MacNuggets,
Depending on your tastes Doom III will either be the best game you have ever played or a severe disappointment. On one hand you have stunning visuals, superb music and terrifying sound effects that all come together to create a very frightening game. And if killing monsters in such an environment appeals to you, then you will really enjoy Doom III.
However, if you were looking from something along the lines of a plot then you will be severely disappointed. The entire game can be boiled down to the following five words: “see monster, shoot monster, repeat”. Everything else has just been thrown in there to further that agenda. So, if you want a little more in your gaming experience then Doom III might not be for you.
Oh, and it should be noted that there are a few really annoying aspects of this game. The worst, by far, has to be its utter lack of decent lighting. Now, I realize that this was done on purpose to further the “scare factor” and to help hide the monsters but damn, it sure gets annoying sometimes. Here you have a multi-trillion dollar facility that has state of the art inter-dimensional gateway forming technology and yet seems to suffer from a severe shortage of emergency lighting and circuit breakers.
Building on that is “really annoying thing #2, the flash light. You play as a highly trained space marine. A deadly killer capable of wielding all manner of weapons. A fearless fighter taking on the minions of the netherworld. And you are thrown into desperate situations requiring both nerve and intelligence. And yet in spite of all that he seems to be unable to hold a gun and flashlight at the same time. Hell, duct-tape a damn flashlight to yourself if you have to. Why is this so annoying you ask? Because the following occurs all to often until you get fairly practiced at the game:
[setting]: Some industrial looking room with pipes and crap everywhere (it could be anywhere in the game). Despite spending millions of dollars to build this building no one had enough money to add emergency lights. Thus, as a result of the accident there is only one 40 watt light bulb providing illumination for this 2,000 square foot room. Oh, and the light bulb is dirty. So most of the room is hidden in shadows. This is where you enter and begin surveying things, looking for crap that might jump out and kill you.
[me]: “Hum, since I can’t see anything I will put away ALL of my guns so that I may take out my flash light and look around.”
(I proceed to look around but can’t see much because of the crates, pipes, computers, walls, etc. that are blocking my view.)
[me]: “Well, I need to get to that door across the way so I will just walk to it slowly, shining my light in front of me so that I might see how to get there.”
(I slowly walk along and just as I enter into one very large patch of shadows a creature of some type jumps out at me snarling, hissing and attacking, all at once.)
[me]: “Ahhh, a monster, quick, let me put away might trusty flash light and pull out a gun. (Thus I begin to scan through my weapons and it goes something like this) Fist, damn, pistol, damn, shotgun (its empty) damn again, machine gun finally!
(I then begin to kill the monster. Of course, now I am completely in the DARK because I put my stupid flashlight away. And did I mention that the monster is attacking me the entire time? So, when I finally kill him I get to go on to the next monster and do it all over again. And let me just say that after doing that 400 times in a row it begins to get a little old).
So, you might like Doom III you might not but either way don’t play it on a console like me because then you can’t download the cheat that allows you to strap your flashlight to your gun.
