  Forget the shotgun, screw the chainsaw - I got me a heart!
For more screenshots from 'Doom' check out the Screenshot Gallery. |
How do you spell ‘stagnation?’
D-O-O-M.
Yes, Doom 3 is back on Xbox with the ‘Resurrection of Evil’ expansion pack (previously released only on PC).
The term ‘expansion pack’ is used very, very loosely here. If you’ve played Doom 3, nothing will surprise you in RoE.
In this ‘sequel,’ you’re a marine (big surprise) who is sent to Mars (where have we seen this before?) to investigate a strange signal sent from a – gasp! – research centre full of scientists, where you inevitably encounter hordes of monsters from hell.
There’s just too much in RoE that also appeared in the original Doom 3. The guns, the dark corridors, the bad guys … there are even sequences taken straight from the first game, like when you have to run out into the unhospitable climate of Mars, picking up oxygen packs to keep you alive until you get to an airlock on the other side.
It’s times like this when we crave something new, something exciting. Sure, technically RoE is a fairly sound game. The graphics are pretty much top-notch and the lighting, as expected, is great. That being said, there were some extremely noticeable framerate drops when a lot is going on right in front of you. The loading can also get quite annoying. Every time you load a game after dying or switch back from your PDA screen (basically a handheld computer screen that shows emails and audio logs of scientists who were killed), there’s a pause of a few seconds that, when added up repeatedly over time, becomes a tad difficult to bear.
There are a few things to make this game mildly playable for a bit. New weapons include the Artifact (a beating heart that slows down time for everyone and everything but you), the Grabber (it can suck up nearby objects and even enemy fireballs for you to shoot right back) and the Sarge’s double-barreled shotgun (self-explanatory). It seems like when the game designers were creating new enemies, they pretty much just changed the colour of fire coming from the imps, or added a few legs to a creepy crawly.
Resurrection of Evil also includes playable versions of Ultimate Doom, Doom II and Doom II Master Levels for anyone interested in taking a trip down memory lane.
The online portion consists of four modes – deathmatch, team deathmatch, tournament and last man standing. There is no online co-op mode, which is a shame because this was one of the more fun aspects of Doom 3.
And hey! – one of your guns even has a flashlight on it now!! Apparently marines in the future have now gone one step ahead of having not knowing how to put flashlights on guns … which is, putting a flashlight on the weakest gun in the game, the pistol.
I’m a firm believer that graphics are a very small portion of what makes a great game great. Take away the pretty graphics in Resurrection of Evil, and what do you have? An extremely repetitive first person shooter that tries to be scary and doesn’t even do that all that well.
The developers at ID Software have to do something to re-invent this series. It’s already growing stale and it’s only a matter of time before the ‘fans of the old school’ realize this.
WHAM! Rating: |
5.7 out of 10 |
ESRB Rating: |
M (Mature) |
Official Web Site: |
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