Doom 3

Doom 3 CD Box

Doom 3 is a sci-fi horror first-person shooter computer game developed by id Software and published by Activision.

Set in 2145 in the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC) research center on Mars, it is a reimagining of the original Doom, with a completely new game engine and graphics.

The game was developed for Windows and ported to Linux in 2004; five months later, it was also released for Mac OS X (ported by Aspyr) and Xbox (co-developed by Vicarious Visions). The Xbox version is graphically similar to (although less detailed than) the original and features an additional two-player online co-operation mode. An expansion, Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil, developed by Nerve Software and co-developed by id Software, was released on April 4, 2005. A Doom movie, loosely based on the franchise, was released roughly six months later on October 21, 2005.

Doom 3 is not as “run and gun” as its predecessors, but focuses on atmosphere and graphics. It received a positive reception when finally released, but it was criticized mainly for using clichéd horror effects.

Plot

Hell is near

The protagonist is once again a nameless space marine. As it just so happens, he gets shipped to the UAC Mars research facility with Councilor Swann and his bodyguard Jack Campbell on the same day all Hell breaks loose. Within minutes of the invasion, the main military units are destroyed or zombified. It is once again upon the player to stop the forces of Hell from reaching Earth.

The first cutscene displays Swann saying how fed up he is to Campbell about being sent to Mars to check security. Swann says to Campbell he is “…tired of doing damage control every time [he] screws up.” Swann is later seen arguing with the head research scientist in Delta Labs, Dr. Betruger, saying there are too many incidents happening throughout the base, along with frightened employees and rumors of what is happening in Delta Labs.

The player's first mission, assigned to him by Master Sergeant Kelly, aka “Sarge”, is to find a missing scientist named Jonathan Ishii that was said to be seen at the old communications facility. When found, he babbles about sending out a warning - “The Devil is real. I know. I built his cage.” With those words, Hell erupts from the gateways, sending a shockwave through the complex, along with glowing pentagrams and scores of evil ghost skulls that zombify nearly every human they come into contact with, including Ishii.

Changes from original Doom

Similar to the story of the original Doom, the game focuses on the marine who is transferred to Mars and sent out on a routine mission, and who needs to kill zombies and demons from Hell. The main difference is that in Doom 3, the game takes place on Mars itself, instead of Phobos and Deimos, where the first two episodes of the original Doom take place. The environment of Doom 3 is much more realistic; whereas the original Doom gives the two moonlets Earthlike gravity and breathable atmospheres, Doom 3 takes place in the weaker gravity of Mars, and Mars' atmosphere is depicted accurately as unbreathable.

In both cases, the protagonist visits Hell. In the original Doom, it is the third episode Inferno (Ultimate Doom adds a fourth, Thy Flesh Consumed, which also takes place in Hell), whereas in Doom 3, it is only one level, but Doom 3's one Hell level is much longer and more intense than the others, and has a boss.

For Doom 3 id Software employed a professional science-fiction writer named Matthew Castello to write the script and assist in story-boarding the entire game. id Software focused on retelling the story and creating a tense horror atmosphere. The game's events and atmosphere show a great deal of influence from George Romero's Living Dead series and James Cameron's Aliens, as well as Valve Software's Half-Life.

Unlike in previous id games, there are now cut scenes that give purpose and context for the player's actions and introduction to new enemies. Similar to other science fiction action/horror games such as System Shock, System Shock 2 and Aliens versus Predator 2, hundreds of text, voice, and video messages are scattered throughout the base. The messages are internal e-mails and audio reports sent between lab workers, administrators, maintenance staff, and security personnel at the Mars base. The messages explain the background story, show the feelings and concern of the people on the Mars base and reveal information related to plot and gameplay. Video booths and televisions give planetary news, corporate propaganda, visitor information and technical data about the base.

The story of Doom 3 surrounds the discovery of ancient ruins underneath Martian soil. Tablets found at these sites record how an ancient Martian race developed a form of teleporter technology. They realized an important fact all too late, however; the route the teleporter took passed through Hell. Quickly invaded by demons, this alien race created and sacrificed themselves to a weapon known as the Soul Cube. This cube, powered by the souls of almost every being of this alien race, was used by their strongest warrior to defeat and contain the demons in Hell.

Having done so, the remainder of the alien race constructed warnings to any who visited Mars, warning them not to recreate this technology; to avoid opening another gate to Hell. They then teleported to an unknown location, fleeing Mars; there are hints that at least some of them fled to Earth, and that humans descended from them. It's stated that the demons once inhabited Earth in an unknown context, but lost possession of it due to an unknown cause. Consequently, the demons want to reclaim Earth.

Development

In June 2000, John Carmack posted a plan [2] announcing the start to a remake of Doom using next generation technology. This plan revealed controversy had been brewing within id over the decision.

Kevin Cloud and Adrian Carmack, two of id Software's owners, were always strongly opposed to remaking Doom. They thought that id was going back to the same old formulas and properties too often. However, after the warm reception of Return to Castle Wolfenstein and the latest improvements in rendering technology, most of the employees agreed that a remake was the right idea and confronted Kevin and Adrian with an ultimatum: "Allow us to remake Doom or fire us" (including John Carmack). After the reasonably painless confrontation (although artist Paul Steed, one of the instigators, was fired in retaliation),[2] the agreement to work on Doom 3 was made.

The game was in development for 4 years. In 2001, it was first shown to the public at Macworld Conference & Expo in Tokyo [3] and was later demonstrated at E3 in 2002, where a 15-minute gameplay demo was shown in a small theater. It won five awards at E3 that year.

Some speculated that id software was targeting the 2002 holiday season, although others believed a 2003 release date would be more realistic. After E3, there was no further press release from id Software regarding the project; the company's website only had Return to Castle Wolfenstein as the latest game. Late in 2002, a couple of employees at ATI Technologies leaked a development version of Doom 3 onto the Internet.[4]

Next year, a new trailer was shown at E3 2003 and soon afterwards the id software homepage was updated to showcase Doom 3 as an upcoming project but it was also announced that Doom 3 would not be ready for the 2003 holiday season. According to some comments by John Carmack, the development took longer than expected. Originally, the game was planned for release around the same time as another highly anticipated game, Half-Life 2, in Christmas 2003. Doom 3, Half-Life 2, and Halo 2 were considered among the most anticipated games since their announcements in 2001/2002, though all three of them would not make the planned 2003 holiday season.

Doom 3 achieved gold status on July 14, 2004, and a Mac OS X release was confirmed the next day on July 15, 2004. Doom 3 was released in the U.S. on August 3, 2004. Additionally, a Linux version was released on October 4, 2004. Due to high demand, the game was made available at select outlets at midnight on the date of release. The game was released to the rest of the world on August 13, 2004 (except for Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union, where official localisation was delayed and caused the game to be released about four months later, on December 10, 2004).

Two days before its official release, Doom 3 was released by pirate groups onto the Internet. As the game's focus is its single player mode, the need for a valid retail serial number for online multiplayer gaming was a weak deterrent against piracy.

Gameplay

Doom 3’s gameplay was not as fast paced as the games before it. Most of the game is extremely dark, and there is no Light amplification visor. Instead the player must rely on a flashlight that can only be used in place of a weapon. There are few tactics involved other than grabbing the biggest weapons.

Much of the game takes place in dark close-quarters with demons ambushing from every direction. By contrast the Hell section of the game is considered by many to be the best, as it features more open areas and makes use of unique effects.

Difficulty

Difficulty	g_skill	Damage
Recruit	0	75%
Marine	1	90%
Veteran	2	170%
Nightmare	3	350%

There are four difficulty levels in Doom 3: Recruit, Marine, Veteran, and Nightmare. The first three are always available. On Recruit difficulty, there are fewer monsters, but it is a negligible amount. The principal difference between the difficulties is the amount of damage the player receives. The chart on the right indicates the amount of damage the player will receive on each difficulty level, relative to the definition files (.def).

Upon completion of a campaign regardless of difficulty level, the player unlocks the "Nightmare" difficulty setting. When playing the game on this setting, the player's health falls in 5-point increments at 5-second intervals until it reaches 25, where it remains steady. Additionally, there are absolutely no medkits throughout the game; the only means of procuring health is either by the health stations, which are still operational, or use of the Soul Cube, which is given to the player at the very start of the game.

The difficulty setting can be controlled by the controllable variable, g_skill. The damage changes take effect immediately, but a map restart or change is necessary for the rest. For example, if a player begins the level on Recruit difficulty and then enters g_skill 3 in the console, immediately their health will begin its drop to 25 and they will receive Nightmare damage. However, the Soul Cube is not given, medkits remain in the level, and the amount of monsters does not increase.

Weapons

Most of Doom 3's weapons are updated versions of the classic weapons, but those marked with an asterisk are new additions to the series.

Monsters

See main article: Doom 3 Monsters.

References to Classic Doom

See main article: References to Classic Doom in Doom 3.

Final Storyline

Spoiler Warning: Plot details follow.

In a later cutscene, Swann is seen in a video phone conference with Betruger who is rather calm about the situation. Betruger claims the situation is under control. After deciding on whether to alert the orbital fleet, Betruger addresses you over a computer screen and says that once the fleet arrives, his legion will take the ships back to Earth, thus revealing that he commands the monsters that have overrun the base.

Later in the game, the player runs into a colleague of Betruger, who says that he became obsessed with the teleporters when he figured out Hell existed on the other side. He says he took an artifact called the Soul Cube from the archaeological digs from the ancient Martian civilization into Hell, and demons followed him out.

The player never meets up with the remaining Marines, save for one they meet in a cutscene who dies in the same cutscene, and only reach Swann and Campbell on their deathbeds. Swann was badly injured, and Campbell went on to hunt Sarge. Swann says that Kelly has turned evil and is now on Betruger’s side. After killing Sarge, the player finds an archaeologist, who explains that the Soul Cube must be used to stop the demon invasion.

After entering the Primary Dig Site, the player discovers a section of Hell that has creeped into the Martian underground and deep within the bowels of this Hellscape, they encounter the invulnerable Cyberdemon guarding a “Hell hole” — a portal to Hell. Defeating the Cyberdemon, which is only possible with the charged Soul Cube, the Cube seals the Hell hole and the game ends, leaving many questions unanswered.

Spoilers end here.

Levels

Most of these maps are quite large and typically require 1+ hours each on a player's first run through the game.

Xbox Port

The Xbox version was sold in both a standard case, as well as a special edition sold in a metal case. The metal case edition had several extras—interviews, G4’s Icons Doom episode, early artwork, and the full versions of Ultimate Doom and Doom II. The Xbox Collectors edition includes two more levels, one in Ultimate Doom (E1M10: Sewers) and one in Doom II (MAP33: Betray).

The Xbox version graphically inferior to the PC version and splits many levels up into separate parts due to console limitations. Nonetheless, most reviewers were impressed, considering that its NV2A graphics processor (equivalent to an Nvidia GeForce 3) was a generation behind the recommended video cards (ATI Radeon 9700 and GeForce 4 Ti) for the PC version. The NV2A processor was what distinguished the Xbox from the PlayStation 2 and GameCube, the latter two consoles were not considered for a Doom 3 port due to insufficient hardware.

The Xbox version has added co-op play, which required the modification of levels, such as widening corridors to comfortably accomodate a second player.

This version is compatible with Xbox 360.

Xbox Controls

Left Thumbstick: Move

Right Thumbstick: Look

Click & Hold Left Thumbstick: Crouch

Click & Hold Right Thumbstick: Zoom

A: Jump

B: Previous Weapon

X: Reload

Y: Next Weapon

Left Trigger: Sprint

Right Trigger: Action

White (LB for 360): Equip/Unequip Flashlight

Black (RB for 360): PDA/Multiplayer Score

Start: Pause

Back: Save/Ready

The D-Pad arrows serve as hotkeys to select weapons instead of cycling through every weapon in inventory. Four weapons can be assigned. The weapon assigned to each arrow is customizable.

Trivia

The Doom community long predicted a sequel to Doom II, usually referring to it as Doom 2000. Some speculation is recorded in this Doomworld mailbag from 1998-08-18.
TimeSplitters: Future Perfect parodied the Doom 3 audio logs in the level What Lies Below. In this level, Cortez can access a scientists’ personal audio log, which contains his locker code (or, at the very least, several three-digit numbers which he believes are his locker combination).
The character of Dr. Reinhard in Evil Dead: Regeneration may be a parody of Dr. Betruger. Both share a similar physical appearance, including a solid white eye. Both men also started out good but turned evil when tempted by the forces of Hell.
A terminal after returning to Mars from Hell displays a red screen. An email can be downloaded from this terminal, containing a rather tongue-in-cheek message written by the Hell demons on proper human sacrifice techniques.
In the final room before the Cyberdemon encounter, a small Id Software logo can be found on one of the bricks in a corner. Approaching this turns the crosshair into a mouse arrow as would happen if the player approached a terminal. Clicking this opens a secret room which contains a PDA. Picking this PDA up downloads special "thank you" messages from the iD software staff.
The large Hell Gate that is present on the menu selection screen resembles the Stargate from the movie/television Stargate franchise, with the constellation markings replaced by runes.
The name 'Dr. Betruger' has a strong similarity to the German word 'Betrüger' which means 'traitor'.

Mods

The Classic Doom for Doom 3 mod replays Knee-Deep in the Dead but with the new Doom 3 engine.
The Last Man Standing mod enables cooperative play, and introduces a new gametype.

Other mods for Doom 3 include: [1]

A mod that puts lights on the weapons (but which are less effective than the flashlight)
A mod that prevents the bodies of the monsters you killed from disappearing [2]
A mod that makes the Cyberdemon at the end of the game vulnerable to weapons other than the Soul Cube
A mod that makes the game much easier to beat if having a hard time [3]

A mod featuring the Doom 3 weapons for Classic Doom source port ZDoom also exists. It includes several Doom 3 weapons (using sprite-based graphics and Decorate to recreate the weapon behaivour) except for the grenades and Soul Cube. The mod works with both Doom and Doom II, though the mod lacks the super shotgun when played with Doom II.

Expansion

See Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil

External links