Written by Jeff Buckland, 2/25/2005
DOOM 3 was a smash hit on the PC, despite the glut of other first person shooter games that have been released over the last couple of years. It delivered a mix of horror gameplay in dark corridors with satisfying action and explosions. Its story was simple but effective, and the atmosphere of the Mars base it took place in is unique and memorable.
The commercial success that DOOM 3 has seen made an expansion pack pretty much a given, but one must wonder how good it will wind up being. With many expansions moving to the $30 and even $35 price points, many gamers have decided to skip expansions even for games they really enjoyed - simply because of the price tag. There's no denying here, though, that what DOOM 3: Resurrection of Evil does include is a satisfying experience from both single player and multiplayer perspectives.
It was rumored a while back that cooperative play would make its debut in the DOOM 3 expansion, but the problem is that it's still too limited of a market on the PC to really put a lot of effort into. Instead, id and Nerve Software have expanded the competitive multiplayer modes out further, with new DM maps, a larger eight-player limit for multiplayer, and a new Capture the Flag mode. No, this isn't like Quake 3's CTF, which frankly just didn't feel very much like the CTF we saw in the first two Quake games. But this time around, the guys at Threewave who made the original versions are on board, and I've got to say that for all the new stuff going into Resurrection of Evil, Threewave's CTF is what I'm looking forward to the most.
Ok, fine, let's talk about the single player. The game does include a whole SP campaign that picks up two years after DOOM 3 left off. A new team of "Combat Engineers" is sent to Mars to check out some weird signal coming from deep inside the planet. A new alien artifact is found, and then all Hell breaks loose (again) - leaving you, the last member left of the team, with the artifact. You'll start off with it immediately and can use it pretty early on, but that's not the only new toys you'll get - the game introduces the Grabber, a new gravity gun-style weapon, pretty quickly.
Yes, it's a gravity gun, just like some other game you might've played. It's certainly got its similarities, but there is one really fun difference here - with the Grabber, you can "catch" fireballs and other projectiles thrown by enemies, and send them right back where they came from. This was a blast to use, and it really helps when you're running low on your favorite ammo. You can also use the Grabber to grab and hurl smaller monsters, just like in HL2 - Lost Souls are now extremely easy kills, at least until they start coming at you half-dozens at a time.
A new super shotgun will also be included, which I got to try in the multiplayer mode, but I didn't get far enough in the single player campaign to see it. If it acts the same as it does in multiplayer, then I won't be worried about its usefulness at all - its look, animations, and sounds were very kickass, and it packs a massive punch in multiplayer.
This new artifact comes from Hell itself, and it can absorb the souls of dead humans left about the place - with this power, you can activate it to slow down time. Yep, it's DOOM-flavored bullet time, and the best part about it is that the engine and action still look great in slow motion. Other than this, it's basically just what you'd expect. There are a couple of spots where you'll need to use "Hell Time" to get through alive, like some stone crushers and the like. I'm sure some people are scoffing right now at the notion of a 2005 title having classic traps like big crushers, but the public has said they wanted to see more classic DOOM gameplay in DOOM 3. Well, id and Nerve are giving it to them - we'll find out soon if that's what they really wanted or not. Personally, I think the odd trap is a fun diversion, and breaks up the action a bit, although too many in a row can become really annoying. I didn't see any overuse of traps at all in RoE, though.
I got to see some new monsters and a new boss - some of these are shown in the screenshots in the article - and they fit in nicely with the game's overall feel. Their animations are as great as in the original game, and they've got new ways of killing you as well. If I can stress one major impression I got while playing RoE, it's that the feel seems to have shifted to action and that the quality and production values are just as high as those in DOOM 3.
I got about an hour into the single player mode, and was very impressed with my experience. The gameplay seems to have been tightened up a bit, with what seemed to be a bigger focus on action rather than horror. Monsters didn't just appear out of nowhere in an attempt to startle me, and there weren't a million convenient "monster cubbyholes" just waiting to open up until I walked in front of them. That was probably my biggest complaint about DOOM 3, and from the amount I played here, that seems to have been minimized in Resurrection of Evil.
On the multiplayer side of things, the four new deathmatch maps are tight and fun, and some are larger to accommodate the new 8-player limit. The four CTF maps I saw were excellent, with all the classic elements that made this mod so great in the old days. There are multiple paths into each base, powerups everywhere, and a couple of choke points scattered throughout the map for guaranteed carnage. I had a lot of fun playing some CTF against the other game editors, and was able to pick it up and play right from the start - the speed and action made it feel like the classic Quake 2 days.
I've still got some concerns with this expansion pack - namely, I'm worried about the length of the single player campaign as well as the price. I've heard that RoE's campaign will be about half as long as DOOM 3's, so if you're looking for a lot of replay value with this expansion, it's pretty much going to have to be in the multiplayer modes. I'm also concerned over the $35 price tag that will likely be slapped onto the game at least initially, as I think that's just too much to charge for an expansion pack to any game these days. Still, if you're a DOOM junkie and have some cash to burn, I don't see how Resurrection of Evil will be a bad choice at all.
If you'd like to see the game in action, check out either the high- or low-res versions of the trailer, straight from id and Activision, and mirrored at 3D Downloads. Resurrection of Evil is set to ship alongside the Xbox version of DOOM 3 on April 4th.
