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.

Been my go to Halloween game to play annually for a few years now, because fewer games have ever embraced such a "Halloweeny" atmosphere as much as the original MediEvil (something certainly lost in the, in my opinion, far inferior MediEvil II).

Graveyards, zombies, scarecrows, shadow demons, skeleton pirates, killer pumpkins, wolves, minotaurs, imps, it really has it all.

The changes in the PS4 remaster are subtle but important, like most of the camera angles and platforming, which were things improved upon.

Definitely fits the bill of the overblown third part in a trilogy à la Matrix Revolutions, Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End, Dark Knight Rises etc.

Apparently in this one you play as a character who was totally present during the big events of the first two Modern Warfare games the whole time (which basically just acts as a greatest hits flashback). Weak ass storytelling.

Basically what I felt upon the game's original release - that it felt like the first COD that was just going through the motions.

The Call of Duty game that desperately wanted to make a pyromaniac out of you.

You get access to a flamethrower that never runs out and a tank that specifically spouts fire. Talk about satisfying.

It also introduced Nazi Zombies, which undeniably breathed an entirely new second life into the series.

Call of Duty 3 was Treyarch's first Call of Duty game and was rushed out a mere eight months after Infinity Ward's acclaimed Call of Duty 2, leading many critics and fans at the time to dismiss it as the disappointing and inferior follow-up.

Now, it is certainly worth pointing out that this was actually the first Call of Duty game I ever picked up. So this might just be the nostalgia talking, but I still think COD3 has some things going for it that make it one of the more underrated titles in the franchise.

For instance, it did show how much Treyarch wanted to put more emphasis on story than Infinity Ward typically does. COD3 features a lot more scripted story moments and side-characters with their own little personas and arcs. Sure it's all super cliched, but what the hell else did you think you were gonna get out of a COD storyline? Cornball WWII clichés just add to the charm in my opinion. We're dealing with writing where a dying sergeant tells his slightly disobedient private to burn in hell. Later on, another dying sergeant tells that same private "He was wrong about you... you're actually okay."

Glorious bullshit!

I will say that, being rushed out, the game has a certain unpolished look and feel to the whole thing. Glitches and clunky character animations up the wazoo. However, I'd argue the overall gunplay here feels even more fast paced and fluent than in the first two games. COD2 obviously improved on many things from the original game, but in COD3 mowing down rows and rows of Nazis never felt more satisfying (perhaps due to the heavier emphasis on ragdoll physics). Superior tank and vehicle sections as well.

I also like that while the first two games were all about featuring the real famous battles (Stalingrad, the Battle of the Bulge, D-Day), COD3 features some lesser known parts of the war like the Battle of Saint-Lô, the entire invasion of France, and the Canadian and Polish army's involvement in the war. Also a big bonus is the game's historical accuracy with all the different weaponry you're given with each new country you play in.