One scene, where you are led
through a maze of burned out generators by a lone survivor from the
laboratory with a lamp sticks in our minds. The contrast of the bright light
bobbing ahead of you and the utter darkness on every side, no doubt seething
with demons, is amazing and terrifying.
Fear and loathing - The Atmosphere and
plot
This is where Doom 3 comes into
its own as an experience. The corridors of Mars City are claustrophobic, poorly
lit and teeming with machinery that smokes and sparks and rumbles with a life of
it's own. Take the fact that the darkness just around the corner is teeming with
lurking enemies hoping to tear you limb-from-limb, and you have a game that
screams to be played with the lights way down and the sound way up, in full 5.1
surround.
While the early levels are
composed of standard (if brilliantly realized) space/industrial hallways and
rooms, the environment later gives way to something altogether more alien and
Doom-like.
There is a plot here, though it
takes a backseat to the overall atmosphere, which remains the star of the show.
As expected from a game of this genre, the plot plays out through cut scenes
scattered through the levels and through bits and pieces of information you
glean from exploration. Your actual goals on each level are simple and boil down
to finding this key card or that button, nothing to distract you from the actual
game, but pieced together well enough that you always have a sense of where you
are going and why.
Throughout the game you will
find abandoned PDAs whose contents you can download to your own pocket computer.
The TAB key brings up the PDA interface, which is very nicely executed.
From this screen you can review
the email and audio logs of the (deceased) owners of the aforementioned PDAs you
found, as well as the occasional video file. The audio logs are the most
compelling of these, and are extremely well realized and acted. As a nice touch,
you can start an audio log and close your PDA screen while continuing to listen.
Wandering through an abandoned base with a dead man's voice in your head,
jumping at shadows… We haven't had a gaming experience like this for a long
time.
Through the audio logs and
email, as well as the cut scenes, a picture of the plot starts to develop,
though you will probably have a good idea of the protagonists right from the
start of the game.
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