"Doom 3," id Software's latest installment of their first-person shooter series, pulls no punches ... almost. Originally released for PC last summer, the new Xbox version looks fantastic. All over-exaggeration aside, "Doom 3" looks as if it were painted by Michelangelo with a brush crafted by a demon. The graphics deserve not only an Oscar, but also two Emmys and a Tony; a Golden Globe is, of course, a given. However, just like the female residents of South Side, "Doom 3" looks good, but in many ways lacks the substance that separates Miss New Jersey from Miss America.
Though the gameplay and story are adequate, they remain rather uninspired. The initial mission is essentially one of surveillance. The Union Aerospace Corporation, having experienced some peculiar accidents on its Mars facility, calls upon an anonymous marine and his directionally challenged company to check it out. Things continue to get more peculiar, and soon all hell breaks loose - literally. In a sense, the plot of "Doom 3" is not much more than a combination of "Half-Life," "Halo" and "Finny the Fish." Well, at least the first two.
The gameplay, which remains as bland and linear as the plot, can be tedious at times. Normally surrounded and outgunned by various incarnations of Satan, players find themselves in a game full of slow, arduous busy-work. At one point, the marine is actually required to put down his guns, pick up a joystick and dispose of barrels of nuclear waste with a giant robotic claw. Fortunately, this tedious turn of events, like the many others that follow, paves the way for more zombie shooting.
Luckily, what the game lacks in story, it makes up for in sheer tenacity. The controls are flawless, the sound uncanny and the depths of evil just plain spooky. The game is so scary that it's surprising the marine doesn't come equipped with a change of pants. In fact, it's not outlandish to say it's scarier than a night at the Neverland Ranch, an unlimited number of meal blocks or even a German pope. The game itself is visually dark, and conveniently the use of the flashlight only illuminates small portions of the labs and rooms. Moreover, the marine, a highly trained soldier, is unable to hold a flashlight and any of the wide array of weaponry, which ranges from handguns to plasma rays, at the same time.
The attention to detail is ridiculous. Each room is unique, and around each corner hides a uniquely crafted hell-spawn, with unique feelings and personality. The monsters range from giant spiders, which are easily reduced to gastric juice with the aid of a shotgun, to headless zombies, which can be taken out with a few whacks of a flashlight. Upon the initial encounter with a giant, pink, dog-like thing, the beast actually bends a metal door with its charges before crashing through bullet-proof glass, scaring the bejeezus out of everything in its sight. Had the glass been monster-proof, things would have been quite different.
Another cool intricacy of the game is collecting PDAs that have been left behind by scientists and employees. Each PDA is full of information about the mysterious circumstances surrounding the lab, and almost everyone has a voice recording left by its previous owner. This attention to detail makes it easy to forget that there is, in essence, no plot - but really, who cares?
Fans of the series and gamers just stumbling upon it should not be disappointed with "Doom 3," which caters not only to seasoned gamers, but also to rookies of first-person shooter games. The controls are relatively easy to pick up, and the gameplay is fast-paced enough to be interesting, giving ample downtime to reload your guns and gently cry into the arms of your roommate.
Though "Doom 3"'s plot is really only important for the first 20 minutes, the remaining time is well spent pursuing violent exploits in a darkly beautiful environment. "Doom 3" should set a standard in the gaming world, if not in its attention to detail, then in the necessity of a clean change of pants.
