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MISHAPS THAT YOU SHOOT (cont)
Ah the soulcube. New to the Doom arsenal, the soulcube is a
weapon made by an ancient Martian civilisation, atop the ruins of which the
UAC Mars base is built. These Martians had also found themselves in a tight
spot with these demons, and this is what they used to drive them back. I
really like this weapon; I feel that it is really original. How does it
work? Well, every time you kill five demons with, say, your (insert
favourite Doom weapon here), the soulcube activates. You get plenty of
notices, both audible and visual, that you can unleash it. So you can
instantly kill a demon of your choice and have its health transferred to
you. This clever weapon does get really handy later on in the game and is,
in many epic instances, essential to completing the game. Design wise, it’s
great; it really does feel alien. How does it fire? Well, eh, it’s
complicated, to say the least, and I’m not feeling too poetic today. That,
and telling you would spoil it when you see it in-game. No complaints here;
the weapon acts and sounds like it should: alien.
Stop shining that damn thing in my face!
And at one point in the game, you’ll find that the ‘0’ key
brings up a familiar sight: the classic, yellowish chainsaw from the
original. As I said earlier, for all you people who obsess over details,
there is an explanation in the game as to why there are chainsaws on Mars.
This weapon sounds great and behaves like it should. I was surprised at how
powerful it is. You can kill many strong demons amazingly fast, though the
thing is, you have to run up right to them. Of course, that’s what you have
to do with the shotgun, too, so in the end, this weapon does come off rather
useful, especially if you’re running low on ammo. Only using this weapon
isn’t too smart, though, fun as it may be. But beware: if you can have a
chainsaw, so can the zombies.
In the end, the sounds aren’t that bad. After
playing for a while, I became used to them and really enjoyed the game.
Weapon sides aside, this game really does sound great, especially if you
have a 5.1 (or more) surround sound system or a pair of high quality
headphones. There’s a constant noise in the background: heavy zombie
breaths, odd screeches, distant screams, misleading demonic whispers… the
list goes ever on, and it really does successfully work to build the game’s
atmosphere. But whatever tool for making sounds you have, make sure to turn
it up loud. And careful with that subwoofer, you might lose a few windows
(and maybe neighbours).
Nearly all the memorable baddies from both Doom and Doom
2 are back in one form or another. I really love the level of detail put
into this game: there’s something like twenty different types of zombies,
from former maintenance workers to scientists, from fat ones, to skinny
ones, from ones with chainsaws to others with shotguns. Every basic zombie
has two skins, meaning that some will have no lower jaw, open stomach, etc.
The id gang distributed them successfully in such a way that you feel like
you’re shooting a different zombie every time. Moving up higher in the
hierarchy of hell, monsters become identical, but unlike the slow-stumbling
zombies, you won’t have time to stand there and worry about how they look.
Imps are back. I can’t say that I’m crazy about how they
look, but when you see them in motion, they look fine. Fred Nilsson did an
extraordinary job at animating all of the monsters: all of them behave like
you’d think they should. Imps lunge sideways then forwards, massive pinkie
demons charge relentlessly, revenants not only look like the original, but
still have that hook punch. Oh yeah, and that pair of rocket-launchers. But
some of my favourite battles took place on the Martian surface between the
occasional cacodemon. Man, I love these things, and the projectiles they
fire are amazing, warping the screen through use of (again) the heat haze
effect. Though ammunition is, as always, close to running out, the game
still gives plenty of opportunity to bring these monstrosities down. Moving
higher up, I won’t really get into bosses for fear of spoilers, but I have
to say that I really like how id have come up with ways besides unending
fire exchange to take them down (at least, some of them).
But there was something else that bugged me a little,
because it was not in the game rather than being in. I’m talking
about this guy right here:
LOST- 4 metre biomechanical spider
I may
come off sounding silly, but I remember when I first saw the Doom Legacy
video. It was my first glimpse into the world of Doom 3. The graphics, of
course, were mind boggling and it really made me ponder at all the amazing
things they could do with this engine. And something that was shown in the
video was the above-shown picture. Now, I loved everything about the video,
but the one thing that grabbed me was that concept art, showing the Spider
Mastermind (or maybe it’s an arachnatron?) as it would be in Doom 3. For
anyone who’s played the original Doom, they know that this creature is an
icon. I am an artist myself, and the reason I was so amazed at this art was
because it encapsulated all the qualities of the original (which were rather
comical, to say the least) and made them look serious and scary rather than
cartoonish. I was sceptical as to just how Doom this game was going
to be, but after I saw that concept art, I knew that it was going to be
great.
So, I was a bit disappointed when I found out this brilliant design was
discarded. It was the perfect bridge between old Doom and new! I'm not
saying that the new boss designs are bad, but they pale a bit in comparison
(in my opinion) to the Spider-Mastermind. There are two bosses in
particular, which I think could've (and maybe should've) had the mechanical
brain-spider in their stead. You'll know them when you see them in-game. So
if one of the brilliant folks from id Software are reading this, I'm asking
you, please release a patch with better weapon sounds. Oh, and make the
patch take out a certain Quake 2-like boss and replace him with this Spider
Mastermind. Do that, maybe add realistic glass fracturing, and this site's
score (and I'm sure a lot of others) would go up a good four or five
points it'll bring the game that much closer to perfection. Then again, the
fact that I'm complaining about such minor things says a lot: that this
game, despite it's few flaws, is nothing short of brilliant.
Introduction
Graphics
The beginning
Hell invades!
Multiplayer
Mishaps that you shoot
Mishaps that you shoot (cont)
Odd, ends and a verdict
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