I think a Doom game that leans more into a horror direction is not a bad idea, and could have worked given better execution.

First off, why is this called Doom 3? It is clearly a re-imagining/remake of the original doom, it uses the exact same weapons, uses the exact same enemies and is structured in a very similar way. Calling it Doom 3 seems almost misleading.

As a standalone action horror game Doom 3 does not hold a candle to the greats of the genre. The game loves spamming enemies in really hard to see locations, often behind you and after doors in order to attack you before you even get the chance to see them, this seems scary on paper. But in reality it has the opposite effect. Because health and armour is so common throughout the levels, and enemies don't do much damage, them constantly hitting you makes them seem like less of a threat. In RE4, the best action horror game, enemies won't actually hit you that often, but when they do they take off a fat chunk of your health, and healing items are a lot more scarce.

This is a very unoriginal game. I was constantly remined of other FPS games from the era, in a way which made me wish I was rather playing those games instead. Specifically Halo CE, with the reloading, the aesthetic and level design of the Mars Base and the look and feel of the weapons. Deus Ex with the reading of employees emails and the story of the game. And most of all Half-Life, which this game is practically a copy-paste of.

The most interesting thing about this game is the lighting. The game will often have sections that are practically pitch black and the flashlight is a separate item, meaning you can't see and shoot at the same time. This has it's moments, and is the closest the game comes to actually being a decent horror experience, but to be honest I found this more annoying than scary most of the time.

On the positive side the section in Hell kicks ass and the new designs for the demons are great.

I guess sometimes there's a reason barely anyone talks about certain games. Doom 3 is unfortunately boring as fuck and if it wasn't called Doom 3 even less people would be talking about it.

Maybe it was a great game back then, but not anymore. I mean, It is still good, yet there are System shock2, F.E.A.R, Dead space nowdays. We`ve seen this industrial space environment with body horror and creatures so much.

P.S. I beat the female spider boss, got a plasma gun met lost souls and shutdown the reactor in Doom3.

Then I uninstalled it.

Played about two hours of it and uninstalled. I get what they were trying to do, with a weird combination of half life and halo / resident evil? It doesn't really work and it's just not what I'd want from a doom game.
The best part about this game is how often they try to scare you, to the point where it's funny. You can't walk 3 feet in this game without something trying to kill you.
If doom 2016 is "the monsters are trapped in hell with you" this is "the monsters will rip you in half and you're a bitch"

I feel like there was a period in time when Id was trying to push DOOM as a brand into the horror genre. The PlayStation port of the original Doom featured slightly darker graphics and famously took out all of the original music, replacing it with a tense atmospheric drone. Doom 64 would later come along and do something similar.

But the culmination in trying to play up the horror of Doom is clearly Doom 3.

Indeed, my earliest memories of Doom 3 involve renting the 2005 Doom movie on DVD, and if playing inside your Xbox would gain you access to the game's demo. This would then involve me and my friends daring each other to play it late at night and in the dark.

But playing it today the main things about Doom 3 that are horribly dated are its horror elements. It honestly feels like baby's first survival horror game. So much of the game is you wandering into an empty corridor or hallway, the lights flicker off and out pops a demon (typically Imp #112). It gets old relatively quick. The darkness was a consistent issue for players, and not being able to hold a gun and flashlight at the same time is a classic blunder (thankfully newer editions have rectified that).

But my biggest issue with Doom 3 is still its pacing. Unlike the previous Doom games where you'd get introduced to tougher enemies and trickier puzzles as the game picks up, Doom 3 plays a lot of its cards early and just kind of spins its wheels, making it kind of a slog to play the entirety of. That is until we get to Hell, and the game ramps up from there. Its for this reason I actually prefer the original Xbox port of the game, overseen by Vicarious Visions. A slightly condensed version that may have chunks cut out of it, but does result in a tighter paced version of the same game.

While the game's constant attempts to scare the player now come off as cheap and overdone, its atmosphere is still strong. You do get a genuine sense of isolation and that you're the only human left alive. Even when you occasionally come across another human character they very quickly become demon chow. And arguably more than any other installment in the franchise, Doom 3 really plays up the Hell factor of it all. At the time I honestly had never seen so much dark satanic imagery shoved into a game.

So the game is kind of a mixed bag, and is the weak link of the Doom franchise, but I do find myself returning to it every number of years or so and usually have a decent time with it.

When I tried to play it when I was a kid, I gave up because I was too scared. When I started playing it many years later, I realized that it wasn't that scary, but the game really tries too hard to be unnecessarily scary. It's like the whole game is just jumpscare. Extremely dark places and enemies jumping out to attack you. It's annoying because they spread it throughout the whole game. The Doom series is all about action. Only in this game they tried to be a horror game and failed. Another annoying part is the attacks by armed enemy soldiers. If you give them the chance, they can kill you in an endless cycle of bullets without even giving you a chance to attack. This game needs a remastered version. BFG version is no different from the original game. The game is sadly too old to be played.

Hm, it seems as though I haven’t played enough fps games…well I guess another doom game wouldn’t hurt. And anyway, I have ps plus and they always put some of the best games on their subscription service, just like Microsoft. I’m sure this is not just gonna be a pretty pissy version of half-life with a few things from doom shoved in there. Unfortunately, it was a pretty pissy version of half-life with a few things from doom shoved in there.

You play as ‘marine’ as you are forced to go through a research facility and destroy the demons from hell. It’s basically doom 1 again but with a hd lick of paint and…yeah. In fact, if you really broke it down…it’s basically half-life. You go through a big research facility, help certain scientists to proceed, and then have to go into hell to destroy the final set of demons. It’s not interesting in the slightest and it comes across as just ‘ooo what if we tried to do what half-life was doing’ and ‘let’s make the next big revolutionary fps game’ but it just doesn’t work in the slightest. Nothing about the plot screams ‘revolutionary’ and only feels like a very very big copy. Oh well maybe the gameplay can scratch my good fps gameplay itch…never mind.

So you have most of the weapons you had from the original doom games. You have the classic pistol, machine gun, shotgun, Chaingun, chainsaw, plasma gun, rocket launcher, and the bfg. And we have grenades as well I guess. The weapons aren’t necessarily bad but like, let me explain it simply. So in the original doom games, you would be stuck with the pistol if you died at points. Now, even with the pistol, it was still a pretty good weapon. In doom 3? If you even kill one enemy with the pistol after a few levels I’d be impressed. The game just makes the earlier weapons feel completely unusable and pushes you to use more beefier weapons which is great and all…but the ammo runs out very very quickly. So whether you like it or not, you are gonna have to use some earlier weapons.

The level design also feels very uninteresting. Remember the differently coloured keys you got in the earlier doom games which would open up doors to new areas? They stuck out quite a lot when you were playing and felt just as important as your weapons and health/armour upgrades. What’s the more ‘realistic’ replacement for those? The most basic pieces of dog shit I’ve ever seen. You now have these crappy little entry passes which are the same coloured and don’t stick out like they used to. They aren’t even put in interesting places, they are, 80% of the time, put on a control panel next to a body and it just feels…lazy. When you were playing the original doom games they would be given to you in an interesting place which you usually had to solve a small ish puzzle to get to. Here it’s just, blast a few enemies and it’s right there. Earlier doom games had smart levels, doom 3 has the dumbest things I’ve ever had the pleasure of sitting through. It’s not even like it didn’t have the potential to have some good level design. There was one level which actually really felt like a classic doom level. Whereby there was a berserk orb and everything. But after that small glimpse of hope. The game just began falling very very flat.

By the time I got half-way through, I was already getting extremely bored of the same old gameplay and shitty story beats. The only thing I can truly say is pretty good about the game is the lighting. For an original Xbox game it does have some impressive lighting. But, lighting is not gonna carry the shitty gameplay, weak and boring plot, basic music (if there even is any), and repetitive enemy designs that just make me lose it. They could’ve done something really good and they just decided to piss on what was a great and meaningful franchise.

Terrible story, ok ish gameplay for a little while, barely any music that sticks out, good lighting?, repetitive enemy design, no interesting mechanics, fuck those skeleton pieces of shit

DOOM 3 is the ugly duckling of the doom franchise, its slow has a horror focus, RELOADING, its the worst rated in the franchise so far, so why do i like it so much? its atmosphere is amazing and i'm always scared shitless at the edge of my seat, wondering if there will be a pinkie or a imp behind the next door, the new designs being more gory and body horror-esque, the fact that you have to chose between a flashlight or a gun at any given time is horrifying, you can either see but not shoot or shoot but not see, and the slow decent from the top public level of the base to the seedy underbelly you weren't meant to see, to the gates of hell themselves where the game starts to feel more like a classic doom game.

absolutely wild that i hear no-one talking about this game, it clearly laid so much of the groundwork for Doom 2016 and Eternal in terms of how to design a true 3D doom game. I love the atmosphere and environmental design here, as well as the killer sound design. I can see why people don't like it as much as the other games though; the shooting is pretty repetitive and the enemy variety leaves a lot to be desired gameplay wise. It also feels more like a half-life game than a doom game in a lot of ways, probably because it came out just afterwards. Point is despite how slow-paced and clunky this game is compared to the newer instalments it has a lot going for it imo