I took another (and last) look at Doom 3, iD Software's first real failure of a game after a streak of winners. It's been over 10 years since I last played Doom 3, but seeing a chance to play the "updated" BFG version, I thought I'd give that a go and see what got changed.
For those clocking in a bit late here, Doom 3 was iD Software's attempt to reclaim the FPS crown from Valve after they'd marked it as their own with Half-Life, which uses a modified version of iD's own Quake 2 engine. Knowing that Valve was making a game engine of their own and attaching the sequel of their flagship title to that engine, iD raced against the clock to beat Valve to the punch and show that they were still the kings. To iD's favor they did release their game first. Unfortunately it was barely a game worth talking about. Compared to iD's previous games, Doom 3 is slow-paced, down to earth and frankly kinda dull. It looks and plays more like a System Shock sequel than Doom 3. Instead of rocket jumping and gibbing monsters left and right there's reading crew logs, instead of extravagant boss battles there are only predictable boss encounters, and no massive arenas full of hostile daemons - all of the things that made the original Doom games are not only gone, they've been shrunk down to give room to a new game engine that does have a few cool tricks up its sleeve... but sadly those tricks never get their moment in the spotlight. Doom (2) could deliver massive battles against hundreds of enemies, Doom 3 pitches 5 enemies against the player at the most. There are invisible walls all over the place and too much hand-holding through simple corridors to find the MacGuffin needed to overcome the temporary obstacle in your path. Short of Doom 3 doing cool things with shadows, there's not much to talk about here.
In fact, one of Doom 3's biggest points of criticism was how silly it was that the game's light source counted as a weapon, and could not be used with other weapons. Keep in mind though that the entire game is designed around this sole fact - you can't see where you're going while wielding your weapon at the ready. An interesting design decision, but ultimately a bad one. And there the BFG edition screws up right off the bat. The very first mod made for Doom 3 allowed the flashlight to be used alongside the weapons, but even then no one took the time to ask whether that was such a good idea. Bethesda sure didn't as the BFG edition allows for free use of the flashlight alongside any weapon, with only a limited charge being the only downside. In addition ammo counters are now present on the HUD. iD Software purposefully did not include them in the HUD to increase player immersion, but Bethesda thinks their customers are braindead retards. As a result Bethesda's tampering with Doom 3 has made it into an inferior game than it was. Every encounter feels dull, repetetive and devoid of tension. The original Doom 3 at least was a spooky trip through dark-as-fuck environments, the BFG edition turns it into a boring walk through long sections of dimly-lit hallways. Such a small detail, such a big difference.
Another problem with Doom 3 are the weapons. If you've played Doom you know what you're getting, except the constant need for reloading gets irritating pretty fast. Then there's the weapon balancing - the standard shotgun is useless except when fired down enemy's throats, while the machine gun has pin-point accuracy and mows down even some of the larger monsters, making the chaingun feel kinda useless. Speaking of monsters, their AI seems unchanged from Doom 2 which was released nine years prior. They advance, they fire, period. Some pack a lunge attack, while the marines show a shred of intelligence and either bunker down behind a crate and fire non-stop at my position, or advance right into my face without a care in the world. Some of the monsters can side-step your shots though, but the number of times they have the space to do so means you're unlikely to even notice this.
And with that we get to the most dissapointing aspect of Doom 3: The level design. Large, sprawling levels with everything from tight corridors to large areans make way for generic hallways, locked doors and endless searches for PDAs, locker codes and "monster closets". Monster closets were getting kinda tired in the original Doom games, but here's they're just pathetic and overused. The search for PDAs and locker codes makes for a unsuitable departure from standard Doom gameplay, especially as many precious minutes are wasted sitting in a corner listening to boring and badly-written audiologs. Fortunately the PDAs are in generic order - matching up lockers with their codes is just a case of keeping your eyes open... with one notable exception where you must visit an out-of-game website to find the code. Bethesda actually fixed this by changing the e-mail so that the subject title IS the password, so that's one less headache to worry about.
The Resurrection of Evil expansion attempts to do something new, by adding some simple puzzles and a couple of new weapons to the game. The super shotgun makes all those shotgun shells relevant again, and that heart thingie at least isn't as overpowered as the Soul Cube, but ultimately this doesn't feel any more interesting than the original. The BFG Edition has a second expansion pack called The Lost Mission. It starts and feels like a polished fan mod, but there are two things that it does better than the original game: The audiologs are actually acted out quite decently (with variable accents and some characterization present) and the Hell you're dropped into here is actually quite good. It looks, sounds and feels like Hell. Doom 3 and RoE made Hell feel like an excavation site with a weird ambient lighting, but most of TLM's Hell really gets it right, though there's a long hallway section which almost kills the mood.
Ultimately Doom 3 is still as disappointing a title as it was back in 2004, if not more so with the BFG Edition. If you're bored, unfamilar with the game and have $3 to spare it may be a worthwhile effort, but otherwise it's best left alone.
