Written by Jeff Buckland, 4/5/2005
Played on:
Windows
With the resounding success of id Software's first person shooter DOOM 3, we all knew an expansion pack was inevitable. What some may not have expected was id's outsourcing of the project to a new company started up by a couple of guys who broke off from id itself called Nerve Software. Boasting some new features of questionable creativity (at least at first) and a rather hefty $35 price tag, it seems that DOOM 3: Resurrection of Evil at first glance might be a complete dud. It turns out it's really not one, and I'll try and explain just how.
The first thing one might notice when playing is that the level design has been opened up a bit. You'll be fighting more enemies at a time now, though, so that space will quickly be eroded away as you back up with your guns blazing constantly.
The original atmosphere is back, with a subtle injection of new sound design, nicely-laid-out levels, and a new story that resumes the hunt for Dr. Betruger - whatever he's turned into, that is. The action starts up pretty much immediately, and Nerve has decided to make RoE the game they seemed to rather have played than DOOM 3, which turns out to be a lot closer to the classic games.
You see, there are fewer "monster closets" this time around, and while the horror elements are still here, not every enemy is lurking in a tiny corridor or behind a panel that will bust open when you get near. This game puts more of its cards on the table whenever you walk into the next room, and while there were still a few big scares, I was much more in a "blow stuff up" frame of mind than what a survival horror game would generate from me.
Nerve has also gotten rid of the original game's bosses and thrown their own new ones in. For the most part, these bosses are high-powered shootouts, which are much more satisfying than the two major bosses from the original game (both of which required you use gimmicks to kill, rather than just throwing your whole arsenal at them). Now, I don't mind bosses that require you fire certain stuff at the right time, but it's more fun if I get to keep shooting. Nerve seems to understand my pain, and I think you'll be happier with the bosses this time around - even if they're not nearly as visually impressive as the last thing you fight in DOOM 3.
The game also kicks in three new monsters, including a new variation of the imp that is faster, harder to hit, and tougher. You'll see much more of him than the classic imps, almost to the point of extinction of the originals. The other couple of enemies, well, I won't get into them here, because their debuts are better left untainted by my scribbled words. The one thing I really liked was the inclusion of three new arcade games you could play, and these time it's more than just a bit of button mashing. You can actually play them, with an on-screen cursor and everything! I had a ball screwing around with these stupid things - there's something absurd about playing a Breakout clone as a break from battling Hell's minions, but I had fun anyway.
New additions to your arsenal this time around include the debut of an artifact directly from Hell, a supershotgun, and the new "Grabber" gun. All of these items are introduced fairly early in the game, and you'll be using them pretty often, which definitely helps put off a "more of the same" feel that some expansion packs have. The artifact can suck up the souls of dead humans that are lying around the Mars base that your character, a fresh new marine, will traverse. You can store up to three souls, and each one is a charge that activates Hell Time, which is a rather uninventive name for slow motion (or Bullet Time, as Matrix and Max Payne fans know it by). There's no slow-motion aerial dodging of 9mm rounds here, though - this really is just your basic slow motion.
That's not to say that Hell Time isn't useful, though. As you beat the game's fairly evenly-placed bosses, you'll gain new abilities when you go into Hell Time. The first one is Berserk, which is a classic DOOM powerup that was a bit underused in DOOM 3. Now, once you gain the ability, you can use it any time you want to use your artifact. The other ability is Invulnerability, which is pretty much just how it sounds.
The artifact is meant to be used pretty often, and while there are a couple of very light puzzles that require it, you otherwise won't ever have to use it to win fights. Still, it makes many of the larger fights (and all of this game's large fights involve waves of enemies spawning in - those who are solely looking for DOOM 2 1/2 will still be disappointed with this expansion) easier to manage, and by the end, it kind of makes them huge cakewalks.
The supershotgun was many player's favorite weapon from DOOM 2 - even though it had to be reloaded after every shot, the massive punch it had gave gamers an incredible feeling of power. I'm happy to say that after very liberal usage of the SSG in Resurrection, it's back in full force and a more than worthy addition to your lineup of boomsticks. Even the reloading animation brings me back. It's beautiful. *sheds a tear*
Finally, we have the Grabber. Now, your initial instincts will tell you to run away from a game that "rips off" Half-Life 2 so shamelessly, but just hold on a second. You see, HL2's gravity gun was very useful for certain things - punching a sawblade though the midsection of a zombie, catching grenades every once in a while, and solving a few puzzles here and there. But DOOM 3 doesn't make you stack crap up to reach the next area. Instead, the Grabber has a much different use: since many enemies will hurl balls of fire or plasma at you, you can use the Grabber to catch them and fire them back.
And this is not something you'll do once or twice and forget about. Enemy projectiles are very powerful, and one daft flick of the wrist can send an enemy's fireball back in his face, killing him instantly. You can also hurl heavy objects if you want - just like HL2 - and kill stuff that way, but I found it more fun to either throw their own shots back at them or just use my own weapons. The Grabber has its weaknesses, of course, as it doesn't work with close quarters enemies worth a damn. Overall, it's a nice addition to the game and adds a new tactical option that was previously missing from DOOM 3.
From what I can tell, the guys at Nerve sat down before starting major work on RoE and decided what they were going to maintain from the original game, and what they were going to change. It seems that level design was brought up and addressed, as well as "monster closets". Many gamers have complained about DOOM 3being way too dark, and it seems Nerve wanted to keep that in the game. The spawning of multiple enemies, sometimes in front of and behind the player simultaneously, was maintained as well in many situations (it's pretty annoying to me, but I'll deal with it, I guess). One section of the game does give you a headlamp to use for at least a few minutes, but other than that, you still can't use a gun along with a flashlight simultaneously here. Be prepared to press the F key often.
The expansion's single player campaign had a few surprises to go along with the scares - a few new graphical effects were thrown in, and the traversal of a set of waste tunnels while keeping my environmental suit juiced up with power was particularly exciting. The bosses are fun to fight, and the environments are subtly better than the original game's. I wound up beating the whole thing in about nine hours of gameplay, and I'll say it right now - if that's all this expansion had included, I'd be giving it a failing grade.
That's not because the single player mode wasn't any good, because it was in many ways better than DOOM 3's. But the expansion pack's rather high $34.99 price tag is just too much for many gamers to swallow (although I've heard some major stores are running sales on the game during its first week or two of release). Nerve knew this, too, and to make sure they delivered a decent value, they tapped the guys at Threewave, creators of the original CTF mods for Quake and Quake 2 in the 90s.
Yep, the multiplayer component of Resurrection has a couple of surprises. Not only is the player limit doubled from 4 to 8 in both LAN and online play, but the new deathmatch maps are very nice as well. But it's the inclusion of Threewave CTF that really does it for me - these guys can make some great maps, and the classic, barebones CTF gameplay still holds up today. And that supershotgun in multiplayer? It's awesome. Oh, here I go tearing up again.
Some gamers will argue that CTF should have been in DOOM 3 right from the start, and I might even tend to agree with that sentiment. But let's stop for a minute. If you're reading this now, that means you probably already own DOOM 3 - let's get practical. If you buy this expansion, you get the single player mode, the new weapons, new DM levels, an official 8-player limit, and the whole CTF mode. Regardless of past shortcomings, this expansion still has some great new stuff for you to play.
All in all, I was quite impressed with DOOM 3: Resurrection of Evil. While it's just as dark as the original game and some of the annoyances have been maintained, many of the things players have complained about have been changed. The satisfying single player game and many additions to the multiplayer mode make this feel more like DOOM 3 "should have" been when it was released last August. The price tag is a little high for my tastes, but I still can wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone who enjoyed DOOM 3.
