Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil (Xbox)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 3.5 stars Very good
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 7.9 (3.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Jeff Gerstmann
• Reviewed on: 10/06/2005
• Released on: 10/05/2005
• Originally published on GameSpot: Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil (Xbox) Review

Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil is the expansion pack for Doom 3, which was released on the Xbox six months ago. That, in turn, was a port of the PC original, which was a classy first-person shooter from id Software that features some pretty amazing visuals to go along with its cut-to-the-chase shooting action. The expansion doesn't stray too far from the action of the original, but the new levels, new weapons, and increased focus on action make "more of the same" a fun little adventure.

ROE picks up the Doom 3 storyline two years after the conclusion of the previous game, and once again the story opens on the planet Mars. During a search for some sort of beacon signal deep within one of the planet's archaeological dig sites, a team of marines discovers a hidden chamber that contains a mysterious artifact. One marine touches it, setting off a chain reaction that wipes out the rest of his team and, as luck would have it, repaves the way for demons to transport from hell to Mars. You, as this new, nameless marine, then have to seek out some items that will help make sense of this new artifact and hopefully send it back to where it came from and seal the portals linking hell and the red planet.

You'll accomplish your goals by having a steady aim with a shotgun and by collecting and replacing a whole lot of power cells--basically keys--which you'll use to juice up various machines, doors, and more. The general flow of Doom 3 is intact here. You'll enter a new room, watch in horror as a few enemies appear, blast them with a variety of weaponry, and move on. That variety of weaponry is mostly pulled directly from Doom 3. You'll see the shotgun, machine gun, chaingun, rocket launcher, plasma gun, and BFG9000, for example. Doom 3 sticks to the same additional-weapon blueprint used to create Doom II, so you can now acquire a double-barreled shotgun that's good at ripping apart anything that gets close to you, but it's also very slow to reload.

Doom 3 gave you a flashlight, but you couldn't use the flashlight and a weapon at the same time, which got to be a little frustrating. ROE replaces the flashlight with a pistol that has a light on it. While this is a handy addition at first, the pistol is so weak that you'll still use it the same way as the old flashlight and quickly switch to a real weapon as soon as you spot trouble. You'll also get a gravity gun, called the grabber, which is pretty much a shameless boost of a similar device found in Half-Life 2. The difference is that in addition to moving objects around, the grabber can snatch up balls of energy, like the ones fired at you by imps and other creatures. You can then fling the fireballs right back where they came from, making for a quick and ammo-conservation-minded victory. The grabber is fun for a little while, but it's only effective in open areas, of which the game has relatively few.

You'll also have that hellacious artifact in your possession, which has abilities all its own and upgrades itself to include three powers over the course of the game. Early on, you'll gain the ability to use "hell time," which is just a spooky way of saying "slow motion." When in this slower state, you still move and reload quickly, so you can dodge incoming attacks and shoot up your foes without breaking a sweat. Your weapons tend to be more damaging in hell time, giving you a distinct advantage. A little later on you'll earn an upgrade that gives you berserk power during hell time, which lets you kill most enemies with one punch. Near the end, hell time is upgraded again to make you invulnerable as well. The catch is that the artifact is fueled by the corpses of dead humans, which are plentiful and usually easy to find throughout the base. No proper burial for those poor bastards! Instead they're just fuel for your hell-powered killing machine. That's kind of messed up, when you think about it. We recommend you just don't think about it. Aside from that, the artifact definitely comes in handy during the game's tougher moments and makes for an interesting addition to the game.

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