Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil Review

7.9

Format PC

Developer Unknown

Publisher Activision

Genre First Person Shooter

I'm sorry, but enough is enough. We've cut the Doom series A LOT of slack over the years, partly because it pretty much invented the world as we know it, and partly because it's always had that gorgeous technology. But come on. How many times can we be expected to make the SAME journey through the SAME corridors, being attacked by the SAME sodding monsters jumping out of the SAME hidden cupboards and shooting them with the SAME weapons on the way to the SAME inevitable, infernal rendezvous in hell? It's fast becoming the Police Academy of first-person shooters (or should that be Friday The 13th?). Quite frankly, we're bored.

To be fair, Resurrection Of
Evil is not a bad expansion pack. It fulfils its assigned role ably, extending the experience of the original game and adding a few new weapons, monsters and (much-needed) multiplayer options. Being from the id stable, it's also stunningly realised, with some of the most detailed, intense and downright creepy visuals you'll find in a videogame (or elsewhere). And if anything, developer Nerve has slightly outdone id in the design stakes.

The problem is, it doesn't so much extend the experience of Doom 3 as replicate it in slightly abridged form, recreating the familiar descent into hell with only a moderate reshuffle of elements. You've got the ill-lit corridors, the locked doors, the armour shards under the stairs, the enemies that spawn right on cue every time you hit a power switch, the frantic dashes across the Martian surface, the cute canine security droids - even the setting is indistinguishable, simply moving the action to the abandoned Site 1 of the UAC research base.

A LITTLE HELP FROM GORDON
The big news is the double-barrelled shotgun's back (whoop-de-do), and of course there's Gordon Freeman's gravity gun, presumably dropped off by the G-Man on one of his more far-flung time jumps. Here labelled the Grabber, Doom's version of the gravity gun works almost exactly as Half-Life 2's, though it operates much more as simply a weapon than the all-purpose tool of Valve's effort. By far its best feature is that it allows you to snatch fire- and plasma-balls out of the air and then launch them back at the demons that spawned them, which proves a particularly enjoyable way
of dispatching hell's assorted minions. It's not as satisfying as, say, chopping zombies in half with sawblades, but it is kinda nice to turn the tables on the imps and cacodemons after all these years.

Unfortunately, the physics tricks end there. There are two, maybe three occasions where you can stack boxes to reach an inaccessible area, but that's not what Resurrection Of Evil is about, and if you want clever physics puzzles Gordon's still your man.

What's more, a lot more stuff is nailed down than you'd hope (more so than in Half-Life 2), and what items are throwable - barrels, rocks and so on - behave more like polystyrene props from Blake's 7 than the items they appear to be. Blame the Martian gravity if you want, but it still doesn't feel right.

The other new feature is the slow motion or 'Hell-time' mode, another second-hand device that offers little real novelty. There's definitely fun to be had running circles around a roomful of treacle-jointed demons (especially once you've souped things up with berserk powers), but it's really just a way of making the trickier sections a bit more manageable, and the puzzle applications are woeful.

Beyond these fairly negligible additions, Resurrection Of Evil shares all the advantages and shortcomings of the original game. On the one hand, it's extremely tense and scary, and in short bursts there's nothing else like it for adrenalin-fuelled violence. On the other hand, it follows an extremely dated and overused formula that remains compelling mainly by virtue of amazing visuals and corny shock tactics.

SEEN IT BEFORE
Indeed, the Doom style of gameplay is not only over-familiar, it's monotonous by its very nature. There's no real variety to be had here, just a relentless parade of shocks and monsters, punctuated by the occasional boss and forgettable puzzle. Like few other games, Doom has only one tone - emotionally, psychologically
and chromatically.

Of course, it's still a bit of fun - silly, mechanical and repetitive perhaps, but fun nonetheless. There's enough ultra-violence here to entertain the young and forgetful, and the new weapons, if not a revelation, do improve the game. The grabber in particular adds an enjoyable new way of combating foes, while the double shotty brings back the joy of close-quarters decimation. This, along with the addition of eight-player CTF (see 'Filling The Gaps', above) will be enough for many. But with the whole experience becoming more and more tired with every telling, and a hefty price tag attached at that, we can only preach caution.

PC Zone Staff