for being such a black sheep, you'd think it'd feel a hell of a lot less like doom!

sure, it's a more 64 oriented take than what most fans are comfortable with, but absolutely deserving of the moniker nonetheless; way more so than that qte-laden quake knockoff 2016 reboot, anyway

it's one thing not to like doom 3's pacing, corridor-driven structure and how it distributes enemies; it's another thing entirely to dismiss anything and everything designed outside shooter norms as "dated" - as if the lighting in this game isn't still impressive or completely and totally deliberate. that "duct tape" mod wasn't an ingenious feat of fan programming that fixed a broken aspect of a woefully mismanaged fps; it just went against the game's intended design

and call it a symptom of half life's popularity if you want; i feel the mars base introductory sequence is more atmospherically dense and to-the-point than black mesa could've dreamed to be. unlike quake 4, which has a lot narrative stop-and-go, the action in doom 3 is almost completely uninterrupted throughout. it's story-driven compared to its maze-y predecessors, but most of that happens via in-game radio chatter. never once did i ask myself "where's the next thing to shoot at?"

hell - if anything i'd say this may be the core doom experience to a fault. the way enemies are dispatched doesn't differ much from their DOS-based counterparts. there's a lot of strafing around projectiles and shotgun kissing. like - a lot. and that's great, but i'd be lying if i said i didn't get seriously tired of needing to back away from every door i opened to prevent getting jumped by an imp's otherwise unavoidable lunge attack. granted, this wasn't because it was cheap and unpredictable or whatever - much the opposite - all it took was running up to the guy when he stood up and blowing his ass away with a single shotgun blast

oh and since i've opened a can of controversy by even mentioning the shotgun, i'll just come out and say that it - along with pretty much every other weapon - is really good. yeah yeah, spread is bad, whatever. the maps are set up in small to medium sized corridors and arenas. so it's not hard to get up close and kill most enemies in a single shot. too far away? that's what your other weapons are for. i'm not sure where the strangely common ammo complaints come from either. i played on veteran and used most guns in equal measure (though i favored the shotgun and used the chainsaw religiously) and i often had max ammo for everything minus the bfg

my biggest problems with the game structurally, besides its oft stale monster closeting, are more retrospective than anything. the whole experience is lots of fun, but it ramps up so much more in the second half that i can't help but wonder why it doesn't get there sooner. why is so little time spent in hell and the nether regions of mars? why does the enemy variety take several hours to spontaneously expand beyond primarily shooting imps and marines?

i don't wanna mince words here: this is the best depiction of hell in the whole damn franchise. it's so grandiose, grim and genuinely fucking evil. the level design also feels much more in line with what i'd expect from a classic doom title and has brilliant lighting which forgoes any need to even use the flashlight. it's perfect but most of y'all probably didn't even see it because you dropped the game about six hours too soon

apparently resurrection of evil is a lot more akin to the second half so i'm expecting that to be great as well. whether i'll play that or prey 06 next, i'm not sure; what i am sure of is that id tech 4 goes hard and doom 3 is pretty fuckin' awesome. i'm not surprised to see that the common consensus of a post-quake id software game is wrong once again. at this point i probably wouldn't be surprised if rage was the best game ever

...did we all play the same game?

'cause generic soundtrack aside, i don't even need to hesitate - this is superior to quake ii in just about every way. sure, there's no rocket jumping, but that hardly matters in a corridor shooter; what's important is gunplay and Q2 wishes it had weapons half as good as these. the shotgun? nailgun? the fucking bfg that shoots black holes? get the hell out of town and don't let me see you here again

...that praise being said, i'll be damned if it doesn't put its shakiest leg first

unlike quake ii, the start here isn't slow because of its shooting - that feels fantastic from the get go - instead it's the aggressively invasive 'story' that's constantly trying to pull you from the action. let me shoot. the fucking. aliens! that's all i wanna do, man!!

"nah nah - i hear you", calls tim willits, newly appointed president of the Carmack Fan Club, "here, you can shoot again - in a turret section! and after that, ohoho, mission briefing!! and then - two more vehicle segments!!!"

with one swift motion i knock that shit out of his fucking hands. then i scream, "I JUST WANT TO SHOOT THE STROGG WITH MY SHOTGUN. THAT'S LITERALLY ALL I WANT TO DO. I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOUR SET PIECES (besides the mech one - that was pretty cool) OR YOUR SPACE MARINE STORY - I DON'T EVEN CARE THAT I COULD PERSONALLY WALK FASTER THAN MY CHARACTER WITH WEIGHTS STRAPPED TO MY LEGS. THE GUNS FEEL GOOD, TIM. PLEASE JUST LET ME USE THE FUCKING GUNS!!!!"

i think he took that bit about space marines harshly given the events that transpired shortly after, but all of my prayers had been answered nonetheless! no longer was i walking back and forth through areas i'd already visited just to report to some dumbass military man that the elevator got unjammed or steve blum #3 successfully completed filing his tax returns; i was actually playing the game - uninterrupted

when quake 4 gets its shit fully together after the first 1/3 or so, it shifts from stop-and-go into maximum overdrive. there's zero bad weapons, enemy types continue to vary enough (not to mention there's actually a couple decent bosses - a rarity for shooters) and ironically even the mission objectives become significantly more engaging when they're things you're doing and not just details off sgt. pvt. blum's shopping list

environments start looking a lot cooler too. Q2 toyed with body horror in small doses, but ravensoft went all-in here. call me simple, edgy, whatever - i think giant entrails breaching through space corridors and limbless (but still alive and wiggling) bodies being used as power supplies are pretty fucking rad. say what you will about id tech 4 - doom 3 looks fantastic and this is no different. hands down the most underrated shooter engine

misguided start aside, this is the best fps (barring quake 1, obviously) that i've played in a considerably long time. can't wait to receive matthew kane's next orders in quake 5!

wait fuck