Doom 3

Rating:
Summary: Average and way too dark
Review: This game is dark. Oppressively dark and not in a fun way. I started to wonder why they even bothered with all the graphics at all. Then I found some mods to "tape" a flashlight to my gun and to modify the cfg file to brighten things up a little. (Unfortunately, the side effect was to cause heavy banding in the shadows.) I then forced myself to finish the game.

Overall, I was suprised at how easy it was. I'm not talking about the reflex shooter aspect, but how non-challenging the game itself was. It was mostly just running as fast as you could gathering mostly useless PDAs. If you removed the enemies, there would be nothing left. At least most other games have an interesting story, however light weight, backing everything up and maybe a few mental challenges.

Despite all this, I enjoyed the middle of the game enough to make me really debate whether to sell it on eBay or wait for the upcoming expansion.

Rating:
Summary: $40, Wasted.
Review: I, a former avid player of both the original Doom and Doom 2, was looking forward to a newer, souped up version of the same game. The familiar brown walled rooms, well lit, crawling with monsters for me to shoot.

Instead, I get a first-person shooter re-hash of Resident Evil set in a poorly-lit sci-fi haunted house.

The sound is excellent, the graphics, when you can see them, very good. How hard is it to depict darkness, though? Apparently, ID was up to the job. The game itself? Boring. One day's worth of playing was enough for me, then I uninstalled it and have wished ever since I bought Half-Life 2 instead.

Rating:
Summary: Bomb
Review: Doom 3 is perfect it still in ways feels exactly like the original doom and the graphics are just amazing! After playing doom 3 there is literally no need for using a flashlight in anyother game. Get used to the dark.

Rating:
Summary: R.I.P. action games
Review: Let's face it, guys: The single-player first person shooter genre is dead. It didn't have to die, but titles like Doom 3 are what killed it.

The original Doom was impressive from a technical standpoint, but more importantly, there was actual gameplay there. There were decisions to be made by the player, and skill involved in navigating and fighting in a first person environment. If you didn't use your head you'd lose it. Doom 2 was more of the same, but we were all so in love with the first game that nobody cared. Ignoring all other games for a moment, fast forward 11 years and what do we get for a sequel to the greatest action game of all time?: The same game with better visuals and slow, boring, repetitive, tedious "gameplay."

There simply is no reason to play Doom 3. It's yet another title where the player is dragged by the nose through a story no one could care about, stopping to shoot things along the way. The game world is supposed to be scary and dangerous, but the environments themselves are simply hallways which lend no challenges, and the monsters aren't all that deadly either since the player is supposed to be the big strong hero that survives. You need neither skill nor brainpower to win here folks, and I for one am tired of these pieces of software being sold as "games" when there is no game to be played.

Aside from the above complaints from a true veteran game nerd, these big issues will stick out to anyone who plays it:
1. It's too dark. Id's new lighting engine is fantastically complex and capable, but it doesn't matter because the environments themselves are made of cramped, ill-lit corridors. It's bad enough that it hamstrings the already-weak action, but it also makes the world feel more like System Shock than Doom.
2. The monsters are dumb, slow-moving, and not very deadly. How you can you take this supposedly-dangerous world seriously when you have time to switch weapons two or three times before a monster across the room walks over to you? You will die some, but only because surprise attacks will wear down your health over a long time.
3. Aside from the nu-metal title music (gag...), the "music" is mostly strange, theme-less, ambient noise that reinforces the System Shock feel of the world. The music in the original Doom, while far from complex and made only from General MIDI voices, was much more moody and compelling. Where's Bobby Prince when you need him?
4. After you kill a bunch of monsters you'll find yourself walking around aimlessly trying to get out of wherever you are. This was an issue with the original game, but you'd think after 11 years they would have come up with more interesting problems and solutions than, "This door is locked, find the key (or PDA)."

I only give Doom 3 two stars for the engine. Save your money, kids.

Rating:
Summary: Doom 3 is more fun when showing it off...
Review: Having just finished, I can say all that has been said before is true, the game had inexplicable design decisions that made for tedious plodding for roughly 50% of the game. However, when you show your friends, in a darkened room, with the subwoofer up, and your 6800GT cranking away, the nerve wracking mayhem that is "monster #666 materializing out of nowhere..." that's when it gets fun. The oohs and ahhs and "Can I try that" make up for the boring Labs. Wait for the "Caverns", they are at the end, and brief, but show what the game (engine) can and will be soon.