Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil for Windows

Before it came out this was one of the most anticipated games and the anticipation was only intensified by id software's "it'll came out when it's ready" attitude. Personally, I wasn't bothered by all the hype and waiting Doom 3 release was not a problem especially when you have so many good games already on the market (Call of Duty is one shining example). Recently a friend of mine bought the game and after finishing he borrowed it to me.
The first thing to notice is that the game comes on 3 CD's. Installation is very long and when it is finished free space on your hard drive is reduced by an enormous 2.5 Gb. But that is only the beginning of system requirements.

System requirements

Microsoft Windows 2000/XP
Intel Pentium IV 1.5 GHz or AMD Athlon 1.7 GHz processor or higher
384MB RAM
8x Speed CD-ROM drive (1200KB/sec sustained transfer rate) and latest drivers
1.7GB of uncompressed free hard disk space (plus 400MB for Windows swap file)
100% DirectXR 9.0b compatible 16-bit sound card and latest drivers
3D hardware Accelerator Card Required--100% DirectXR 9.0b compatible 64MB Hardware Accelerated video card and the latest drivers
Supported Video Cards: ATI Radeon 8500, 9700, 9800, 9500, 9600, and 9000; All Nvidia GeForce 3/Ti, 4/MX, and 4/Ti series; All Nvidia GeForce FX series; Nvidia GeForce 6800
Suggested System Requirements: 2GHz or higher Intel Pentium IV or AMD Athlon processor, 512 MB system RAM, ATI Radeon 9600 or Nvidia GeForce FX series video card, five-channel sound card and speakers

My system consists of Windows XP Sp2, Pentium IV 2.8 GHz, ATI Raden 9800XT 256Mb, 1024Mb RAM so I was expecting a smooth gameplay.

Story

Story of the game is very simple. You are a nameless marine arriving on a space station located on Mars. This is a top secret laboratory owned by a large corporation called "UAC" which is performing a number of experiments. The experiments are lead by dr.Betruger who is, as it turns out, quite mad. He has managed to open a portal to hell through which a large number of monsters and demons came through. The monsters are part of an invasion army which has taken over the base and is threatening Earth.
You uncover a lot more details about the story during the game by reading other peoples mail and video logs. Some details are learned by interacting with other game characters much in the same way as it was seen in "Half Life". That is the first drawback of the game. The storytelling is done in much the same way as it was done in a game which came out a few years before. I must admit that character animation and look is much more elaborate but never the less it feels outdated. Also, in such a high pace game stopping to read texts and mails just seems out of place.

Gameplay

Gameplay and feel of the game is very important to me. The controls are very simple and for anybody who played a first person shooter will feel right at home. The movement is controlled by keyboard and the aiming and looking by mouse. All the keys are programmable so you can tailor the controls to your liking. I found that the default settings of the game worked for me very well. Only thing I changed was inverting the mouse so when I pull the mouse toward me the character on screen looks up. There is no controls for leaning right or left but that was not a part of original Doom and since this is a remake its not much of a drawback.
There is a lot of scripting in this game. By scripting I mean an event which occurs in the game after you touch some control or pass some invisible line. This part of the game is excellent. There are a lot of small events that happen like falling of debris from a ceiling, sometimes a floor panel will detach and fall and a lot of other similar events. Some of them are made more than they are by the atmosphere of the game. There are a few places in the game when, after walking in a room all the lights suddenly go out and creature jumps from his hiding place.
Creatures in this game are much tougher than in the original and there are less of them on the screen at any one time. This is probably due to their complexity as a large number of creatures would mean a big drop in performance. Creature A.I. is virtually non existent. Most of them just jump out and rush straight at you. Some of them have a basic weapon avoidance but nothing more. This is understandable for a brainless creatures from hell but not for other marines. All the creatures are beautifully animated and rendered and some of them are truly amazing. Most impressive creature must be a half mechanical half living spider like creatures which you meet near the end of the game. I was not so impressed by guardian of hell which is amazingly large and detailed but I feel it is almost overdone.
There is a lot of various weapons to choose from. Weapons are introduced slowly through first few levels of the game with more destructive weapons coming later. For me the most used weapon is the shotgun. Most of the combat is close range and in those conditions, shotgun is most effective. But unfortunately it is toned down from original Doom. It was possible to kill even a Hell knight with a shotgun but in Doom 3 the creatures are much tougher so the shotgun lost some appeal. Another great weapon is plasma gun which has an incredible rate of fire and is a very powerful weapons. It is most effective against Revenants who fire heat seeking missiles as it is possible to hit the missile in flight and destroy it. I found that chaingun and minigun are most underused weapons. The BFG 9000 is impressive but it also is toned down from original Doom. It now takes a few shots from it to kill a Hell knight.
Most of the weapons have a long reload time so it is advisable to keep an eye on bullet count since getting stuck in a small room with an empty weapon and a few scratching imps can be deadly. But long reload time is partially offset by incredibly fast weapon switching time.
There are a few addition to the original Doom. Most important is the flashlight which has an unlimited power source since it never goes out. Without the flashlight some parts of the game are impossible to pass. Another addition is a Soul cube. That is an interesting weapon since it restores your health while killing an opponent
The atmosphere of the game is amazing also. Most of the rooms are very dark with a lot of shadows and various light sources. A large portions of the base feel almost claustrophobic with tight corridors small rooms and poorly light crawlways. All of that adds to a scary atmosphere and I found myself cringing a lot of times.

Graphics and Sound

Graphics of the game is the best I've seen so far. From creature design and animation to level design and textures. The creatures are amazingly detailed and beautifully textured. From the smallest spiders which crawl from under the floors and jump at you to largest guardians of hell. The Imp is the most common creature and it is very nicely done. The attention to detail is amazing. The fireball it throws travels at a curved trajectory with smoke coming out of it. Then there is Hell knight, easily three times as tall as the player walks slowly but is incredibly tough.
The design of levels is another plus for the game. Levels are large and nicely laid out and since it is a linear game it is not possible to get lost. Backgrounds are beautiful and full of life. Since this is a working base you often see working machinery. This all adds to great feel of the game. But it's not all perfect. Since most of the game happens on a base a lot of the levels seem similar and almost repetitive. That all changes in a later part of the game when you arrive in Delta complex. The levels there are something else. Often you can see, something that looks like living tissue, intertwined through metal corridors and I must say that it looks impressive.
The design of a hell level is also amazing and there for the first time you loose some of the claustrophobic feel since the levels are more open. The last few levels on an archeological dig below the surface of mars are also very good and feature a nice change from metal gray scenery of the base to brownish earthy tones of underground.
Sound is also spectacular and this is one of the games that uses 5.1 surround speakers fully. There is a lot of effects being driven through rear speakers and that too adds to a spooky and scary feel of the game.
All this graphic splendor has its cost. I did some benchmarking and decided to play at 1024x768 High detail settings. After running a built in timedemo I got a result of an average 46 fps at that resolution which is good but not great and definitely less than I expected. This is an average number so sometimes in a more complex settings the framerate drops to and sometimes even bellow 30 fps which is not good for gaming. You can run timedemo using the command timedemo demo1.demo at the console. Console is called by pressing "Ctrl" + "Alt" + "~" which is much more complicated than just pressing "~" and I don't understand why that was done.

Final thoughts

This is the best looking game I ever saw. There are so many special effects that most of the hardware will have a hard time processing it all. Even the air near the heat source is shimmering. Even the most inconsequential items in the game, like tin cans and food or vending machines, are rendered very detailed. It is unfortunate that all of these items are inconsequential. There is no use for vending machine other than to look good. You can interact with some computer terminals but the interaction is rudimentary at best. There is usually a large button which you press and the puzzle is solved.
Puzzles and tasks in the game are very simple. They consist of mostly looking for a key or card, sometimes you need to press a button and that is it.
The scripted events are sometimes annoying. The most annoying aspect is a room with a hidden door which opens after you push some button. Then some creature jumps out and hits you in the back. This scares you the first few times but later it becomes annoying.
When you count all the good thing and all the bad things there is more good. Game engine, graphics and atmosphere, weapons and creatures are all very good. Puzzles are easy and there are a few loopholes in the story like sentry bots which are incredibly though so you must wonder how the creatures from hell took over the base, are a bad things.
Overall this is an excellent game with minor problems. The game graphics engine is definitely here to stay so start saving your money for a more powerful system.