Halloween Week: DOOM 3 (BFG Edition) video game review

Here's what you need to know; strange goings on are getting to the workers of the UAC's Mars facility, flickering lights, disembodied voices and rumours surrounding the secretive experiments in the Delta labs. But the horrific truth is about to be revealed, as a mysterious attack unleashes all hell onto the facility, killing and zombifying thousands and unleashing an army of monstrous beasts into our reality. But this attack was no accident, and as one surviving Marine will soon learn, its origin is far, far worse than anything anyone could have imagined, the very heart of Evil itself, an Evil now with an unsuspecting Earth firmly in its sights.
Shortly after the Doom Eternal gameplay reveal and that amazingly stupid Astrid Johnson article, I went on a bit of Doom kick, playing and reviewing the 2016 game, and playing and writing half a review of Doom 3, but since Halloween was on its way and I wanted to do another special, I figured I'd take a horror review that was already half done and make it part of the occasion. And for the purposes of the review, I'll be talking about the BFG Edition of the game, not because it was the only option but because I'm too lazy to hunt down a PC copy or wire up my old Xbox, simply playing on the Xbox One was the path of least effort.

Doom 2016 took Doom back to strafing out of the way of incoming fireballs and sending the forces of Hell to their doom by the dozen, but to state that Doom went back to that style of gameplay is to imply that that wasn't always the case, that at some point Doom wasn't about strafing and mass murdering Demons, Doom 3, originally released in 2004, then re-released in 2012 as the BFG Edition was that time. Doom 3's different direction was one of more focused storytelling and a greater sense of suspense and horror, a different direction that would be unrecognisable as Doom were it not for how effective and memorable this game is, but we're jumping the gun a bit, first of all, Doom 3 has a story, one that is more central to the game than any other title in the series, so how well does Doom 3 pull it off. The game's opening does a superb job of setting up the tone of the story as we are treated to an expository prologue that lets us know not to trust the UAC, this becomes relevant when you meet Swann and Campbell, two of the game's main characters. The game purposefully withholds any specifics about who they are, all you know is that Swann represents the UAC, which makes him ambiguous and hard to trust right out of the gate.

He is, however, preferable to Betruger, who you know is the game's villain simply from looking at him, every word out of his mouth stinks of ulterior motives, and you also know he's the head of Delta labs, which, if you've been sniffing the roses, you know is a hub of creepy goings on and ominous rumours, but if that wasn't enough, if you need something less subtle, he's also got a dodgy eye. Seemingly the only person you can trust is Sergeant Kelly, but as this game's plot thickens, even his motivations are called into question, and this sense of ambiguity around all of the game's main characters works to both create an atmosphere of anticipation and one of isolation, as the Marine is surrounded not just by monsters of the literal kind, but by allies that could stab him in the back at any moment. A mistake the game makes however is never exploring the motivations of the villain, something that even the 2016 game with its light storytelling did a better job of doing, Betruger wants to open a portal to Hell but unlike Olivia Peirce and Samuel Hayden from the reboot, we never learn why; what he was promised like Peirce or what benefit he saw in it like Hayden. But the game does have one thing on its side, its long list of PDA Emails and audio logs which go some way to filling in the blanks, this and his endless taunting of the player imply that his motivations are purely malicious in nature, which is fine, it's just odd when you consider that this game's successor, which left its approach to narrative in a cloud of dust, had not one but two more nuanced villains.

Like its successor, a big part of Doom 3's story comes in the form of the PDAs, and while they both exist for the purpose of world building, Doom 3 does it in a slightly different and, I feel, actually more effective way. Doom 2016's data logs are great in that they give insight into the game's library of monsters, maps, guns and characters, painting a picture of a game world that is riddled with depth and history, though like I said in my review of Doom 2016, if you don't care to learn about the tragic history of Argent D'Nur, the game doesn't force you to, you can, should you so desire, completely ignore them. Doom 3 however opts to make the PDAs a library of audio logs and Emails sent and received by the various workers of Mars City, which serves as great world building by implying that before the Demons took over, Mars City was actually a city that people lived in, making the isolation and horror of what it becomes all the more oppressive. But unlike Doom 2016, Doom 3 doesn't give you much of a choice when it comes to going though these gits, hidden away among the lines of text and reels of audio are codes that you need to open optional lockers that contain useful loot like ammo and armour, though these codes are also sometimes vital to know in order to progress through the level.

The game having less expository logs and giving you greater incentive to look through them serves to make its blatant attempt at world building feel much more organic and better integrated into the gameplay, giving even this straight forward story an element of depth, unless you're a lazy fuck who gets the codes from the Steam Forums, don't be that guy. Tonally speaking, Doom 3 is undoubtedly horror, in fact the one Hell level in the game has more scare value in it than all four of Doom's Hell levels combined; Doom's Hell levels are cool, Doom 3's Hell level is a nightmare; one borrowing far more heavily from Christian belief than its successor, which turns Hell in Doom 3 into the Hell that you feared when you were a kid, a place of darkness and suffering, of the damned left to scream in pain for all time. Doom 3's story therefore goes to some very dark places, and even with its dated visuals, running on the Id Tech 4 engine, its imagery is more disturbing than Doom 2016's, so disturbing in fact that I wouldn't let my seven year old nephew who's currently addicted to Doom within a mile of this thing, I'm a bad influence but I'm not that bad. There's only so many times you can read 'die' and 'suffer' scribbled on the walls in blood, floors and ceilings caked in cancerous growths and mangled bodies, and hear the distant, anguished cries of the damned before it starts to get to your head, far from becoming desensitised to it, it creeped me the fuck out.

It's here where we move from story to atmosphere, and where Doom 3's 2004 graphics take a back seat to the game's atmosphere building big guns; sound and lighting. Doom 3's lighting is superb, though the game's visuals overall might look noticeably aged, the way light and shadow is cast dynamically throughout the environments is impressive to behold even how, as light fixtures move, casting light over the room randomly, fires and emergency lights flicker ominously, creating a suitably hellish glow, or even how Imp fireballs light up the room as they travel towards you, casting dynamic shadows on the environment. Doom 3's lighting is a powerhouse of atmosphere; entering a dark room becomes a cautious exercise, seeing the silhouette of a monster move across a distant lit area, seeing shadows dart across the walls and floors as Demons scuttle either away from or towards you, it's all very creepy. As your defence from the darkness you have a torch, and in the original Doom 3 release that torch was a separate item that you could only use once you'd holstered your weapon, something changed in the BFG Edition so now your torch is mounted to your armour.

 I get why purists didn't like that the change included no option to change it back, but even in the BFG Edition, it's not like the torch renders you all-seeing thanks to its subtly off-centre placement and cool down. Though why they even featured a cooldown when said cooldown is only about five seconds is a bit confusing, like they wanted to make using the torch more tense and time sensitive but couldn't commit to a thirty second cooldown or having to find batteries for it, but as we'll get to, when it comes to confusing or frustrating mechanics, that's the tip of the iceberg. Another thing that the game excels at for the most part is sound; unlike its successor, Doom 3 has a much less in your face soundtrack aside from the kickass menu and credits music, instead its soundscape exists to build suspense, with, for example, the distant screams of the Hell level, the distorted radio chatter of the possessed soldiers, and the hissing and snarling of the various demons as they roam about the facility. The number of times I'd stop in my tracks because I became aware of the sound of footsteps and needed to check that they were mine is a sign that this game nails atmospheric sound design. In many of the game's encounters you'll hear the Demons before you see them, either their skulking and hissing as they wait in the dark for you, or the satanic chanting as one teleports in, going back to my example, when you stop to check and still hear the footsteps your guard instantly goes up, hearing noises in Doom 3 puts you on edge.

By the time you hear the Demons it's probably too late, but none of that would matter if the Demons themselves weren't all that scary. Except for the Hell Knight, all of Doom 3's Demons are considerably different to their 2016 counterparts; Imps are much bigger and more imposing, as are the Hell Knights, and both are slower moving than in the 2016 game. Imps, in addition to being bigger and slower have grey, scally skin and many, many eyes, making it look less Demonic and more extra-terrestrial. Other monsters like the Mancubus and Lost Souls saw a big change from this when going into 2016, with the Lost Souls being rocket powered flying heads in Doom 3, and the Mancubus looking like a bloated dead body with guns for arms. Meanwhile the Revenant is see-through for some reason, and the Pinky is unrecognisable, looking less like the Demons they were before and became again and more like overgrown faceless pigs, which makes even less sense than the Revenant being see-through. New enemies to Doom 3 are a mixed bag, with some being uninspired melee enemies like the Wraith and Maggot and others being really annoying thanks to their high damage output and hit scanning weapons like the Commandos, but easily the best new addition is the Trite; a swarm enemy that resemble giant spiders with upside down human heads and an annoying tendency to appear from nowhere, these are easily the creepiest Demons in the game and it's weird that they were left behind in the reboot.

But the biggest difference in the Demons between the games is how the encounters play out. Whereas in Doom 2016 the Demons are numerous and fast moving, forcing you do dodge attacks and prioritise targets, in Doom 3, the pace was significantly slower. In this game Demons practically never come in groups bigger than five or six unless they're swarm enemies like the Trite or Cherub, they're tougher than in the reboot but move significantly slower, and engagements are often in tight, claustrophobic environments like corridors, hangers and labs, making the combat much slower. And while Doom 2016 never leaves you without ammo for very long, ammo is far scarcer in this game, making ammo conservation essential, kind of. Like the torch, it seems like they wanted to make it hard but couldn't commit; a combination of the game's stockpiling ammo in lockers and hidden rooms for the more explorative to find and the ammo saver mentality the game wants you to have, means that by the half way mark you're packing a small army's worth of heat. Ammo really isn't a concern if you know where to look or aren't complete shit at shooters, and while this becomes awesome in the game's final few levels as the pace ramps up for the finale, it makes the supposedly tense engagements of the first half of the game feel easy.

I played the game on normal difficultly, like I usually do with games when I review them, and I was surprised by how forgiving it was; not just in the not so hidden ammo stashes, but in health and armour, which are everywhere in the game. Don't get me wrong, there are times where a health station filled me with joy to see, but that wasn't often, in fact I usually never needed them because I was getting by on the game's mountain of medkits, and like the 2016 game, when you're not up against hit scanning zombie soldiers, you're dodging fireballs, making it very easy to literally not take damage when going up against even the most dangerous demons, provided they don't get a melee hit on you. The game does have something to offset this, it just doesn't work very well. Sometimes the game will put you in a very small room with a very big demon, which, since the Doom Slayer is still a decade away, is never going to go in your favour, there's the zombie enemies with hit scanning weapons that are impossible to dodge and therefore very annoying, and then there's the enemy placement, oh boy the enemy placement. Doom 3 has some very frustrating habits in this regard, the most in your face one, quite literally, is putting Imps behind doors so they will instantly leap at you when you open the door, a cheap jumpscare that feels unfair when you lose a slice of health to an enemy you couldn't have avoided, and sure it'll scare you at first, but by the twentieth time it happens, it's just annoying.

The game will also lock the room down and kill the lights right before a fight, making finding the demons before they can hurt you very hard. Doom 3 also loves to put enemies behind you, whether they teleport in or get let out of some hidden room that's always just conveniently right behind you and just big enough for a demon, almost like they exist purely to give you a disadvantage in combat. And like putting Imps behind doors, it'll get you at first, then it will annoy you. These tricks are used so much that they become predictable, making encounters with even the scariest monsters feel mundane, and making something as simple as opening a door tiresome, not because you're scared of the Imp, but because you know it's there and you know exactly what it's going to do and that you're probably not going to dodge it. Another little niggle is how you can't swap weapons or cancel during a reload animation, which doesn't sound important, but is in fact very important when a Demon's running right at you and you can't retaliate because you're stuck in an unskippable animation. None of these things completely break your enjoyment of the game, but the longer you play the game, the more noticeable and annoying these things will become, to the point that it compromises the atmosphere and horror by being too predictable.

Amazing things will happen here soon, you just wait
Doom 3 is an interesting case; a game series taking a radical turn and becoming something completely different to what it once was, but Doom 3's radical direction didn't stick, leaving us with this time capsule, a little bundle of horror that's ultimately a mixed bag. Doom 3's story is dark and creepy, and fascinatingly told through a combination of cutscenes and the game's fantastic PDAs, telling a gripping story of scientific discovery paving the road to hell, yet its villain is shallow and lacking the nuance the series would put in its villains later. Gameplay wise we're still mixed, the shooting is competent and the health and ammo systems are enjoyable if too forgiving, exploring Mars City for secrets is a lot of fun, and when the horror works through its amazing atmosphere and disturbing imagery, it's brilliant. The problem is how the game devolves into a haunted house attraction through its overuse of cheap jumpscares and frustrating enemy placements, turning a game with a fantastic sense of atmosphere thanks to its lighting and sound into a predictable slog. All that being said, I still have a considerable amount of love for Doom 3, call it nostalgia, call it bias, call it what you want, I just like Doom 3, I think it's a good game on the whole, one that's sure to scare first time players, plus its Doom 3, it's a piece of gaming history and it's worth it for that alone. It's definitely worth playing.