After 4 hours of play yesterday and a couple of hours today, finally I am done with Doom III. Let me summarize the experience. Around 10 days back, when I first played the game, I had written a small review kind of thing. I stick to it even now. The graphics is extremely good, though aesthetically not pleasing at all. The most impressive part being the lights and shadow. I would say that is the primary region in which this game raises the bar.

Game play is mediocre. I was scared for the first few levels. But once you get the hand of it, you kind of know what are going to happen, what is expected etc. You also get to know how the monsters will behave, what is the best way to kill them. Initially my primary attraction to the gameplay was, other than graphics, the creepy environment. But as you go from one level to another, you tend to get used to the environment. For the first couple of hours I was hoping (against the usual design of ID’s FPS games) I would get some helpful company (as I was told to meet with Bravo team), but soon it became clear that I have to put up a solo fight. The weapons are in direct agreement with the original doom series, with the sole exception of the Soulcube. I should mention here that my play style is quite cautious. I tend to conserve a lot of ammo. So, mid game onwards I was almost all the time maxed out in ammo. Even though I received the BFG couple of levels before it was meant to, I did not use it at all. Except for the last level, I would use the shotgun over 90% of the time, as in my opinion that is the best gun in close combat. The machine gun sucks big time. Chaingun reaction time is slow, and I was conservign rockets and BFG for the end level bosses. So, I ended up using the Plasma gun (which I liked a lot) and shotgun for over 95% of the time. Now it really freaks me out when after you carefully stock your ammo, and suddenly all of them is taken from you. (Reminded me of Half Life…it had also happened there once) – I landed in Hell with absolutely nothing. Lastly, I spent around half an hour (in GOD mode) trying to kill the final boss, could not do it. Searched the net to find out how to kill it, and then it was over under five minutes. (without any cheat). I really liked some of the nifty tit bits that were scattered around the game. (You may call them something like Easter Eggs)…. but there are a number of websites that talk about them.

So, all in all, I liked this game a lot. Good graphics with superb lighting effects, awesome sound effect, usual gameplay… was worth the effort and around 20+ hours time.

As I was more than halfway through the game, I though of taking some screenshots. Let me present them here:

My first BFG. A magazine cover showing the face from the original DOOM. Entrance to HELL
Hell Guardian dead The soulcube No wonder it got a M rating
Another level boss dead Weired artifact Weired artifact
Weired artifact Quake 43 – Interesting ! Notice the insects
In the caverns In the caverns ID Logo
The final boss …falling the soulcube killing the final boss
Rescuers Final animation sequence Final animation sequence

Happy Doom…ing. !

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