My Corner of the Interweb

Doom 3. Just say NO.

OK...I started this blog writing about videogames, and frankly, it's time to talk about another one.

I received Doom 3 in the mail today, and I have to admit that in spite of the fact that I played it at E3, and was less than enthusiastic about it there, I was somewhat excited about getting it anyway.

The fellas I play online games with know that I had been basically slamming the hell out of this game since I got back from E3. Didn't matter, they were excited about it, and swore that it was going to rock.

It is now officially one full day after the release of this game, and I can state with absolute certainty that it sucks.

Doom 3, how does thee suck? Let me count the ways!

- I have a fast machine. Nay, I have a REALLY fast machine. I have a dual 3.06GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, a Radeon 9700 All in Wonder Pro, and more hard drive space than I could ever need. I have an Alienware. It's DESIGNED to play games. The framerate on my machine is so slow, that there's tearing and chugging. More than once, my videocard needed to reset itself. If I spin around quickly...which of course is necessary, as half of all the monsters spawn BEHIND YOU...the machine pauses and chokes, and eventually snaps back into motion.

- As hinted before, if there's a monster in front of you, one just spawned behind you. And that's without exception, unless you're back against a wall...in which case another will spawn right in front of you. Genius. Wish I had thought of that. The first time, it's a bit of a surprise. The second time, it's old. The thirtieth time, you just spin and shoot without thinking.

- The game is so dark, that you miss all the fabulous detailed textures and such. All the much-ballyhooed graphical wonders and detail on all the monsters? Who gives a shit? You're basically flailing around at 3 frames a second, firing in the dark at a shadowy outline that you need to hit about 10 times in order to put the thing down, which then, of course, disintegrates into a puff of fiery dust...so you can't even look at the detail THEN. Great idea.

- The story is Half-Life. Replace "aliens from alternate weird dimension" with "demons from hell," replace "Gordon Freeman" with "Unidentified Space Marine," and for the hell of it, replace "Crowbar" with "Flashlight" and you basically have Doom 3. Yes, I'm aware it was the Doom storyline first...but the Doom "storyline" was actually just a poor excuse to throw thousands of green, low-res zombies at a screen.

- Tactics don't make a bit of difference. Monster jumps out, you shoot shoot shoot, back into another monster, spin, repeat, reload. Shoot from a distance, close up, weapon selection...don't matter. Unless you have a shotgun. Then it sorta matters.

- In case you were hoping that the multiplayer would save this...go for it. id limited it to four players max...probably because even on a 1.5Mbit upstream, there's lag. The weapon selection is the same stuff you've seen on a million other games, except there's no aiming or iron sights, there's no scoped zooms, there are no alternate fire modes. The maps are tiny and repetitive. So no, there's no multiplayer to speak of.

Look, the game IS pretty...if you're not moving. And it's got lots of nice little hidden thingies, the voice talent is great, and the interactive environment is also nice. The PDA is done to death, but it's well done here, with video and audio clips, e-mails, and other fun little thingies. At the end of the day, however, it's a sluggish, boring first-person shooter with a rehashed storyline. Way to utterly fail to meet your hype.

On G4 network, they had a preview last week...and at the end of the clip, one of the reporters summed it up best. He shouted (and begged) "Oh, PLEASE don't let this game suck!" Too bad. It sucks.

Carmack, you're a hack. Go do something with that talent other than re-do a game that didn't need to be redone...and if you HAVE to re-do it, at least make it BETTER.