identity crisis
Id Software is a developer who often let its success go to its head and nothing marks those moments more clearly than DOOM sequels in the 21st century so far. DOOM Eternal proves that even without the 2 Johns id’s personality can be too much for its good. DOOM 3, the first polygonal entry in the series, is id doing an experiment at the expense of most players’ enjoyment.
In the end, I found DOOM 3 to be a serviceable and sometimes satisfying FPS experience. But the bumpers on the road were so hard that I took a 3 weeks long break less than halfway through before beating the game. After the success of Quake trilogy, developers at id just assumed that their fans would follow them through hell and back. So they did their nightmarish experiment that sometimes feels like identity crisis.
Another marine. Another first day on the job went wrong.
Welcome to Mars, marine. On behalf of UAC, I’m sorry to inform you that all hell has broken loose on the red planet, yet again. How the hell did this happen? We don’t know. We hope that you would find it out for us.
DOOM 3 is not only the first polygonal installment in the series, it’s also the first one to have capital “S”, Story. Besides the cut scenes setting up situations and characters, there is also emails to read and voice messages to listen to. Some of those emails might contain more words than DOOM(1993) and DOOM 2 Hell On Earth combined.
DOOM 3 certainly goes for a horror vibe. Even when it allows you to rip and tear with the Berserk power up, the game has a choir of anguished scream of pain as the background noise. False jump scares like panels coming out of walls, ceilings or floors are often occurrences, so often that they are actually hints at where to go next.
Monsters crawling in the shadows and the sound they make is unpleasant to listen to. With Doomguy in other DOOM games, as glass canon as he can be occasionally, those hell demons are the ones who are scared. The marine in DOOM 3, on the other hand, is probably scared shitless throughout the game. So much so that he didn’t return in the expansion.
Discharging firearms into absolute darkness
To clarify, I played 2004’s vanilla DOOM 3 on Steam with no mod installed. It was out of the curiosity to check out the source material of the 2005 Dwayne Johnson vehicle, DOOM movie. One of the biggest differences between the 2 is the flashlight situation.
In the movie, a gun big enough would have a flashlight mounted under its barrel, from assault rifle to BFG. In the game however, the marine cannot hold a pea shooter of the pistol and the small flashlight at the same time. Any two-handed firearm is out of the question. This design decision was a point of contention back in the days, and I got to say that it’s bullshit. It is manageable given the pace of the game usually throw the enemies at you, but it is certainly not enjoyable.
One might argue that DOOM 3 is an experience akin to playing a Resident Evil game. I respectfully disagree. Resident Evil games, at least the ones I played(4 and 5, plus the remake of 2 and 3), have lighting that allow player to see where the monsters are. DOOM 3, on the other hand, has most of the place in pitch black. Even if you see an imp in the dark by the fireballs it throw, you might not hit it. Your shots likely end up in the darkness surrounding it.
DOOM 3 does not encourage patience like a good Resident Evil game does either. With demons striking from the dark, your best chance is to run the dark hoping not to bump head first into their chests. One of the criticisms towards DOOM Eternal is how easily the Slayer can be cornered in that game. In DOOM 3, the marine can be cornered in the narrow corridors much more easily and he does not have the option to hot key chainsaw or glory kill someone to escape.
Enemies with small as shit hit boxes are problematic as well, and id saw it fit to throw loads of them at the marine. This is when the game felt like it split into 2 types. In order to dispose of those Face Huger like spiders, DOOM 3 demands the usual twitch shooter skill of an id game. It works on well lighted places. In a dark corridor, you better run and if you are cornered while reloading, you might as well load a save.
The game got slightly better in its third act when the marine has access to a sizeable arsenal. An artifact called Soul Cube came handy as well. It feels like the precursor to DOOM (2016)’s glory kill. Kill 5 enemies, charging the cube up, throw it and you will regain a lot of health.
Judgement
Honestly, in the year 2020 as the time of writing, there are lots of action horror options on the market. There are the excellent remake of Resident Evil 2 and its slight lesser sequel. There are also Dead Space 1 and 2, both took things from DOOM 3 and make them much more unpleasant to look at and more enjoyable to play.
DOOM 3 seemed to be reason why so many modern games do not have a devoted key to flashlight anymore. Playable characters just automatically turn on a light source in the dark for the last decade or so. If you just want the complete DOOM series experience, maybe try the BFG edition. But be warned, if it followed DOOM 3’s rule “no flashlight allowed in Hell”, then it would be hard to know where in the Hell you should go in the level titled “Hell”.
