DOOM 3: RESURRECTION OF EVIL
Last summer, “Doom 3” terrorized personal computer gamers with a horror show shooter that was scary almost as much for its legion of bump-in-the-night demons as for its steep hardware requirements. Thousands of anxious players were sent running to electronics shops for new video cards and extra memory that would unleash this trip to hell in all its high-resolution glory. Such is life for PC gamers, though, desperate to keep upgrading their machines to match the latest thrills.
Console gamers have it much easier, because once a system is in the living room, there is no need to tinker under the hood. And now that “Doom 3” is available for Microsoft’s Xbox, it’s amazing to see how well this cutting-edge shooter holds up on 2001 hardware. Much of the credit goes to port developer Vicarious Visions, which has managed a minor miracle getting “Doom 3” to look so close to the PC edition.
But looks are only half the battle in the transition to the Xbox, and that’s where this beast stumbles. The first-person shooter is best played with the PC’s keyboard and mouse setup. Movement is fine, but aiming with a console controller, even one as sensitive as an Xbox, is just not the same. Accuracy takes a major hit as you try to aim for enemy weak spots with the Xbox controller, which leaves gamers with a tendency to sometimes over-compensate.
The Xbox port includes a few welcome enhancements over the PC version. The single-player campaign, which follows the story of a Martian colony that unlocks the gates to hell, remains largely the same: It is full of well-timed scares and lots of things to shoot. However, Vicarious Visions excised some architecture that streamlines the game in a positive way — slightly smaller levels with less clutter are a little more manageable. The addition of a cooperative mode is the best wrinkle. Now, two players can storm the Martian base together, leading to some enjoyable late-night games over Xbox Live.
Death-match games are simpler, more straightforward affairs with a smattering of maps, but it’s doubtful they will tear many gamers away from online “Halo 2” or the newly released “Splinter Cell Chaos Theory.”
Xbox players who have not experienced “Doom 3” on a PC will find this sci-fi fire and brimstone shooter exciting and fresh. PC gamers who have already been to hell and back, though, can book a return trip with a new expansion pack, subtitled “Resurrection of Evil.” This add-on introduces a series of new missions as well as some play mechanics improvements.
The central plot point of “Resurrection” is the discovery of an artifact that not only reopens the gateway to hell on Mars, but also offers the player a handful of supernatural powers that complement basic boom-boom action. The artifact allows you to slow time or unlock berserk powers that grant you incredible brute strength.
“Resurrection” also adds a Capture the Flag mode to “Doom 3’s” online play package and a series of new death-match maps. If there was one chief complaint about the original PC game, it was that the environments, both single- and multiplayer, were too similar in appearance. “Resurrection” offers new architecture, including a great death-match map set in hell.
