The folks at iD Software have brought the hallowed horror of “Doom 3” to Xbox. While essentially the same game as the celebrated PC masterpiece, it is not a mere “port job”; graphics, audio and control all feel innately Xbox.
As a first-person shooter (FPS) mostly confined to dim, dimmer or completely dark environments, game-play is as much about psychological terror as it is demonic, mutant horror, with mostly your guns or your flashlight to help you through (though an innate ability to decipher cryptic messages and a natural suspiciousness of anything that may harbor maniacal mutants help).
If you’re into suspending disbelief, dimming the lights and cranking the volume up, “Doom 3” can scare you senseless.
Then it lets you eliminate said scaries with a lawnmower-esque chain gun, an “eat- this” shotgun or, later, the immensely satisfying BFG 9000 and, lastly, the wonderfully apocalyptic Soul Cube.
Exclusive to the Xbox version of “Doom 3” is a two-player cooperative mode with which you and a split-screen buddy or disembodied online pal can play through the single-player game as a duo, with each level specially tweaked and balanced to ensure traumatic similitude to the lone-
Marine experience.
There’s also your standard clutch of online death-match modes for up to four free-for-allers which, while not exceptional, round out this must-have package quite solidly.
iD Software; Xbox; $49.99. Rating: Mature (17+) (blood and gore, intense violence)
Like a good PC expansion should, “Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil” contains all of the gaming goodness of the already-remarkable and replayable “Doom 3” and then adds half a metric ton of bonus goodness.
It’s a whole new chapter in the “Doom 3” horror story. It’s still set on Mars but a couple of years later and within the unexplored antique research facility known as “Site 1.”
It’s teeming with hell-spawn in no time, some familiar, some hideous versions of the familiar and some brand-new demons.
Naturally, you’re given a couple of new weapons (in addition to your old ones) to deal with the teleporting, cranny- crouching menace – a double- barreled shotgun and an “Ionized Plasma Levitator” that allows you to pick up and forcefully hurl most anything, including fireballs.
You absorb skills and powers of select “boss” enemies (specifically, the freakishly large “Hunters”) that empower you with moments of slow-mo rampaging, berserker rampaging or invulnerable rampaging.
Resurrection contains more online-multiplayer stuff, as well; more forgettable deathmatch schlock but also a brand-new and surpassingly delivered “Capture the Flag” mode that embraces the game’s shadowy nooks and dynamically lit crannies, allowing for team-based strategic assaults and defenses rather than mere running and multigunning.
iD Software; PC; $34.99. Rating: Mature (17+) (blood and gore, intense violence)
Top games
Top 10 rented games for the week ended April 10:
1. Doom 3, Xbox2
2. Grand Theft Auto: San
Andreas, PS2
3. Dragon Ball Z: Sagas, PS2
4. Gran Turismo 4, PS2
5. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory,
Xbox
6. Need for Speed: Underground
2, PS2
7. Star Wars: Republic
Commando, Xbox
8. Tekken 5, PS2
9. Mercenaries: Playground of
Destruction, Xbox
10. God of War, PS2
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