Doom 3

Doom 3 is a survival horror first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by mh:crappygames:Activision. It is a reboot of the series which is not related to the events of previous Doom games.

The game was a critical and commercial success, becoming id Software's most successful game to date. It was followed by the Resurrection of Evil expansion in April 2005, and was remastered and expanded with the release of Doom 3: BFG Edition in 2012.

Plot
In the year 2145, the United Aerospace Corporation (UAC) has set up a research facility on Mars, where they are experimenting with teleportation technology, along with special weapons development and biological research. During this time, the player has been transferred to Mars City to find a scientist who has gone missing. Upon reaching the scientist, the player discovers that the experimental teleportation technology has led to demons from Hell entering our realm, and they lay waste onto the Mars base and transforming the inhabitants into zombies. Now, the player fights through the Mars base to survive the demonic onslaught. Eventually we learn that one of the staff at the base, Dr. Malcolm Betruger, is working with Hell and he plans to help them invade Earth, in which the player has to send a distress call to warn the population. Along the rest of the game, the player is sent to Hell, where they retrieve the demonic artifact known as the Soulcube and the game ends with the player having the fight the Cyberdemon that guards the Hellmouth, a gate that is capable of sending millions of demons to Mars. The player kills the Cyberdemon and seals the Hellmouth. The game ends with reinforcements from Earth discovering what has happened and find the player to be the only survivor, and the final cutscene shows Betruger reincarnated in Hell as dragon-like demon.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) The graphics in the game are excellent and still hold up well by today's standards and compared to modern graphical powerhouses, as well as being a huge improvement over the graphics of the last game in the series, Doom 64.
 * 2) The gameplay of Doom 3, while noticeably very different from the previous entries in the series, is very entertaining and is just new enough to make the game still feel like a Doom game while also changing up the formula to make it more unique than past entries.
 * 3) For the first time in the series, the game decides to make the plot much more than an excuse for what you are doing, and puts the main story at the forefront of the gameplay, which had been planned since the first game (See "Trivia").
 * 4) The UAC base where most of the game takes place is a really solid setting for the game, and really feels lived-in and believable, making the game feel more "alive", even compared to the competitive first-person shooters at the time.
 * 5) The weapons in the game are quite varied and are both great returns to the original Doom arsenal as well as some of them being great updates or new additions to the Doomguy's arsenal.
 * 6) In addition to the various amount of weaponry for the player to use, there is an equal amount of unique enemies for the player to encounter, each with their own strengths to use on the player as well as their own attack patterns and weaknesses.
 * 7) The boss fights themselves are also well designed, if occasionally a bit to easy, and add a tougher challenge to the levels.
 * 8) Throughout the game, there is also a bigger emphasis on interacting with the enviornment as well as going through some sections that are much more unique than the standard locations.
 * 9) There is also a decent variety of pick-ups available to the player that will aid them in the game, and all of them are unique in their own way.
 * 10) The level design throughout the game is really great. Like the past entries in the series, the goal is to get from point A to point B, while picking up or gaining anything allow you to continue further and killing anything you see along the way.
 * 11) Doom 3 introduces a PDA system to the series, where as the player explores the map, they may find the PDAs of the other inhabitants of the UAC base, as well as some video disks. When opening your PDA, you can read the files and watch and listen to the video and audio disks.
 * 12) This entry in the series adds voice acting for the characters, and it is well done throughout, and it really helps you get more immersed into the game world along with the living setting and the realistic lighting. You can tell that the actors genuinely care about their performances, and their screams of terror sound genuine.
 * 13) The pacing of the game is incredibly well-handled, and is another good example of the game's horror focused approach being done in a well thought out way. The beginning of the game starts out with the player not even fighting any enemies at first, and you just explore the environment and prepare for what is ahead.
 * 14) The Resurrection of Evil expansion adds a lot of new content to the game, such as new weapons, more multiplayer modes, and a new twelve mission campaign that acts as a sequel to the main Doom 3 story.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) There are some elements of the game that, while executed in a great way, don't really feel like they are part of a Doom game.
 * 2) In the original version of the game, the flashlight mechanic was incredibly annoying and did not feel like a welcome addition to the game.
 * 3) Due to most of the game taking place in the UAC base, and not being much use of the Hell locations like the other games do, it can be quite difficult to distinguish each level from one another, since they all look pretty much the same, and many of the earlier ones use the same types of enemies together, and mostly makes everything look monotonous.
 * 4) The soundtrack, while gives the game a lot more of an atmospheric and tenser tone from the last few games (Save for the PSX version of Doom), it is generally forgettable outside of the title theme, and there isn't much to say about it. It also sometimes feels like it isn't even there most of the time, and quickly gets overshadowed by the other in-game sounds.
 * 5) Trent Reznor did the original sound effects for Doom 3 during development and they sound much better than the finished game sounds, but he left midway through development and his sounds were not included in the final game. Thankfully, there are mods that bring his sounds back in.
 * 6) Due to the game having only one brutal gore effect, it can make the encounters feel a little less like what is actually happening.
 * 7) Misleading title: The game is called Doom 3, which will make the player think that the story is a sequel to Doom II or Final Doom, but in reality, this game is a reboot of the franchise rather than being a new chapter of the past games.
 * 8) The BFG Edition, while improving over the original game, has its own share of flaws.

Reception
Upon release, Doom 3 received positive reviews from both professional critics as well as gamers. On review aggregation site Metacritic, the PC version has an aggregated score of 87 out of 100, and the Xbox version has an aggregated score of 88 out of 100.

GameSpy gave the PC and Xbox versions of the game 4 and a half stars out of five and perfect scores respectively. In terms of the Xbox version, it was noted for having the same features and flaws of the PC version, but was generally given higher scores for smooth controls as well as a two-player co-operative mode, but also has some slowdown due to the game's engine

Players were also positive of the entirety of Doom 3 and consider it to be one of the more unique and tense entries of the series. However, some fans of the series have criticized the use of a more horror focused tone and less of an emphasis on fast-paced action, as some felt like it ruined the overall experience and that that it was a good game, just not a good Doom game. Because of this, Doom 3 often ranks lower on lists of the worst-to-best Doom games, and is often ranked above Final Doom, Doom Resurrection, Doom 64, Doom RPG 1 & 2.

Doom 3 was very successful for id Software, selling over 3.5 million copies and being the most successful project created by id Software at the time. As well as achieving high sales numbers, it was the 16th best-selling game in the United States from January 2000 to August 2006.

Trivia

 * According to the Doom Bible, the original design documents for the first game in the Doom series, the story focused aspect in the games has been planned since the beginning, but never made it into the first entry due to the fact that it would slow down the action to much, and the idea was shelved. Doom 3 marks the first time that story-focused aspects would be in the series, with Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal continuing the trend, although those games allowed the story to be ingnored if ou wanted to do so.
 * The character design for the Hell Knight will later be used again for the Hell Knight in the reboot games Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal, although it has been slightly modified.
 * There are quite a number of references to the past Doom games that appear in Doom 3. In the first level of the game, there is a playable arcade machine for a game called Super Turbo Turkey Puncher 3, where the goal is to punch turkeys until they die, which the background, hand, and face graphics being from the original Doom. In addition to that, there is a magazine that can be found throughout the game which is a yellow gaming magazine with the Doomguy from Doom, Doom 2, and Final Doom on the cover.