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The expansion pack for the latest game in id Software’s Doom franchise hits Xbox. Doom 3 hit Xbox earlier this year after a stellar debut on PC two summers ago. The game was well received by critics for matching the ambitious visuals of its PC counterpart. Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil is more of the same, but the addition of new weapons and levels will make for a satisfying game for fans of the original.
In Resurrection of Evil, you play as a new marine two years after the end of Doom 3. His team was on Mars looking for a signal when they discovered a hidden artifact. Once touched, the artifact wiped out the rest of your team and reviving the portal from Hell to Mars. The game tasks you with closing this portal and figuring out exactly what that artifact is.
The game’s gameplay doesn’t stray far from the formula established in Doom 3. You’ll still travel to many dark areas and have to wipe out the enemies before moving on to the next room. The developers attempted to fix what seemed to be the biggest problem with Doom 3, the inability to use the flashlight with a gun. This sparked many user-created mods on the PC, but has been somewhat addressed here. Instead of having just a flashlight, you’ll now have a flashlight-pistol combo. While good in theory, the pistol is to underpowered that it really serves no purpose. You’ll still use the flashlight like you did before, and it’s still disappointing that you can’t pair it with a real gun.
The biggest gameplay changes have to do with the artifact. With it in your possession, you’ll gain access to the game’s version of “Bullet Time,” here called “Hell Time.” It essentially makes the environment slower without affecting you, thus giving you a good advantage. A bit later in the game, you’ll gain much more power when you go into hell time, allowing you to take out most enemies in one hit. Even later in the game, hell time is upgraded again making you invulnerable while you’re in it. Hell time is powered by the corpses of fallen humans, who are plentiful in the station despite being ethnically questionable.
The other major gameplay changes come with the addition of new weapons. The game includes the weapons found in Doom 3 including the machine gun, chaingun, shotgun, plasma gun, rocket launcher and BFG 9000. In addition to those, Resurrection of Evil tosses in the fan-favorite double-barreled shotgun. As always, it is quite effective though a bit on the slow side. The game also adds the grabber, which is quite directly inspired by Half-Life 2’s gravity gun. With it, you can move items around but also throw back the fireballs thrown at you by some of the enemies.
Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil includes full versions of the earlier games in the series, namely Ultimate Doom, Doom II and Doom II Master Levels. The games are perfectly emulated and available right from the start. Hardcore fans that picked up the Collector’s Edition of Doom 3 will have less to rejoice since they already have these games, but for everyone else it is a nice addition. The games can be played with up to four players in cooperative mode, though a competitive mode is also available.
The game supports up to four player multiplayer on Xbox Live. You’ll find the typical deathmatch modes here, though the absence of the capture the flag mode found in the PC version is a bit disappointing. It is also a bit disappointing that the developers had to reduce the multiplayer back to four players when the PC version of this game supports up to eight. Unfortunately, the cooperative mode found in Doom 3 is also gone.
The game’s visuals are top-notch. A lot of Doom 3’s charm was because of its amazing graphics. When the game launched two summers ago, it wowed everyone with its detail and excellently modeled characters. Though the game lost just a bit in the translation to Xbox (but really only noticeable if you played the game on a cutting-edge PC), it still looks amazing. The game’s lighting system is still unparalleled, allowing the developers to create very moody environments. The character models are still incredibly weird, but at least they all look great (from a purely technical standpoint). This game really pushes the Xbox, and despite making effective use of the Xbox hard drive, still stutters a bit here and there. Progressive scan is supported.
The game’s sound is equally impressive. The game’s music adds to the atmosphere. It blends into the background very well, coming to a halt when a monster is about to appear only intensifying the action. The sound effects are equally impressive in creating the atmosphere thanks to the ambient effects. Surround sound is effectively used since you’ll be able to tell where the monsters are coming from.
Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil is a solid shooter for Xbox. The new levels and weapons are pretty satisfying, though once again the draw is the presentation. The graphics and sound of the game are hard to beat. It’s a bit on the short side, just like the original game, but for $29.99 it’s definitely something first person shooter fans will want to pick up. -- Adam Nunez, PGNx Media
---- Oct 18, 2005
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