Doom 3 First Look

I need to bathe. In fact, I may never be clean again. That, my friends is the mark of a good, no GREAT round of Doom. Doom is an old game, but the concept of Doom is still among the best in the business. Doom III promises to be one of the finest games of the year. Just not this year, maybe not even next year.

Show Me The Demo!

I got the chance to see the Doom III premiere demo at E3. In fact, it was only about two hours ago. But it will stay in my head for a long time to come. To start, I was front row, center for this and trust me friends, that was a great place to be for this demo. Others would call me lucky, I prefer to think that I am one of the luckiest d00ds at the convention center. I didn't even have to wait in line. The Demo, to begin was not pre-rendered, but a live showing of the capability of the entirely new engine. I was not able to find out any info on the processor that was used for the demo, but I was able to learn that it uses the very newest GeForce 4 video card. The rest of the box I am certain was top of the line. It had to be, this ain't your momma's 3D engine, this is Doom III.

Enter the Doom III Engine

I  sit spellbound as the demo begins and the reality of this new engine hit me like a ton of bricks. The engine looks fully developed, the backgrounds are made at nearly the same refresh rate as the foregrounds. The frame rate is amazing, and the motion is phenomenal. They didn't overlook any possible scenario for making it a flawless digital recreation. The facials of the characters are dead on and the features move as if it was a live person. The movement became a bit jumpy at times, but no more then fractions of a second. The designers paid special attention to the shadows, as well as extraordinarily natural lighting, as this might be considered the crucial aspect of this 3D code. The engine is capable of calculating (rendering) an enormous amount of different light sources and their shadows as they interact with each other, which makes the 3D scenes far more life-like than ever before. Besides the amazing lighting and shadows, the engine also supports some highly appealing bump-mapping effects (all the textures are modeled), which, when combined with the "natural" lighting, form a fantastic combination of technology and pure cinematic quality, fit for an eerie horror game with high emphasis on monsters leaping from the shadows and subtle dynamics of the face / facial expressions. The poly count is very high by today's standards, but it's the new tricks that are making the difference.

What About the Gameplay?

This game will be unbe-fucking-lievable.  Especially for the big fans of id products. Not being a rabid id fan I was still extremely impressed with the quality of the demo. The monsters are amazing in the way they are built and move. Many of them are 'interactive,' speaking to your player character and snarling. They are also a lot more difficult to kill then before. The blood level on this game will be very high. In fact, I think I saw more blood in the first five minutes then I have in any game in years. And I played Silent Hill! The action is intense and real, and even though the general plot looks as if it will fall in line with DI/DII (in fact, DOOM III might even be considered a remake of the original), I was surprised how little I cared. These aren't cerebral experiences, these are cathartic experiences. I was somewhat dismayed to find the Satanism factor a bit low during the demo, but I do recall that the opening levels of Doom are traditionally set in more technological settings. I will venture a guess that the demonic portion will rise significantly before the final release. I also enjoyed how the enemies seemed to learn your gameplay quickly. Forcing you to change strategies quickly to avoid a bloody and painful death/evisceration.

Still, I should mention here that this game will gameplay-wise be far different from your average FPS shooter. As I said, the engine is more about subtlety than raw power, and in a way (I mean it's not just about how many gallons of blood is spilled) the gameplay will be, too. Horror games shouldn't be just a collection of frantic action sequences, and since DOOM III is generally a horror game, Carmack and co. have paid special attention to keep the number of enemies down, thus intensifying the cinematic feel and the suspense you get by being all alone in a dark and intricate game world.

I enjoyed the scare value and the intense gore. I noted also that this game may end up highly criticized due to heavy violent content. Or, to put it another way, Senator Lieberman and Steven Limbaugh are REALLY gonna hate this. Oh and one more thing for you to dwell on. The end of the demo has the baddie tear your head while you look on in first person mode. Then, he eats it.

OK, so the gameplay might not be all about subtlety...