Product Details
 | Doom 3 |
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Product Description
Doom 3 continues the incredible shooter action of the first two Doom games! The Mars Research Facility has been invaded by demons from Doom, leaving only chaos and horror in their wake. You're one of the only survivors - to stay alive you'll have to fight your way to Hell and back.Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #2795 in Video Games
- Brand: ACTIVISION
- Model: 32377
- Released on: 2004-08-03
- ESRB Rating: Mature
- Platforms: Windows 2000, Windows XP
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 1.50" h x 5.50" w x 7.75" l, .44 pounds
Features
- First-person shooter
- Fight back against a demonic invasion of a Mars research facility
- Built with id Software's newest 3D graphics engine
- Cinema-quality visuals and 5.1 surround sound
- Single-player and online
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
The
wait is over. After five years of development, Lead Programmer John
Carmack and the id Software team have put together a revolutionary
visual experience. Although Doom 3 is not perfect, the 3D
graphics engine upon which it is built sets a new, jaw-dropping standard
that makes this game a must-have. In addition to adding multi-player
action via xBox live, or via networked consoles, the Xbox version of
Doom 3 also adds a great two-player cooperative mode.
Hell on
Mars
Your character is a low ranking Marine on a routine rotation
to the United Aerospace Corporation's (UAC) Mars Research Facility.
That's pretty much all the back-story you need. Doom 3 is a bit
skimpy in the story-line department, but rich plotting and character
development have never been the focus of the Doom franchise.
Action is the name of the game here, and we found plenty. After a few
minutes of wandering through the facility, listening to rumors about
impending catastrophe from the staff (remember Half-Life?) it was
time to start shooting. We fought our way through dark, lavishly
detailed environments until finally doing battle with pure evil in the
depths of hell. Although the game offers no opportunities to explore the
Martian setting apart from the linear corridors of the research
facility, good level design and well crafted sound effects were
successful at scaring the living heck out of us all the way through.
Creature
Discomforts
Groaning zombies and the sudden leaping attack of an
eleven-eyed Imp are just the beginning of the horror and anxiety in Doom
3. Floating Cacodemons attack from above with a mouthful of teeth,
ethereal Revenant fire flesh-seeking missiles with deadly accuracy, a
swarm of spider-like Trites skitter down the corridor, hungry for blood.
Although the enemy AI in Doom 3 is less crafty than we would
have liked, the incredible variety of enemies--each with a unique style
of attack--outweighs this shortcoming somewhat.Guns, Guns,
Guns
While there are many powerful weapons in the game, they are
designed to force players to anticipate and plan for firefights. For
instance, we liked wielding the chaingun to shred enemies at longer
ranges, but the weapon devours ammo and using it on close-range targets
was a waste of bullets. We quickly learned to switch to the shotgun or
the chainsaw to dispatch foes at close range.
One piece of
hardware, the flashlight, was a point of both salvation and frustration
for us. Doom 3 is a dark game and many enemies know how to take
advantage of it. You'll find yourself switching back and forth between
your weapons and your flashlight often just to see what's lurking ahead.
This problem might be easily solved by duct taping the flashlight to
your equipped weapon, but, alas, we found no duct tape on Mars.
Multiplayer
While
Doom 3 is no Halo 2 when it comes to multi-player action, there are
some respectable multi-player arenas and modes including death match,
team death match, last man standing and tournament. Five maps serve to
keep things interesting, and you'll want to look for special tricks in
some arenas to give you a leg up on enemies. Cooperative multi-player
proved to be a hoot as we teamed up with friends to try to make our way
through the levels. The intensity of gameplay ramps up significantly in
the cooperative mode, as the levels are designed to be harder. They're
also designed to force players to work together, so you'll want to
communicate with your partner as much as possible.
Looking Good
Doom
3 is incredible looking. Every room is exquisitely detailed, from
the shimmer of the air near a heat source to the texture of a hamburger
sitting on the counter of the company mess hall. Id obviously went all
out designing every creature in the game and their realism makes them
all the more horrifying. Get ready to jump out of your couch cushions!--Joshua
Gunn
Pros
Fearsome monsters.
Dimly-lit environments. The perfect recipe for horror. |
- Stunning display of graphics technology
- Strong level design with lots of spookiness
- Great cooperative mode
- Plenty of hours of single-player gameplay
- Thin storyline
- No headlamps or gun-mounted lighting in the 22nd century
- Fairly basic multi-player options
- The most intensely realistic and visually stunning game ever created; with graphic fidelity never before seen in video games outside pre-rendered CG movies.
- Dripping with atmosphere and changing the look of 3D games forever, DOOM 3 features realistic physics, 6-channel surround-sound, and real-time dynamic lighting and shadows that create an environment of ever-changing fear and uncertainty.
- Compete in vicious multiplayer action where light, shadows, and a totally dynamic world can be used to your advantage or peril.
Customer Reviews
Fantastic Engine, Potential, but Big Mistakes
I, like so many others, was
an original Doom 1 & 2 customer back in the "download it from the
local BBS" days. I couldn't wait for Doom 3 after learning about it a
few months back.
Now that it's been out a few days (I bought it
the morning it was released), here's the deal:
1. The engine is
incredible. The sound and graphics are top notch, as is the overall
environment, physics, etc. These guys at id always show everyone else
how games are done. Everyone will now copy them for the next 5 years
until id does it again. However, it's far more of a hog than we're being
told. This is a game that forces you to buy a new computer (much to the
industry's delight), just like all of id's other games (each Quake
release forced us to buy new machines). I have a brand new Dell 3.2 GHz
machine with a GeForce FX and 7200rpm drives. For Doom 3, I had to kick
all the detail and graphics settings down to rock bottom, and also down
to 640X480 jsut to keep it from being a slideshow. It's now merely
"playable" (still looks great!). As computers and graphics cards get
faster, this is really going to be cool, so id was wise to go way over
the top detail, performance and feature-wise. Technically speaking, this
game will enjoy along life (if other things are fixed - keep reading).
2.
Creep factor - not nearly the frightfest we were hyped up on. This is
basically you walking around in an "Alien" movie. Not a single goosebump
while playing it at work. If I have to play it at night to get
goosebumps, then it's not that scary. Fright factor of the old DOS Doom
was way more scary than this one. The original Doom game truly SCARED
us, and scared us JITTERY. It was mesmerizing and all-encompassing. It
was a combination of atmosphere (the levels were downright intimidating
and revolutionarily epic) and originality. Doom 3 just feels like you're
a pest control guy from Orkin who's wandered into an "Alien" movie.
3.
The gameplay is great, but monotonous. Here we are in the 22nd century,
and still holding flashlights? Heck, I strap on a little
battery-powered head lamp when going out to my wood pile so I can use my
hands and have light AT THE SAME TIME. A high-tech space marine doesn't
have a combat helmet with a light on it? Or nightvision? I've played
this game less than 6 hours and I'm already sick to death of getting
killed because I'm holding a flashlight instead of a weapon. This aspect
of the game is not only ridiculous and unbelievable, but downright
stupid.
4. The monsters are great. Too bad you don't get to
appreciate them. They're so fast you never get a good look at them. It's
so dark when you drop your flashlight to shoot them that you never get a
look at them. You have to kill them so fast that you don't get a good
look at them. And when you do kill them, they vaporize, so again, you
never get a good look at them. This is a real bummer, because the game
is all about the monsters. One of the fun aspects fo the original Doom
games, at least when it was "new", was seeing that pile of guts laying
there after you rearranged his internals with a rocket.
5. I
agree with the "Doomed 3" review - this game is all about finding PDAs
to get through doors. Boring, redundant, and gets in the way of playing
the game. This is a lame attempt to add storyline and "cerebral content"
to a game that, for obvious reasons, needs none. I mean - a
revolutionary computer game forcing you to use a simulated PDA to get
through a door? It's ridiculous, tedious and interruptive. Give me Quake
2 any day, where every door works so I can go in there and waste
monsters. There is such a thing as too much realism, such as flight
simulators being so complex that they're no longer fun. Doom 3 gets very
close to this problem - not good for any game, especially a shooter.
6.
Hallways. As brilliant as the surroundings in this game are, I'm sick
to death of hallways. Doom 1 and 2 had wide open areas where you could
enjoy really fun long-range shots with rocket launchers and get good
views of your enemies before pulling the trigger. You got to see huge
hoardes of monsters out in the open and have lots of fun blowing those
groups apart with long range rockets, plasma and BFG. Atmosphere is
incredibly important, and hallways get boring really really really fast.
What's the point of having a rocket launcher in this game when you're
always in rooms too small to use it without blowing your own face off?
This forces a very boring "pick them off one at a time as they jump you"
gameplay scenario.
7. Weapons - fantastic. I love the reloading
function. They did a great job on the weapons, and it couldn't be
better. Now they need to give us some wide-open spaces with daylight to
actually use them to their full potential. One thing I mes sis the
bodies flying. When you hit an Imp in Doom1/2, the body went flying as
it came apart. I haven't seen that in this game so far, and I really
miss it. That was not only realistic, but VERY realistic.
8.
Speaking of daylight, we're on MARS, for crying out loud! Let's get out
there in the Martian terrain and have some fun! THAT would be
atmosphere! Enough with all this crappy "dark hallway" stuff. It's
putting me to sleep. Now, I confess I'm not all the way through the game
yet, so hopefully the whole game isn't like this. I have faith that it
eventually improves.
9. Speaking of darkness and gameplay, the
endless darkness everywhere seems rather obvious that it's otherwise a
very boring game without the suspense of being in the dark. Not good.
This game is all engine and little fun in the sense that the original
doom games were. Again, hopefully this improves as you go through the
game.
10. This game REQUIRES serious multiplayer network ability,
and id really blew it here. After giving us the Quake games, Return to
Wolfenstien, etc., there's just no excuse for this limited, wimpy
4-player-only stuff. Shame on you, id. You guys know darned well that
this would piss us off. And DOOM 3, of all games. If there was a game
that needed to be perfect in network multiplayer capabilities, it's this
one. And after games like the Quake series, I can't believe id botched
multiplayer up so badly - the one function that makes their games
legendary. If it would have taken another year to get Doom 3 out the
door with the multiplayer abilities it deserves, we all would have been
more than happy to wait for it.
11. This game is REALLY going to
shine when the general public starts creating new levels for it. That
is, if the guys at id release a level editor (have they?). Also
multiplayer networking MUST be brought up to at least Quake 3
capability. This MUST happen, or Doom 3 will be a flash in the pan due
to boring environment, lack of industry standard multiplayer networking,
monotonously predictable monster attacks and ridiculous darkness
darkness darkness.
12. Game's awesome, but only because of it's
potential once people start creating custom levels for it and the
assumption that multiplayer will be fixed. Doom 3 without multiplayer
"warfare" capability just will not do.
I highly recommend the
game, it's great. Could be better, but it's still top notch, especially
for the single player.
The Third and
Best Doom So Far!
Doom 3(2004). The Third PC
Game In The Doom Series.
Back in the Early 90's, when the
computers where still hitting their stride, and video games were the
last thing on people's minds, two revolutionary games were released.
Those games were 'Wolfenstein 3D' and 'Doom'. Both games became
immensely popular, so it's no surprise numerous sequels have been
released for each game. 'Doom 2' was a worthy followup to 'Doom', but
brought nothing new to the table. Now, in 2004, Id releases 'Doom 3', in
full 3D surroundings with realistic graphics! So, is 'Doom 3' an
overhyped disaster, or the game that lived up to everyone's
expectations? Read on to find out!
Game Ratings-
Graphics-
'Doom 3's biggest draw has been its revolutionary graphics, so it's no
surprise here what to expect. Character Designs are scarily real, the
atmosphere you walk in feels almost as if you are in it, in other words,
you feel the blood on the walls, and see the demons jumping out of the
shadows, as if it's real. A very surreal experience. 5/5
Play
Control- Although I'm not a huge fan of PC controls, there's nothing to
complain about here, as 'Doom 3' easily places the FPS controls to make
it easy for the gamer, and I found it a breeze to run around and blast
demons. 5/5
Plot- 'Doom 3', much like 'Half-Life', has a
phenomenal, and deeply horrifying plot. 'Doom 3' revolves around a Lab
on the Planet of Mars accidentally opening a portal to hell, and you
must fight off Mars and through demons to survive. The story is very
enthralling, and once you start playing, it's hard to stop! 5/5
Challenge-
'Doom 3', while not as challenging as 'Half-Life', is still puzzling
and hard in many ways. Most of the game, you are forced to fight
multiple enemies at once, it dark surroundings(Much like the Aliens Vs.
Predator series), and one of the most challenging things about the games
is recovering after getting scared after a monster jumps out of
nowhere. Also, as with the old games, you will be asked to recover keys,
cards, etc. to continue your game, which is always a challenge. 5/5
Replay
Value- 'Doom 3' is basically a Single Player game, and once you finish,
really the only thing you can do is replay it. There is Multiplayer,
but it only allows up to 4 players and isn't nearly as fun as the Single
Player adventures. I wasn't too impressed. 2/5
Sound/Music-
'Doom 3' sports excellent sound, so good, in fact, that I found myself
muting the sound for fear I would scream! In extremely dark, quiet
rooms, when a demon jumps out of nowhere, making a ton of noise, it can
get very scary! The sound is flawless in other words! 5/5
Fun-
'Doom 3', although not much different from other FPS's, still remains
incredibly fun, and blasting your way through the demons to escape Mars
will have you hooked once you pick the controller up!5/5
Overall,
'Doom 3' is a very good sequel to the first two Doom's, and now that
it's got 3D and Pixel-Shaded atmospheres, it brings a whole new aspect
to the game! Well deserving of all the hype, but I can't wait for
'Half-Life 2'!
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED TO FANS OF FIRST PERSON
SHOOTERS, THE ORIGINAL DOOM GAMES, AND PEOPLE WHO WANT TO BE SCARED!
WARNING- DOOM 3 REQUIRES A REALLY GOOD COMPUTER, AND ALSO IT'S VERY
SCARY AND QUITE VIOLENT AND DISTURBING! NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PEOPLE UNDER
13!
Also Recommended-
Doom 2- PC
Half-Life- PC
Unreal
Tournament 2004- PC
Thanks For Reading!
Great Game
Id Software revealed Doom 3
in 1999 to both fanfare and criticism. Id Software promised a thrilling
single-player game, some rudimentary multiplayer and of course, a brand
new engine from Carmack and Co. I've waited impatiently, and while
(without counting the presentation) Doom 3 doesn't break new ground, it
follows the norm very well.
Id Software has crafted Doom 3 with a
rather engaging story, for a first person shooter at least. It is the
year 2145 and the people at Earth are running out of natural resources.
What can be done? Well, various corporations, including the Union
Aerospace Corporation have built facilities on Mars that will allow
Earth to gain natural resources from the red planet. When you begin the
game, you are armed with absolutely nothing and have the task of finding
a scientist and completing other basic tasks. As you progress, and it
doesn't take long, you begin to realize that something is clearly not
right and then, well, all hell breaks loose. For fans of the classic
Doom games, it is important to note that Doom 3 is id Software's
retelling of the original Doom not a continuation of the story line.
Although
there is an emphasis on story, it never brings down the pace of the
game too much. Most of it is told through cutscenes and the rest you'll
learn from your trusty PDA, a new addition for the series. The PDA
allows you to receive email, audio messages, codes and other useful
information. Some of this is meant to help you understand the story (so
you can know exactly why all hell broke loose), while other information
is meant to help you advance through the game. Even other messages
(including the spam messages) are meant to add humor to the otherwise
cold game.
Let's be honest, the reason that many of us have been
waiting for Doom 3 is because of its rendering engine. John Carmack and
the others at id Software have continually raised the bar for graphics
with each successive engine. Id Software pushed the PC to the limit with
the original Doom, then brought true 3D with Quake and has now created
the most technically impressive game I have ever seen. Even up against
recent heavyweights like Painkiller and Far Cry, Doom 3's visuals are a
notch above. Using pretty much every graphical technique available like
normal mapping, self-shadowing, per-pixel lighting and others that my
frail brain cannot understand, the Doom 3 engine is sight to behold.
Some games that use normal mapping appear too "shiny" or have a
"plastic" look, but Doom 3 does not. All of the indoor environments are
meticulously designed with working computer monitors and what not.
Furthermore, these environments are incredibly interactive and you'll
often have enemies creating their own doors from walls and stairs. A
fully functional physics engine lets you toss around boxes and soda
cans, and the enemies as well. The animation system is simply
breath-taking, and is enhanced by the shadowing system in the game. The
weapon effects are plentiful, as well. Everything casts realistic
shadows and further enhances id Software's view of Mars.
Of
course, to get the full splendor, you'll need quite a powerful system to
run. On the my best, I was able to play at 1024x768 on high settings
and get playable framerates. Just for giggles, I played the game on a
2GHz processor, 512MB RAM PC with a nVidia Geforce FX 5200 and found
that was able to play at 640x480 low. Even at this resolution the game
looks wonderful. HardOCP has a full and detailed article regarding Doom 3
hardware which is recommended reading. Click here to take a look at it.
While
a lot of the presentation relies on the kick-ass graphics, the audio in
the game completes the atmosphere. Sure, you can run the game with
stereo speakers, but to get the full experience, you'll want to hook up
the 5.1 speakers. Id Software has used surround sound to a great degree,
and you'll be able to hear enemies coming before you can see, adding to
the realism. Otherwise, the sound effects and voices are crisp and
solid, as expected.
And then there's the actual game portion of
Doom 3. As I said above, Doom 3 doesn't really differ from the standard
FPS action of shooting things that move. Most of the time you'll move
around the claustrophobic areas in the levels, shooting one of the
game's many disturbing enemies. Thankfully, it isn't all run and gun and
there are numerous times when I actually jumped back because a monster
popped out of nowhere. A friendly looking set of stairs can tear apart,
and you'll have a monster ready to feast on you. A lot of what makes
Doom 3 different is the atmosphere, which includes plentiful amounts of
gore and blood, and the dark, creepy environments. The fear is
heightened because you can't use your flashlight and a gun at the same
time. This forces you to rethink your strategy since you'll need the
flashlight to see otherwise pitch black areas, but you don't want to be
caught off guard.
The game's weapons should be familiar to FPS
fans but work very well, given Doom 3's gameplay. At the beginning of
the game, you'll only have your fists! Thankfully, before any real
action starts, you'll have the flashlight, a pistol and a bit later the
shotgun. The pistol is a decent weapon but only if you run out of the
powerful shotgun shells. Later in the game you'll receive a machine gun,
which is rather accurate and fast, a plasma gun, which is basically a
sci-fi machine gun and a chaingun, which is much faster but less
accurate. You'll also find grenades, the fan-favorite rocket launcher
(which looks awesome), and the devastating BFG (Big F'ing Gun) 9000,
which will wipe out the enemies in the current screen. There's also a
mysterious Soul Cube, which is quite powerful and beneficial. Ammo is
rarely scarce in the game, allowing you to have fun looking at the
pretty weapon effects.
You'll find the typical Doom enemies in
Doom 3, albeit with a 2004 makeover. These monsters include an
assortment of demons, zombies, flying skulls, spiders, imps and the
lovable pinky. Many of these will shoot at you, forcing you to take them
out quickly. The larger enemies in the game take quite a few shells to
take down, but they aren't very smart. They'll just keep coming at you
while you shoot them. This is a little disappointing and takes a bit
away from the horror. Of course, you'll be plenty scared when they break
through something or come out of a shadow.
Multiplayer in Doom 3
is limited to four players, although id Software has made it clear that
future mods may support more players. A basic interface lets you join
or create a game and works well. There are five maps, including Edge 2, a
remake of the much-loved Edge map and four game modes. The most
interesting mode is Tournament where you battle an opponent directly.
Once they die (or you die) another player, who is waiting, gets a turn.
The other game modes are Deathmatch, Team Deathmach and Last Man
Standing, all of which are exactly what they sound like.
Although
multiplayer is simple in the nature, the graphics engine adds to the
experience. For instance, Doom 3 features per pixel hit detection, so it
is possible to shoot between someone's torso and arm. The lighting and
shadowing provide areas to hide and forces you to be smart about using
your flashlight.
To be honest, when Doom 3 was announced, I
didn't expect anything more than a technology demo to prove how powerful
the engine was. While I wasn't entirely incorrect in this statement,
Doom 3's gameplay (for which the single-player mode alone is fifteen
hours plus) offers enough thrills to warrant the $54.99 purchase. And
thanks to id Software's support of the modding community, we'll see some
kick-ass mods in the near future.
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