steve kwan user experience designer

Doom 3

(August 14th, 2004)

I just finished Doom 3, and man, was it quite the game.

While far from being the best game I've ever played, it has amazing graphics...the screenshots do not do it justice. It's been said before, but if you want to fully appreciate this game, you have to see it in action.

The lighting is scary-realistic. This is the first game I can think of where the enemies seem to be part of the game's environment, rather than simply painted on top of it. For example, Painkiller has excellent graphics, but the enemies just look awkward; while they are rendered in tremendous detail, because of the lackluster lighting they just don't fit in with the world around them. In other words, Painkiller still looks like a video game. In Doom 3, on the other hand, the lighting is so effective that the enemies blend right into their surroundings. Being a horror thriller, this level of detail makes Doom 3 pretty scary. When an Imp ignites a fireball (see the image below) and the entire room flickers from darkness to orange light, it's quite terrifying. When you turn on your flashlight to find an enemy staring right at you, it's also terrifying. Most of Doom 3 is pretty terrrifying. The game comes with a card advising you to play the game with the lights off and the volume cranked. While that might sound like a pretentious note to put into your game package, it really does makes a scary game that much scarier.

Painkiller Photo taken from GamersHell

Doom 3 Photo taken from GamersHell

Doom 3 is finally out on the shelves. Now I'm wondering if Half-Life 2 is going to be able to raise the graphics bar even higher.