By Gary Kearney
Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil (RoE) for the Xbox is an “expansion” game for,
yup, Doom 3 and it takes place roughly two years after Doom 3. Expansion packs
for consoles have always left me a little confused. I understand them for PCs
but somehow they just don't make as much sense to me for a console, just go
ahead a create a sequel is my thought. (And why did they get rid of the Roman
numerals...shouldn't this be Doom III: Resurrection of Evil?) OK it doesn't have
much to do with this review but I figured this was a good time to tell my
legions of fans, Hi Mom!, my thoughts on console expansion games. Now on to the
review...
I've played the previous versions of Doom and loved playing Doom II at night
with the lights off and the stereo cranked up a little louder than my neighbors
would have liked. Hmm, makes me wonder what they thought was going on in my
apartment with all of the demon screams, shotgun sounds, and my own screams.
Anyway I would never put the story of the Doom games as being strong or even
fully understandable. In a nutshell they all come down to someone leaving the
door to Hell open and demons wondering in like uninvited guests to a SuperBowl
party. This familiar story continues in RoE and once again it is a tad
confusing. Scientists go back to Mars to resume archaeological excavations where
they find an odd artifact. Bring in the Marines to actually recover said
artifact and this is where the fun begins. Once our friendly Marine makes
contact with the heart shaped item weird things happen and now you'll need to
round up a bunch of demons and once again shut the door to Hell...and maybe this
time you'll bring a deadbolt!
The story isn't very original, but then again neither is the gameplay and you
know what, that's OK. This is a game where it is all about the action and the
shooting and having the snot startled out of you. It's about wondering what is
in the shadows and if there's any good reason for you to go find out...but we
all know you will so why fight it. Of course RoE is a first-person shooter like
its siblings before it. Not much has been changed in the basic Doom formula,
that is if you have played any Doom game before this one you'll know what to
expect but if you haven't no big deal as this game by no means asks you to be
familiar with any previous game in the franchise. The gameplay is simple..if it
moves, shoot it...if it looks like it wants to move, shoot it...if it's not
moving, what the heck, shoot it!
RoE follows this standard formula but it also adds something old, something
new, something “borrowed”, and if this was a wedding I guess they would have
brought something blue. The old is that the classic, and wonderfully
entertaining, double-barrel shotgun has come out of retirement! Ah, it's like
finding your favorite Star Wars shirt that you thought your girlfriend and
thrown out...well if that shirt happens to be able to blow away almost any demon
with one well placed shot. The new is the previously mentioned heart-shaped
artifact. Fuel this bad boy with enough souls and you are able to slow time
which is always a neat trick. This will allow you to easily pick off enemies
since they will not be moving and it is also very useful to get around some of
the level design tricks like moving walls and tricky jumps. Finally we have the
“borrowed” element in the form of a gravity gun or grappler. This little toy
allows you to snag really heavy objects, or even enemies, and toss them around
like they were nothing. If you have played Half-Life 2 then you know what I'm
talking about. There are sections in the game where you have to use the gravity
gun to make it past so while it looks like it was heavily influenced from
another game it does make itself at home here and serves a purpose.
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