I've just finished playing through Doom 3, one of the most highly anticipated PC games in the past several years. Sure, I could have ripped through it faster, but I think I enjoyed it a lot more this way. I had fun playing the game from start to finish, which I think is a pretty amazing accomplishment for a +20-hour game. So, I am not disappointed and here is my brief review.

While the original Doom had a very simple plot of a demon attack on two moons of Mars, the story in Doom 3 is the most convincing and complete one that id Software has provided yet. As you may have expected, Doom 3 starts off on Mars. You play the role of voiceless 22nd-century space marine called by the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC) to its Mars research facility beset with mysterious problems. After landing, and making your way to the commander of the base, your first assignment is to undercover the disappearance of a scientist. After reaching the first goal, the gates of Hell being opened before your eyes and you are left fighting for your life and the future of mankind....Hell on Mars!

The graphics and level design are nothing but stunning. The dynamic shadows and lighting are superb and raise the benchmark for all other games. Doom 3's engine is definitely the best I have ever seen at rendering dynamic lights and shadows. The Mars base looks very industrial and depressing. The rooms inside are pretty realistic and have lots of equipment, pipes, grills and heavy duty animated machinery everywhere. It is interesting to walk through the different areas and just look at everything. Also cutscenes are very well done and add a lot of atmosphere to the game. It helps that most times when a crazy cutscene hits you are immediately attacked by evil monsters thereafter... it makes you really dread it when you see the cutscenes coming... :) Those with the latest graphics cards (GeForce 6800 / X800) will enjoy every nuance of this graphical experience. Fortunately, you don't have to buy these latest cards to be able to play the game. There are 4 video quality settings: "Ultra quality" - no texture compression - 512MB card, "High quality" - specular and diffuse compressed, none for normal maps - 256MB Card, "Medium quality" - All textures are compressed - 128 MB card and "Low quality" - All textures are compressed and possibly downsized - 64 MB Card. Trust me, the graphics look pretty good even on my old system (Athlon 2500/1GB RAM + GF4 Ti 4600/128). My game settings were 1024x768/32 and Medium quality and it was surprisingly fully playable. Well, I've noticed some slowdown here and there (when several monsters were on the screen), but nonetheless I was impressed with what I saw. Of course, I cannot wait to play the game once again with some Athlon 64 and GeForce 6800 :)

Here are some Doom 3 Ultra Quality Screenshots 2048x1536, 8AF, 16AA (thanks Valhalla)

The sound design in Doom 3 is probably the best I've ever heard in a game. The sound effects ranging from scary footsteps, strange voices, whispering, whisking, beeping, thumping, groaning, ambient mechanical noise, and wicked weapon effects (especially the shotgun rocks). The ambient sounds will have you looking in every fuckin corner of every damn room in no time. You can hear footsteps in the dark and hear people sneaking up on you in some cases. There isn't really much in-game music most of the time, but it is not really needed when so much else is going on with the audio in the game. I don't have a true surround sound setup to play the game on, so I've just switched to a set of digital USB headphones, and the effect has been fantastic. I'm sure that the auditory enjoyment would be even more greatly enhanced with a 5.1 system.

If there is one thing that Doom 3 does well, it is atmosphere. As I mentioned above, the game is a masterful piece of shadowy work with lighting effects galore throughout the level. There are a total of 27 levels which contains a lot of scripted events which help tie the storyline together. Much of the game's story is discovered by finding various employee's PDA found throughout the levels. You'll be able to download security clearances, read email, listen to voice recordings, and discover key codes to unlock hidden compartments. You couldn't go through the game without it. The primary new element in Doom 3 is a level of darkness. In a game where you're constantly covered in darkness you'll learn to love (or hate) your flashlight pretty soon - you need to use the flashlight in order to see where you are going in dark places. Speaking of weapons, the DOOM arsenal defined the standard set of weapons - your fists, flashlight, pistol, shotgun, machine gun, chaingun, grenades, plasma-gun, rocket launcher, chainsaw, soul cube (you can then use it to instantly kill a demon, it transfers the health from the creature you have just slaughtered into you) and BFG. The controls are standard fare and include crouching and a weak zoom mode for all weapons. Unfortunately, there are no secondary fire modes that you would expect in modern FPS. Besides, you can't have your flashlight + weapon out at the same time. Luckily, Glen "FrenZon" Murphy already created a Doom 3 mod called "Duct Tape" (download) which sticks flashlights to your machinegun and shotgun.

The pacing of this game has clearly been well planned. The surprises are many and creepy moments are punctuated by eerie lighting and creepy, distant sounds. There are scripted sequences with lights failing and monsters breaking through glass or charging through doors in attempts to kill you. Enemies appear from nowhere, out of the smallest crevices that you would never expect anything to be able to hide in. There are many times that you'll be surrounded by monsters and you will have to be conservative on ammo as there's little to be found between the waves of monsters. Doom 3 has a massive number of monsters that you'll come across. Most of the monsters use completely different attacks. There're various Zombies, Imps, Lost Souls (flying heads), Pinky Demons, Hell Knights, Trites (spiders), Cacodemons, etc. The AI is pretty straightforward - zombies and other monsters either lumber slowly towards you in an attempt to get their next meal or jump straight at you. The possessed marines are slightly more intelligent then the vast majority of the monsters escaped from hell, and they will seek cover and fire from there, but even this they do at random intervals. There's no doubt that the AI Crytek's Far Cry surpasses that of Doom.

There are four difficulty levels to play on - Recruit, Marine, Veteran and Nightmare. You have to beat the game first before Nightmare is unlocked. The harder difficulty means more monsters that are harder to kill and inflict more damage. The game takes about 25 hours to complete on medium difficulty.

What about multiplayer? Doom 3 is currently shipping with only 5 multiplayer maps: Tomiko Reactor, Delta Lab, Frag Chamber, The Edge 2, and Lights Out. By default you can only play each of these maps with four players in one of 4 game modes including Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Last Man Standing and Tournament (two marines battle one-on-one while others watch and wait as spectators. When the battle's over, the first spectator in line becomes the new opponent while the loser moves to the end of the spectator line. The victor remains in the combat arena until defeated by another man). Surprisingly, there's no Capture the Flag mode. I look forward to some mods and patches for the multiplayer portion of the game to enhance the replay value.

Overall, Doom 3 is technically and artistically a brilliant piece of work and delivers exactly what it is supposed to. Doom 3 may not be innovative, but the incredible level design, atmosphere, and attention to detail make it a very good first person shooter. I would highly recommend this game to everyone, especially those who have played the previous installments.

Minimum System Requirements: Windows 2000/XP, Pentium 4 1.5 GHz or Athlon XP 1500+ processor, 384MB RAM, 8x Speed CD-ROM drive (1200KB/sec sustained transfer rate) and latest drivers, 2.2GB of uncompressed free hard disk space (plus 400MB for Windows swap file), 100% DirectX(r) 9.0b compatible 16-bit sound card and latest drivers, 100% Windows 2000/XP compatible mouse, keyboard and latest drivers, DirectX 9.0b (included), 3D hardware Accelerator Card Required - 100% DirectX 9.0b compatible 64MB Hardware Accelerated video card and the latest drivers (ATI Radeon 8500, 9000, 9500, 9600, 9700, 9800, GeForce 3/4/FX/6800)
Multiplayer Requirements: Internet (TCP/IP) and LAN (TCP/IP) play supported, Internet play requires broadband connection and latest drivers, LAN play requires network interface card and latest drivers

Note: I've captured all screenshots on Nvidia GeForce Ti 4600/128 ("medium" graphics, 1024x768 without AA).