series and it had one of the most drastic overhauls in DOOM 3. But while I do prefer the old Beholder-style beasts seeing the DOOM 3 Cacodemon in motion endeared it to me as well. It’s very ethereal, floating ghostlike above the battlefield moving with a level of grace I didn’t expect. It’s not the same, no, but it’s pretty cool.

The game, as mentioned, is much slower than DOOM 1 and II and this is perhaps the most jarring aspect going directly from the first two games into this one. It plays the horror thing pretty straight or the beginning of the game. Dark corridors, occasional action, lots of attempts at being spooky. And a low enemy count. The low enemy count sort of gives each enemy you encounter more gravitas. For instance, Mancubi are used very sparingly and to their benefit I think. DOOM 1 and II had the big guns come out when they wanted you to pay attention it also had hordes and hordes of mooks to mulch. And while DOOM 3 has hordes, they are nowhere near as robust as the originals.

So I was surprised as the game started to get more and more action oriented. By the middle you’ve amassed a serious arsenal and you’re melting through commandos and Revenants and their ilk with ease. And the more serious demons show up with greater frequency. It might have been the lack of environmental change or just the restrictive and claustrophobic level design that was great for a horror game not really accommodating the increased action.

But later in the game, once you get near to acquiring a certain item the level design becomes more open and the scenery starts to change. Was it just better accommodating the increased action, or was it just a break in the environmental monotony? To its credit DOOM 3 does often include devices or set elements or gimmicks in its levels so they’re broken up a bit. And I know the UAC was never going to decorate with a player in mind but some greater environmental variety near the middle would have gone a long way.

But I felt the action really improved in the third act. While I would not have minded the slower, more deliberate gameplay be maintained throughout the entire game I’m not opposed to the later shift. I had fun, you know?

As a general complaint about the BFG Edition, at least on PlayStation 3, I have to say the load times are atrocious. They are really, really bad. I played on veteran difficulty and while I did pretty well I would get into situations with chaingunners or an unseen enemy or a bridge panel giving way allowing you to plummet to your death. And when the action was tense or you just figured out where you need to go or you realize what you could have done differently to survive – well you just want to get back to the action. That’s bad marks to the port, I haven’t played the original release of DOOM 3 so I can’t speak to that.

So DOOM 3 – I really enjoyed my time with it. It has its strengths and its shortcomings but overall it’s a fun game and a solid attempt at mating horror and FPS games, it’s an element that DOOM has always had and this is one the natural progressions of that idea. Yes, DOOM is horror in the sense that it has demons and devils and things that go bump. But I mean taking it in a more suspenseful, psychological direction. DOOM has always had great atmosphere, this game attempted to play that up. I just don’t think it went quite far enough.

I mentioned above that there were some genuinely creepy moments. I don’t know if this side of DOOM will ever have the chance to truly blossom. I still have to play the expansions, so I don’t know their content. Perhaps Dead Space or even Alien Isolation are the progression from DOOM 3? Should I play those? I’m really interested now.

I think there’s often an aversion to DOOM 3 because it changed a lot about what people liked about DOOM is to be expected. You’re changing something many, many people grew up with. I can understand the sentiment. But I’d encourage you to give it a chance because it’s a solid game that attempted some bold things and has some golden moments. And lots of skeletons. LOTS of skeletons.