the effect of Doom 3 on one man

[baron_of_hell]

this is funny...hope you enjoy


Through the beams of my headlights, I could see the FedEx shipping box propped up against my garage door. It was 10:10 pm on an unusually cool August night. I had just arrived home from work. I had the house all to myself, and the game that I had been waiting for years to play was finally here - Doom 3.

After a quick install and configuration, using FRAPS to ensure my framerate stays above 30, I settled upon "High" quality at 1024 x 768 with 4x aa, all while trying not to see too much of the game before I "really" began. Once set, I turned out the lights and cranked up the volume.

A commanding voice directs my spacecraft to land; I receive orders to search for a missing scientist. I had to see everything, spending a full hour exploring the Martian base before even firing my first shot.

And then, it begins. With the words, "The devil is real. I know, I built his cage," Mars City transforms itself into a 21st-century dark ride. When I was growing up in 1970's Pittsburgh, one of my favorite thrills was to ride the Ghost Ship at Kennywood Park. Ultraviolet skeletons and psychedelic ghouls popped out of the darkness. Even though I visited here every May with my school class, I still jumped at the "surprise" splash of water when the ride ends. I like being scared. Doom 3 was about to become my new Ghost Ship.

Except that this dark ride doesn't last just a few minutes. In fact, moving from one room to the next sometimes takes several minutes in itself. With each footstep a possible trigger for another zombie spawn, I moved hesitantly. The distant cries of Marines succumbing to God-knows-what were perfect examples of the imagined being more terrifying than the realized. Trap doors, false walls, and pitch-black corners held legions of the undead, ready to spring out at the slightest provocation. If you check the About Page, you'll see that I played on a 76-inch projected screen with 5.1 surround sound. With the volume way up. In a dark, empty house. Suffice to say I was immersed.

Doom 3 was clearly capable of rattling my bones, but after a while I needed a break. The time was now well after midnight. I sat at my computer trying to clear my mind by surfing the Web. Not five minutes later, the power in my house went out and I heard a distant "pop."

I had just exited the terrifying dark corridors of Doom 3 to find myself, alone, in a dark, silent, rural house with nothing but the light of my cell phone to pierce the night. Why was the power out? There were no storms, no lightning, no wind. It could only be zombies. Surely the yard outside was crawling with the flesh-eating undead. I knew it was irrational to seriously think that this was anything other than a routine power outage. Zombies aren't smart enough to cut the power. I was terrified. I called my mother. I'm 39. I'm not kidding.

I have to give 5 stars to any game that scares me enough to call my mother in the middle of the night. (By the way, we talked for 90 minutes and after a few tense moments while she checked the TV for a possible Fox News Alert it was a fun call. I never did discover why the power went out, but BG&E had service restored by 3am.) Doom 3 has been critiqued by some as an old-school linear shooter, but it is such a well-crafted experience that I have had more fun playing this game than any single-player game I have ever played before.

The experience is intense like no other. Thoughtfully so. The decision to force either a flashlight or a weapon is a brilliant gameplay device. This ride is all about being scared, and that means sometimes fighting blind. It means not knowing how many foes are surrounding you, but getting a hint by hearing a nearby growl. Or several.

Game balance builds in intensity as the game unfolds. Newer, more powerful enemies are matched by your acquisition of even more powerful weapons. I played on the Veteran difficulty setting and was frequently overcome by the force of the heavier-hitting demons and occasionally by swarms of the lesser foes. Pacing is intense -- I needed frequent breaks and could rarely play for more than an hour at a time.

The story unfolds through in-game cutscenes, emails and audio journals reminiscent of those in System Shock 2. The voice acting is excellent. Especially noteworthy is the voice of United Aerospace Corporation. The contrast between the slick presentation in the UAE video disks and their catastrophic content is rather comical - "Safer worlds through superior firepower" - as is the satirical use of spam from Martian Buddy.

Doom 3's level of polish and scripting detail pushes gaming's production values to new heights. Hollywood blockbusters and video games may someday merge into a single form of entertainment. If that happens, it will have been because of titles like Doom 3. While some have criticized Doom 3 for being a repetitive shooter, which to me is like criticizing Myst for having too many puzzles, this game is in my mind a masterpiece - the current pinnacle of the survival horror genre. The way I see it is this: you can either roll with the fun and actually enjoy the thrill ride that is Doom 3, or you can hang with the too-macho-to-be-heard-screaming crowd. The choice is yours -- I'm having fun. Just so long as my mom is only a phone call away. - Last Update 04/23/05

[Aliotroph?]

HAHAHAHAHA!!!! I love how it gets to people! Too bad I can't play it for more than an hour without getting bored. Oh well.

When I was playing it I was in school and it was kinda stressful. I stayed up until 4am one day working through Delta Labs. That was the first place where I was truly disturbed by the content; something about all those gibbering soldiers turned zombies. The logs in the medlab were scary shit.

Anyway, I went to school the next day and I was looking for one of my friends in the computing science building while trying to avoid a specific prof. That just kicked in my DooM mode, my adrenalin went through the roof and I started strafing and peeking around corners. I must have looked like a fool, not being able to decide whether to hide in shadows or run from them.

[DeusExMachina]

Heh, you've done that as well? I was avoiding my Chemistry teacher, and hid round a corner, and it was like a cross between MI and DooM

[baron_of_hell]

i am honestly afraid of the dark now...i swaer to god...DooM 3 has scared the shit out of me...everytime my dad growls and i am ina diffrent room i get all freaked out...and when i fall asleep and you know how you wake up in the middle of the night sometime and you hear a siund...well it scares the crap out of me...my fiance is a scientest (chemical...thats all i know..)and when she come home in lab coat the fisrt thing she does is takes it off cause one time she was tired and she came in staggering...scared me so bad i thoguht i had died...CURSE DOOM 3!!...yet praise it on bended knee

[deamonic]

it can scare all you but it cant scare me!? i am 13, and you are what age?

[baron_of_hell]

24...but i scare very easily...i cant watch horror movies...like the ring scared the crap out of me...but movies like alien dont...

[deamonic]

i thought doom3 was pretty actiony, but not scary. infact, the only game that ever managed to scare me was Silent Hill 3, and even then it wasnt much of a scare. i jumped when a zombie nurse hit me in the back of the head with a pipe, then was on full monster alert for the rest of the game. ack! turning the radio off to sneak isnt a good idea!

[baron_of_hell]

how'd you get Doom 3 when you are 13 anyway...you have to be older than 17 to buy it...

[FATAL]

Three possible ways.

1. He bought it himself. EIther the ratings aren't watched very closely, or the clerk didn't care.
2. He downloaded it.
3. He got his parents to buy it for him.


And 17 is by no means a global rating. I believe it's 18 in most of the countries.

[baron_of_hell]

glad to be in the USA...that being said you really should watch some games you buy dude...there ae lots of games out there that i would never let my kid play until he was 17...

[Aliotroph?]

Hehe, I probably wouldn't care.

[deamonic]

its only 15+ over here, medium level violence, and ive played much worse. violence doesnt really bother me, or my parents. ive even seen KillBill (OMG!)

oh yeah, and i bought it, with a signed note from my dad.

[baron_of_hell]

but ive seen some games they got out there...omg..but still i dont want my kid to be a nerd at school cause all he does is talkes about video games...just the way i am...however teh first thing i will do when he is at least 7 i will intorduce him to DOOM!!!...dont ask why its just always been my ambition for my kid to like video games...

[ace]

Originally Posted by deamonic

violence doesnt really bother me, or my parents.

Same here. And D3 didn't scare me like I hoped it would... made me flinch a few times, but nothing that forced me to jump out of my chair. I can do scary things provided they're not real. For example, I can shoot down zombies and imps in Doom, but if they started showing up in real life...


...well, let's just be glad they won't.

[Pieter Enis]

The flashlight or weapon choice is a fun one to make indeed ^^
My kid, I'd let it play what it wants to play, from personal experience I've learned that video-games aren't that bad
Just hope the kid 'll be as smart as me to realise games are not real life ...

[M姧åç}{è®]

Originally Posted by baron_of_hell

i scare very easily...i cant watch horror movies...like the ring scared the crap out of me...but movies like alien dont...

Doom 3 wasn't that scary for me. probably b/c i have seen way too many horror movies and i am de-sensitised to it.

[FATAL]

I became nearly immune to horror when I saw the Exorcist when I was 5 years old.

[Aliotroph?]

Ugh, that movie sucked.

My brother was 13 when we got DooM III and it scared him. Was kinda funny.

[FATAL]

Originally Posted by Aliotroph?

Ugh, that movie sucked.

Heh yeah, but it was horrifying for a lil kiddo. Man, I don't think I slept properly for couple of nights after seeing it.

[The Undertaker]

Yeah, it ain't based on a true story like that new horror movie coming out (the name escapes me right now). It has to be true right? People get possessed all the time.