Ok, one thing I must stress right away is that the atmosphere of this game is simply brilliant. The Mars base feels so claustrophobic that you can feel it get under your skin. id have paid a staggering amount to detail - like the e-mails on the PDAs you pick up, the overenthusiastic tone of the UAC promotional videos - all of it just works together to make it all the more creepier. From the Half Life-esque beginning to the part where the shit hits the fan, the tension builds up admirably. With this kind of atmosphere, and these hyper-realistic graphics, you could easily have the scariest game ever.

Unfortunately, Doom 3 doesn't get to claim that title. There are gamers who have no problem admitting they pissed their pants playing System Shock 2 or the Shalebridge Cradle mission in Thief: Deadly Shadows, laughing at those who got frightened playing Doom 3.

This is not to say that the game isn't scary - it definitely has quite a few jump-off-your-seat moments. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the scares rely on cheap tricks that demean the game - imps spawning behind you, zombies from secret chambers coming for you when you pass some invisible trigger, doors opening to reveal a critter poised to lunge at you - a certain predictability sets in after a while. Bleh.

Most of the zombies and demons are well designed, and only the skeleton with the rocket shoulder pads is downright comical. The mid-game boss in Hell is pretty good, but the final boss is a bit of a let-down (especially when you consider that the buildup in the final level is awesome).

Weapons are mostly revised versions of the classic Doom loadout, with a few minor additions - namely, the handgrenades and the machinegun. Some work, like the plasma gun - others are just disappointing. The shotgun (whose predecessor is widely acknowledged to be one of the best weapons ever in a game ), while very effective with dealing with imps and critters at close quarters, has a gunshot report like someone slammed a door real hard. Seriously wussy.

Now, combat - unloading a shotgun into the face of a zombie or an imp is satisfying. And having a shootout with a squad of possessed soldiers is also fun - however, it feels really out-of-place when you hear them communicating tactics over the radio (another HL touch).

It also seems that id tried to make sure that there would be plenty of fumbling for the right weapon in tight situations. The flashlight issue has been widely discussed (I used the 'Duct Tape' mod that fixes a flashlight with a narrower cone of vision to my shotgun and machinegun - made the game a whole lot less frustrating, and didn't make it any less spooky), but I've also got to bring up the grenades. IMO, there should always be a separate key for lobbing a grenade while still holding your weapon - it gives combat a much more fluid nature. Halo had it, and Remedy learned their lesson with Max Payne 2. If id intended that you fumble for grenades in the heat of battle to make it more 'interesting', then it's just another cheap trick.

Again, towards the latter half of the game, combat becomes noticeably repetitive and predictable. It's like, 'Ok, this is a cul-de-sac with the spare door panel I need to open Lab A sitting at the far end, and as soon as I pick it up, the demon 'guardians of the spare door panel' are bound to spawn and try to kick my ass, so what weapon should I use?'

One feature used here that I'd really like to see used in other games is the interaction with control terminals and the like. Whenever you look at anything with which you can interact (ie, have it relatively centered in the screen) such as medstations, control panels or humans, you lower your gun and a cursor replaces the crosshair, so you can use the left mouse (fire button) to activate it. This is really intuitive, though it helps that the graphics and textures are so hi-res that you can read the panels from your default view. That's one thing that helps keep you in the game - when you're punching a code into a numpad lock, you're doing it in your regular view, there's no huge numpad that pops up and fills the screen.

Even the level progression I found to be a little off. While I'm definitely glad that they had the final levels on Mars itself, I'd be happier if we had only been given glimpses of Hell, rather than have to visit it. And the Alpha Labs and Delta Labs section were terribly tedious. Nowhere near as bad as Halo's 'Library' mission, but pretty drawn out, all the same. IMO, the game opens strong and ends strong (Caverns and Excavation were pretty great), but there's some so-so stuff in the middle.

But I would've really loved to have some well placed firefights with a small band of space marines versus the demons. There are some scenes in the game where you're following this tiny sentry drone to your destination, and it OWNS every demon it comes across in a matter of seconds. Now, if that was so much damn fun, my scenario would rule! I know it's not 'in the spirit of Doom' to have any assistance, but it would've served id much better if they had kept possession of their nads, and put it in if it made the game better. Doom 3 doesn't feel like either of its predecessors, anyway.

Ah, maybe I'm being too hard on them, and they just couldn't handle all those polys at the same time. All in all, it's a good game if you've got the rig for it, but a far cry from what it should've been.

Developer: id software

Publisher: id software, Activision, Aspyr Media

Platforms: PC, Xbox