Hey everyone, welcome to another installment of First Impressions. Today we're going to take a look at a upcoming remastered edition of a FPS classic: Doom 3: BFG Edition.
The original Doom 3 was released at August 3, 2004. At the time, it was dark, scary, had a creepy atmosphere, and creepy monsters appearing where you least expect it. The game had really good reviews from both critics and gamers saying that it was one of the best FPS games that was released that year. However, Doom 3 is not a household name compared to other classic FPS games. Why is that? Well, I'm going to give you reasons why I think so.
1. There was another FPS game that was released a few months after Doom 3 that took the world by storm. Everyone that I knew played that FPS game 50x more than Doom 3,even after the next installment was released 3 years later. What FPS game was that?
That's right: Halo 2. Despite the crappy ending, Halo 2 had gotten everything right. The cool weapons, the different levels, the memorable characters, and, of course, the multiplayer aspect. Doom 3 did have multiplayer, both local and online, but Halo 2 was not only 10x better, but the most popular online multiplayer game of XBOX Live. When the online multiplayer was about to shut down for good in April 2010, the last games on XBOX Live lasted for weeks. If you're wondering why not a lot of people talk about Doom 3 as much, it's partly because of Halo 2. It made Doom 3 overlooked.
2. Doom 3 didn't have the spark from its predecessors. The game didn't take place in Hell, like the previous games. It took place in an space station that was located in Mars. While I did say that the game had a dark, creepy atmosphere, that's one of the major flaws of the game. The gameplay had the main character walk around the space station with his flashlight. It becomes very dark without it and you could barely see your surroundings. When an alien creature goes after you, you have to switch between your weapons and the flashlight. That stops the game flow fairly often and it becomes old really fast. The creepy atmosphere with the killer aliens was done to its full potential with the Dead Space series.
The weapons are also a flaw. While it is true that the same weapons that are used inDoom 3 were used in the previous games, you have to understand this. FPS games came a long way after Doom 2 was released. Golden Eye 64 reimagined what a next gen FPS game was and Halo brought out the popularity of the FPS genre to the mainstream audience. It also brought us different weapons to play around with: The Needle Gun, The Energy Sword, the different grenades, you get the idea. Doom 3 just seemed a bit dated with its weapon choice. They weren't memorable, with the exception of the BFG. It had your typical shotgun, machine gun, rocket launcher, etc. It seems that we were a bit spoiled with the different variety of weapons that we have gotten over the years, so it was kind of a letdown that id Software didn't give us any new toys to take down evil baddies.
Also, the game didn't take place in Hell like in the previous version. While we did play a level of Hell in the finally, it wasn't enough. Surprisingly, Hell isn't used as much in video games, even today. It was a lost opportunity to show the Doom series for a new generation and that's a real shame. If we had more time on hell on Doom 3, then it would have done a bit better with the setting.
Now id Software is going to try to give it another go with releasing Doom 3 again on the XBOX 360 and PS3 for a newer generation. It was said that they're going to fix all the flaws from the original, including the switching between the flashlight and the weapons. That's all gone now, thank God. The main character is going to be wearing armor that's mounted with the flashlight. Also included are a checkpoint save station, new levels, three new weapons, new enemies, a new expansion pack called The Lost Mission, and new online multiplayer. Not to mention that the game will include both Doom, Doom 2, and Doom 3: The Resurrection of Evil as playable features similar to the Splatterhouse remake did with including the original Splatterhouse trilogy.
I'm really excited about this, but I'm really disappointed that id Software did this reboot instead of giving us Doom 4. It was mentioned at Quakecon 2007 and we're still waiting for it. I know that John Carmack had said time and time again that Doom 4 will come out soon, but let's not hope that it gets overhyped and underwhelming like Duke Nukem Forever. Let's just hope that this gives id Software the push that it needs to rise back to the top again like they were in the 90's. Here's the trailer for your enjoyment.
Will Doom 3: BFG Edition be in your list of games to buy this year? Are you excited about this reveal or not?
That's all for now. Hope to see you around Old School Lane real soon. Take care.
-Patricia
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