In 2006, I took my 2005 tax return money, and headed to Alienware's website with one goal in mind. I know buying a prebuilt is a big no-no among the PC gaming elite, but at the time I had no idea how to build my own. This was when Alienware was the real Alienware, and when it was a lot more common to buy prebuilt Machines. I did skimp on a few things when I ordered it, knowing I would upgrade eventually, so ended up paying just over a grand for the system in it's entirety.
What was it that drove me to buy a brand new PC you might ask, for me, that time frame was the last great era in PC gaming. I'm not saying that PC gaming is dead, or isn't going incredibly strong nowadays, but in that era of gaming when the consoles were jumping from the 6th generation, to the 7th, PC gamers saw the release of Half-Life 2, Doom 3, Quake 4, FEAR, Swat 4, and so many other epic game releases that came with a huge jump in graphical technology with the Source engine, id Tech 4, and Unreal 3 just around the corner.
If you weren't there at the time, think back to the first time you saw ray tracing, and look at how coveted modern GPU's are that can do ray tracing. It was one of those periods where there was a drastic jump in technology for all platforms including the PC. It's the difference between 2003's chaser, and 2004's Doom 3. It was drastic, and was also incredibly exciting to see at the time. I enthusiastically jumped into modern PC gaming at that time, and never regretted it.
For me, this was the last truly exciting time in PC gaming as far as the games coming out. The seventh console gen hit, and most of the big developers focused on console-first, then PC development, taking formerly exclusive PC franchises, and shifting development to a console-first focus. When PC gamers complain that console technology is holding PC game technology back, this really kicked off full steam during the 7th gen when developers decided to push PC gaming aside for the consoles.
Doom 3 is a game that I see a lot of misunderstanding about in the modern era. There was some controversy over the flashlight mechanic in it's day, however, in light of the direction modern Doom games have taken, and in comparison to the original Doom series, Doom 3 is probably the most misunderstood, because people are either unaware of what era of first person shooters it came out in, or just kind of forgot.
The original Doom was revolutionary for it's time, it changed gaming forever. In 1996, Quake hit, and like Doom before it, it changed gaming forever. In 1997 Quake II hit, and while not as revolutionary as the original, was a fantastic specimen of it's era. It's hub-world design was looking forward to something different. Something that had not quite been achieved, but it's design showed hints of looking forward to something new in first person shooters. However, as much as I love Quake II, it did not achieve it, but it was close.
In 1998, Epic Megagames, and Digital Eclipse released Unreal which is another top-tier specimen of it's era and was another game that was also hinting at how FPS games could be more than just level to level shooting. Unreal was a little closer to it than Quake II in it's designs. The end of 1998 came, and what both Quake II and Unreal were hinting at but didn't quite achieve happened, and first person shooters were forever changed. I'm obviously talking about Shogo of course....OK, I'm joking, but here's what really happened that forever changed FPS games:
Doom 3 is Doom in a post-Half-Life era. While there were other big first person shooters that came out in the time between Half Life and Doom 3, and other games that created their own sub-genres in the genre, I think it's safe to say the three largest leaps in first person shooters were Doom, Quake, and Half-Life. Of course you have games that came out between 1998 and 2004 like Rainbow Six, Tribes, Deus Ex, and of course, Halo, but Doom 3 ignored all of those, and it's design was very much Half-Life inspired.
Simply put, at the time of Doom 3's release, had id Software brought out a prettier version of the original series, it would have been a critical, and commercial flop. You've gotta remember, Half-Life changed things, and at the time, we thought forever changed things. There was no going back. At least not yet.
The idea of the throwback shooter was only present in two games I can think of at this time, Serious Sam, which started out as an indie game that came out at a $20 asking price, and Painkiller. Both were and still are very enjoyable games, but if id was going to go with bleeding edge graphical technologies, it makes more sense that they would make a game that was trying to top Half-Life, which was the bleeding edge of design philosophy of it's day. That they would aim to not make a throwback shooter, but a modern shooter with few homages to the original.
It's sort of like the jump from 2D games to 3D games where the challenge was taking Doom and translating it into the new, and at the time, revolutionary style of the day. Half Life was a big deal, and to take Doom strictly back to it's roots would have been seen as a giant leap backward. id was always that company trying to leap forward, setting new standards in design and tech.
The end result is Doom 3 and resurrection of Evil stand by themselves as the most uniquely their own Doom games, standing in that time period between Half-Life, and when Call of Duty would come in and become the new thing everyone had to copy, add nauseam. In fact, this whole era of FPS games, still has such a unique flavor, because coming out of the 7th console generation, FPS games had changed so much with the NEW new style, that there really haven't been a lot of shooters like the ones from this era since, outside of sequels.
Games like Doom 3, Half-Life 2, FEAR, Crysis, Farcry, the original Prey, Quake 4, and even early 7th gen console games like Resistance Fall of Man still have such a unique flavor, and their own individual identities. This was a great era in first person shooters, and, arguably, one of the last great eras at least for traditional fps single player campaigns. Online is a different beast altogether as are games like Fallout, and the other open world variety styles. I'm talking traditional campaigns in tradition style shooters here.
Doom 3 starts out very much mirroring Half-Life. Your marine just landed on Mars for his first day, and quickly gets a seemingly simple assignment of finding and escorting a scientist back to HQ when all hell breaks loose, literally. Basically, it's the same story premise as Half-Life. Secret research facility running unethical scientific experiments, but instead of opening a portal to an alien dimension, they open the portal to hell.
From the story premise, to the levels and story designs, to NPCs that help you along the way, to the health system, and even portions of the game that directly copy Half-Life, Doom 3 was mostly inspired by exploits of Gordon Freemon. Or, as I said, this is Doom in the Half-Life era.
Doom 3 borrows heavily from Half-Life, but so did most FPS games at the time. However, aside from borrowing design elements, and health system, id put their own spin on the formula. The gunplay and atmosphere were completely different for one. Doom 3 went for a horror atmophere, and nailed it.
Not only are the monsters, most of which get an epic intro in the game, detailed in horrific ways, using all the technology of the day (bump mapping, normal mapping, etc) to give them some truly disturbing-looking details, but id tech 4's dynamic per-pixel lighting system capabilities are on full display, taking them, and making them an actual gameplay mechanic through the use of the flashlight. Using the flashlight in the game becomes just as integral gameplay mechanic as the in-your-face gunplay.
Was the flashlight a gimmick to show off the lighting capabilities of the engine? Yeah probably, but having to choose between holding the flashlight or holding your firearm added to the incredibly tense horror atmosphere of the game. I know this mechanic divided fans of the game, but I love the flashlight mechanic in the game.
The Duct tape mod, and BFG edition just don't feel right for the pacing and horror atmosphere of the game. I like BFG edition due to the fact that it has a ton of content, and still has a good version of Doom 3, however, I really wish they would have just given players the option to play it in either mode instead of ruining the experience by forcing the change.
BFG edition is OK, but isn't the right way to play this game. I would like to thank everyone who whined about the flashlight mechanic for tainting the experience in BFG Edition for the rest of us. It's like taking Super Mario 64, and adding an auto jump to it because people can't be bothered to press a button themselves. It would still technically be the same game from a design standpoint, but it still wouldn't be the same game.
BFG edition does have a lot of content, and is still worth a purchase, but it's not the same experience. It does improve the weapon sounds from the original, and the change in the flashlight does make it seem a little more action-focused, so it's good for more action oriented types who don't want to feel the vulnerability of having to choose between flashlight or gun, However one of my favorite things about the original is thumping zombies with the flashlight to save ammo, or thumping corpses to make sure they won't spring to life on you which is something you can't do in BFG edition. I'll eventually play all the way through BFG edition, and if I decide I was wrong to hate the changes, I'll let you know someday.
I really enjoy the gunplay in Doom 3, even though it's certainly not as intense as the gunplay in the original Doom series, or even the Quake series that preceded it. It has it's own, slower, but still methodical pace to it. They finally added ammo magazines, and reloading which adds to the more methodical pace. I know, who reloads in Doom? This was also a standard feature of FPS games of it's era.
The game eases you into the action. It doesn't throw nearly as many enemies your way as retro Doom, but since the engine was chunky and cutting edge, this was obviously to save system resources. The slain enemies also disappear into thin air which deprives players of going back and admiring the carnage they have carved in their path throughout the course of each level. This, no doubt, was also to save resources, and not chug down the chunky engine more.
By the end of the game, it does throw a gauntlet of enemies your way, feeling a lot more like retro doom. There is a buildup of story and arsenal before things get too crazy, however. I am, also, a fan of how they decided to go about monster placement. Sometimes they come out of nowhere, other times, the developers make them just warp in through portals.
I can understand this can seem pretty cheap, constantly having monsters warp in and shoot you from behind, but it really does add to the uneasy feeling where you rarely feel safe in the game, because you never know when another enemy will just pop in. Sometimes you can predict it, but other times, you make the wrong prediction only to be surprised by a monster popping out of the place you didn't expect.
Having enemies just pop in can get annoying at times, but it was an obvious way to save system resources, and it adds to the atmosphere by keeping you on your toes. Between the dark areas, unnerving atmosphere thanks to the gruesome visual and excellent sound design, mixed with the constant harassment by enemies that come seemingly out of nowhere, Doom 3 gets incredibly intense. If you have ever had someone knock on your door while playing this game, you know just how intensely this game can pull you into, because I jumped out of my chair.
Combine the solid gunplay, half-life inspired levels designs where the game takes you on a journey, and the unnerving atmosphere, and you have one of my favorite shooters of that legendary era of PC shooters. On top of the previously mentioned gameplay and design features, id also gave the game probably the coolest UI systems in any first person shooter ever. Instead of just pressing a button to activate something on the computer, your cross-hair becomes a mouse, allowing you to click individual items on the computer screen, which adds a really cool level of interactivity that I haven't seen duplicated much since.
Another cool addition that adds tot he game is the way your marine collects new PDA's throughout the game. These PDA's belonged to various staff members of the mars facility, and not only do they open doors, but they contain various audio logs, and emails you can listen to or read to find codes to supply cabinets, or doors. They are also there if you want to delve deeper into the story and lore of the game.
There even used to be a website mentioned in emails in the game called martianbuddy.com that at one time was a legitimate website id software setup which contained a secret cabinet code to use in the game. Remember when Metal Gear Solid asked you to look on the back of the game box to find Meryl's codec frequency, Doom 3 had it's own website you could look up to find the code for a cabinet in the game. I always found that to be a really cool touch. Unfortunately, the actual URL just takes you to Bethesda.net now, but you can find it with the wayback machine.
I don't fully remember how long the game is, as I haven't played all the way through it since I captured this footage almost two years ago. It's a game that I occasionally play through enough to not fully remember everything in the game, so I still get surprised by enemies popping in when I don't remember them. I had to look up full longplays on Youtube, and it looks to be anywhere between 6 to 10 hours for the single player. By today's standards, that's a pretty lengthy single player mode. At the time it would have been around the average length of a first person shooter single player give or take. It will definitely take you longer your first time through, or your first time in a while.
As much as I love the single player mode, I think I have only played this game once or twice online ever. It's kind of the Quake issue where I am weary to jump on in a game I know I'll do terrible at. I can jump into Quake II with confidence, but Quake, and Quake III, not so much. I am the same way with Doom 3's deathmatch. Plus, the first time I ever played it online, I didn't know you had to hit F1 to ready up for the match, so they yelled at me, well, texted aggressively that is.
However, if you're not the weary type, and don't mind getting destroyed online until you learn the game, there are still a few servers up for this game to this day, and people still play it online sometimes. You won't find a ton of people online, but that's the beauty of old PC games, there always seems to be people playing them decades later.
Graphically, for it's time, this was bleeding edge, and the lighting effects were out of this world. I had never experienced anything like it. This was the game people used to benchmark their rig. Until Crisis came out, your rig was only as good as it could play Doom 3. I still think Id Tech 4 is a beautiful engine, and it has such a unique look about it, without knowing for sure, when I was playing Prey on the Xbox 360 later, I could tell it was the Doom 3 engine it was using, and not just because of the UI.
By today's standards, the Doom 3 engine obviously looks dated, and you can run it on a potato with little problem. I still thing the lighting effects are awesome, and still worth seeing, even in the era of Ray Tracing. It's pretty cool to see how developers found ways to improve lighting techniques in the days of single core processors, and the Radeon 9800XT, or the Geforce 6600.
Granted, and next gen as the tech was, Vicarious Visions did manage to port the game for the original Xbox, which was an excellent port. They obviously had to make some cuts to the levels, and rework some things to get it to run, but it's plays and feels as good as the PC version. Xbox GPU was a variant of the Geforce 3 which was a 64 MB card, the minimum required GPU to run Doom.
It was nice to see the Xbox flex it's muscles without worrying about PS2 ports which according to the fanboys were holding the Xbox back. Doom 3 with Farcry, both of which have unskippable cuteness to hide an incredibly long loading boot sequence, combined with Butcher Bay are, for my money, the three best looking original Xbox Games. Halo 2, not in the same tier. That being said, does anyone else remember the joke people used to repeat on forums: “What do you get when you take the word Graphics out of an Xbox fanboy's vocabulary?....silence”
On top of being a great port, the Collectors Edition of the Xbox version also had an awesome port of the original Doom with four-payer coop play. That's a pretty awesome deal in case you are collecting for the Xbox, keep an eye out for the collectors edition.
The controls, well, not to sound like the PC elitists, but nothing to report, it's keyboard and mouse, need you anything else. The only thing to get used to is the flashlight mechanic, assuming you aren't one of those weenies who needs a duct tape mod. Also a bit different for shooters of this era, is there is a sprint button in this game. Sure, retro Doom had one, but the always run option took over in early 3D shooters. Doom 3's sprint is handeld a lot more like modern FPS games where there is a sprint meter at the bottom of the screen, so you have to use it more sparingly.
The sound design is excellent, and adds to the spooky atmosphere. At first, Id Software was going to bring Trent Reznor back to help with the sound design, but that fell through, but Chris Vrenna, who previously played drums in Nine Inch Nails, and his band Tweeker took up the reigns on the sound design which outside of the epic intro theme, features only ambient, and creepy sounds in the background, adding to the atmosphere. I do agree that the weapon sounds in the game are a bit paltry depending on the weapon, but the rest of the sound design is excellent. It helps pull you into the game.
The Bottom Line: I think people are coming around to Doom 3, but in light of the new Doom series, I find that a lot of people look back wondering why the game is how it is. Honestly, I love this game, and the vanilla version with the flashlight mechanic and all.
I think nostalgia will eventually come back around to this amazing era in PC First Person Shooters. The current crop of Throwback shooters are cool, but I think over saturation and fatigue is starting to set in to 90's throwbacks. While not as fast, and furious as the quakes, or the Duke 3D's, the post Half-Life era of shooters was amazing in it's own right.
Doom Eternal is awesome, and will no-doubt, be the premiere throwback shooter franchise for years to come with any future sequels. Other recent throwback shooters I have found have some really great gameplay and mechanics as well, but the mainstream FPS of today have all been watered down in gameplay and design.
I think we will eventually start seeing throwbacks to the post Half-Life, pre, whatever garbage they call modern first person shooters (call of Duty), soon. Games that slowed it down over the twitch elements of their 90's brethren, but made up for it with more thoughtful designs that took the player on a journey from start-to finish. The more story-focused, more scripted (but not as heavily scripted as the incredible linearity of modern first person shooters) shooters that push the player through a larger story overall.
If you are too young to remember this era, go back and play some of these games just to see how different their style stands out even now. You may find yourself becoming as big a fan of this era of shooters as I have always been.
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