I have a bad feeling about this...

Considered as a media event alone, Doom 3 is a veritable blockbuster. It could easily be the most highly anticipated computer game of all time. I'm hearing about Doom 3 from people who don't even play games. This makes it very uncomfortable for me, because how are you supposed to reply to that? Getting passionate about comptuer games with someone who can barely discern the difference between pixel shading and bump-mapping would be a waste of time and energy. The release of Doom 3 was talked about on the radio, television and in newspapers - just like the opening of Episode I or Fellowship of the Ring. The mainstream news media once again looked upon the hardcore lined up to be the first to get it with morbid fascination. I imagine this will be the same when Valve decides that Half Life 2 is ready to go gold, but when that will be is anyone's guess.

I'll admit I have a soft spot for the shooter that spawned an entire genre, but I doubt anyone bought Doom 3 for nostalgic purposes. Doom 3 is a new benchmark, the game you will play in front of your friends to show off your rig. The visual proficiency of the graphics engine will remain unmatched for some time - finally seeing this engine in action while secretly dreaming of what other developers will do with it was worth the price of admission. Despite my two year old computer specs, I was pleased beyond belief to learn that I didn't need a new video card to run the game with medium textures, all details turned on and at 1280x1024. Clothing and surfaces look amazing, and there is a realistic sheen to the metal throughout the Mars base. What I really have to comment on are the skin textures, whether it be on the human characters like Bertruger shown in the cutscenes or the Pinky demons crying out for your flesh. It seemed to move and stretch, even though I knew it was just a two-dimensional tile covering a bunch of polygons. This made the monsters especially creepy, but unfortunately they didn't explode the way I thought they would. Instead, in a very feeble spraying of blood the bodies kind of just disappear with a wisp of hellfire. The limited palette for the environment was also a little disappointing. Drab tones may have worked for Doom II and Quake, but after a while it becomes monotonous. Indeed, feeling like you've been somewhere before can be claustrophobic and inspire a real sense of panic, but when you get to the game's later switch hunts it quickly develops into an annoyance.

When I first started playing I was immediately taken in by the atmosphere; It truly flows from this game. It's like seeing the trailers for a scary movie: you know something bad is going to happen, it just becomes a matter of when. And when it does happen, you're suddenly in the middle of something terrifying, running for your life. When I encountered the zombies and demons for the first time, I have to admit I was scared. Again, the skin - just watching the creatures move made me cringe and want to get out of there in a hurry. There was something unsettling about seeing the zombies shamble towards me. I knew I could kill them, but it was more a feeling of inevitability that creeps up, telling you that you'd eventually die by being outnumbered - not from lack of firepower. Coupled with the ambient banging of metal grates and screaming radio chatter, I felt I was part of an event much larger than the genre - this was a groundbreaking game and Doom 3 deserved every high score.

These feelings of elation were quickly replaced after a few more encounters, as I realized that in small numbers the monsters don't do much damage on Normal difficulty. The first time you're attacked by a demon jumping from a concealed corner, it can be pants-soilingly scary - but it's not like Far Cry. In Far Cry, if you let the mutants get too close you're more than likely going to die. After being attacked by Doom 3's demons a few times, you get to see how much damage can be done and getting hit becomes more of a nuisance. If you know you're going to walk away alive, what use is there to fear for your virtual life?

The use of darkness and shadow is on par with the Splinter Cell series and Thief: Deadly Shadows. Though moody to the extreme, it's used as a cheap tactic more often as the game progresses, a result of the asinine decision to make the flashlight an entirely separate item. The flashlight is indispensable given the game's enveloping darkness, and you're expected to whip it out for every dark corner, having to switch to a weapon if you stumble upon a demon or wandering zombie. Luckily in the days since release, someone has already solved this problem with the Duct Tape Mod, which works great. Without the sticky-light I suppose fending off demons could be more terrifying, but when you're being attacked from all sides having no point of reference except sets of glowing eyes and no real hope of defence it's clear the challenge is artificial.

Another unfortunate design decision is the use of "monster closets", or small mini-areas that are opened after walking over hot spots or picking up items. These are tactics used in the id games of old: Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake. Worse still, monsters will occasionally spawn behind you after you've cleared a room. Again: at first this is kind of scary, because you have no idea where your enemies are coming from. But after being ambushed like this repeatedly, it just becomes another hasty design decision that makes the game appear scripted, and your presence in the gameworld irrelevant.

Using the same tactics as games such as System Shock 2 and Tron 2.0, the plot that isn't delivered through the meager cutscenes can be found in bits of documentation you find in PDAs spread throughout the facility. Listening to the voice journals or reading emails isn't essential to the game, so the PDAs become more or less a supply of access codes you can use to open up the locked doors and supply lockers on your jaunt through the base. I'd say the computer and object interface screens have reached a new level or realism in Doom 3: instead of a zoomed-in view or a separate screen, the aiming reticle becomes a cursor with which you interface with the objects directly in your field of view. After such a massive disaster, there is a surprising abundance of weapons, ammo, armour and health packs strewn about the ruins of the base. While some doors malfunction, every single airlock is in perfect working order. These criticisms probably seem nitpicky, but it's obvious that id were going for some sort of realism in the retelling of their FPS classic and this is just inconsistent with the intended feel of the game.

The on-weapon ammo display is a big deal to some reviewers, but I remember seeing this type of weapon readout in Unreal Tournament. That doesn't mean it isn't useful, it's just one of many features grafted onto this game from a previous title. Considering this, I found it especially strange that none of the weapons had a secondary fire mode. I mean if you're going to copy a game, fucking copy it. The sounds from the weapons are also less than encouraging. I'm supposed to fight demonic hordes with a shotgun that is put to shame by the original Doom? The weapons, like their sounds, feel weak and insubstantial - I found the only reliable weapon in the game without insane load times was probably the chainsaw. At first I thought it was as tiring as the spam emails you find, but it's surprisingly effective against many of the large enemies as long as you can afford to let them get close. This lack of a decent arsenal made me think back to FarCry, and how incredibly realistic the weapons felt and sounded - I mean those made my desk shake. I also found it a little peculiar that I could recognize some item pickup sounds lifted straight from Quake III such as the armour shards and health packs.

I like the fact that there isn't much of a musical score to this game, as it would seem a bit stupid if you were sending zombies and demons back to hell to some arbitrary nu-rock theme. The whispering of otherworldly voices, the clanging of bulkheads, and the sound of your own footsteps are more than adequate enough to set the mood. At one point, fending off the spider sentries in one of the many darkened rooms with my machine gun, the only light coming from my gun and the ammo readout made me feel like I was in Aliens. The enemies kept coming and I was running out of bullets fast, evoking a real sense of last-stand desperation. I listened for the clicking of the spiders as they traversed the ducts, just waiting for them to pop out and attack. It was a great moment, but one of the game's few.

For the first bunch of objectives, it was fun to be constantly scared, frantically reloading and not knowing what to expect next. But after a while other feelings set in. Not quite apathy, but closer to boredom. At this point I had a Matrix-like revelation where I could strip away the beautiful graphics and be left playing a 10 year old game, which depressed the hell out of me. At the elevator at the end of each level, I half expected to see my score, number of kills and secret area tally pop up. From people I've talked to that have finished the game, I'm about halfway through, having just entered the Communications Tower Area. So far the game isn't much of a challenge, and it's unfortunate. The linearity is painfully obvious, and although the narrow corridors and passageways serve a purpose in establishing atmosphere, over time it felt like a rail shooter, as if each new hallway was simply a conveyor to the next room of demons and undead to kill.

I dutifully read the PC Gamer review after finding out they gave it a 94%. I figured this would be the gaming event of the summer, possibly even the year. It's funny that I began this post with mention of The Phantom Menace, because I could easily equate the release of this game to that movie. My anticipation for both was extremely high. I was euphoric after experiencing each for the first time, but as I had a chance to reflect the shortcomings made themselves agonizingly known. I hate being so negative, because it seems like such a contemptuous thing to do when all PC gamers have been waiting for this moment whether they've played the original or not. But the way I see it, the hype was bound to backfire on four years worth of lofty expectations. I just cannot give this game the praise that others deem it worthy, and I would hardly call it a "masterpiece of the artform". The engine may make me want to mount my computer screen in the most unnatural of ways, but the frustratingly uninspired level design, artificial scares and the lack of any substantial gameplay make Doom 3 a chore at times to blast through. My hope is that someone else can put this amazing technology to good use.

burn it backwards