2005 was a tremendous year for videogames as it not only brought one of the best consoles ever, the Xbox 360, but also happened to be the year that a lot of influential first-person shooters were released, like the original F.E.A.R and Doom 3, whose Xbox port turns 20 today!
id Software’s attempt at bringing back its slumbering FPS franchise was met with critical praise that year, a gritty reboot that aimed at providing an extremely creepy environment for blasting all manner of monsters back to hell. Doom 3 takes place in a research facility on Mars, as the unlucky marine, aka Doomguy, arrives for his first day on the job. A teleportation experiment goes awry and creatures from another dimension start popping in, and it falls to our gruff protagonist to pop them back out for good.
Surely, one of the game’s most controversial features by far was the introduction of the flashlight, which had to be used interchangeably with your main weapon due to how dark Doom 3 was all throughout. It’s a much more cramped and in-your-face experience when compared to previous Doom titles, and instead of having a more “combat puzzle” gameplay, it focused on providing lots of atmosphere, and in that, it certainly succeeded.
Love or hate having to switch back and forth from the flashlight, there’s no denying that Doom 3 succeeded at being creepy and unnerving back in its heyday, not only thanks to the sheer darkness and the visual spectacle of its then advanced and hardware-pushing graphics, but also thanks to some systems that were especially designed for the game.
The presence of “monster closets” as they were called guaranteed that the player had to be on their toes at all times since creatures would jump at them from literally anywhere, including corners that had been previously checked. That, in turn, became the other big gripe with the game since some scares were deemed too cheap, with an artificially inflated tension that built upon the continuing dread of having to make progress in the dark and the constant threat of being attacked.
Eventually, Doom 3 would be revised and re-released on future consoles in the BFG Edition, which did away with the need of fiddling with the flashlight, plopping it onto your character’s shoulder to be used at all times, but personally, that took away from the overall experience and mood of the game, which some of the critics back when it was released agreed with me. Either way, bells and whistles of BFGE and all, I still prefer to play the original version.
The game was also the first entry in the series not to have the participation of original co-creator John Romero, who was at Ion Storm at the time, having long left id at that point. When asked about the game at the time of its announcement, he showed frank excitement about the technical possibilities, especially when it came to lighting. And in the years that followed, he’s been quite humorous when people approach him, like when he was asked to sign a copy of it by a fan.
Most shockingly, though, the game got an incredible port on the original Xbox a year after it hit the PC. That version of Doom 3 had some corners cut in order to run on Microsoft’s first go at consoles, lacking the iconic outdoor scenes from the original, but still managed to provide an incredible experience regardless. Also, it was the only version to feature a 2-player co-op mode where two marines could face the hellish invasion together, as well as giving access to the two original Doom games, which up to that point hadn’t been on consoles for a decade or more. Plus, the special tin looked amazing!
For all its shortcomings, Doom 3 proved to be an influential game in the years that followed its release. While it was kind of outshone by 2016’s reboot under Bethesda, the third Doom helped pave the way for what the series would eventually become and what it is now, a still vastly popular franchise, one of the oldest active ones in gaming, with a new entry about to be released in May.
The cherished memories of creeping around the bloodied halls of an overrun UAC facility as a 20-something just out of appendix surgery are still fresh on my mind, making me feel all the more nostalgic about the game, so much so that I’m marking the occasion of its anniversary with this special piece!
Do you feel the same way about it as I do? Be sure to share your thoughts in the comments!
