Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil

Short but Sweet Satanic Expansion

The key to a first person shooter is balancing beauty with fun. Not only do you want to see creative, innovative design, interesting locales, fun weapons and character abilities, you also want it all to be exceedingly pretty.

This year, the over-arching industry battle was waged between iD Software's Doom 3 and Valve Software's long-awaited, much-delayed Half Life 2. For all the pre-battle hype, it was a war quickly over, and for good reason, since Doom 3 just didn't have what it took to last the distance with its eager player base.

After a few hours one poorly-lit industrial complex looked the same as the other, and you began to resignedly anticipate when the next batch of hell spawn would jump out at you.

It was, however, great eye-candy, and the engine looked decidedly promising; in fact, the fruits of iD's hard work are just appearing now, in the forms of Prey and the Raven Software-developed Quake 4. With a hand from Xbox developer Vicarious Visions, it made a smooth transition to the Xbox and was actually, on consideration, a better play on the console than on the PC.

Enter Resurrection of Evil, a collaboration between long-time contributor Nerve and id More a boost for the original single-player campaign than anything else, this expansion brings you back to the red planet two years after the events of the first game, as a Union Aerospace Corporation combat engineer left stranded after the assorted legions of Hell (the other hot red place) invade yet again.

This time, however, you're a little better off than the poor sap under control of your thumbsticks the first time around, thanks to a pulsating and empowered heart-shaped Artifact fresh from the shores of Hell, a double-barrelled sawn-off shotgun (a nod to Doom 2), and the Grabber (not influenced by Half Life 2's Gravity Gun, nope, not at all). Oh, and you don't have to spend all your time staring into one of those bloody PDAs.

The Artifact and Grabber are relatively big changes to the tried-and-tested Doom 3 formula.

In the former's case, as you go up against the many big bosses that bookend levels, you gain new powers that include a variation of bullet-time (useful when you're outnumbered or when you're faced with booby-traps), temporary invulnerability, and the ability to kill enemies with one punch (similar, admittedly, to the Berserk mode from Doom 2).

The Grabber, however, lets you have a little fun with the sometimes highly-static Doom 3 environment, allowing you the ability to throw around barrels, boxes and even the fireballs of the hell spawn elite, which is highly convenient when you're looking to conserve all that ammo.

It must also be noted that, listening to the masses, Nerve have permanently attached the flashlight to the basic pistol, so you don't have to worry about being jumped and mauled with no way to really defend yourself.

So, heavily armed and savvy, it's once more into the abyss, dear friends. To go with the new weapons and skills, of course, you've got a few fresh and nasty enemies, introduced via the fun mechanic of the real-time Doom 3 cinematic engine, which is still as good-looking as ever.

In fact, it would be fair to say that Doom 3 is still the best looking game on the Xbox. Unfortunately, despite the new tricks and weapons, there just isn't very much here.

The single-player campaign, while just as good as the prequel's, is also terrifically short (about five hours, on average), and the four-player multiplayer hasn't got much in the way of staying power, especially considering there is no Artifact, no Grabber and some bright spark decided to remove the two-player co-op feature of the original Xbox port of Doom 3.

Were it a little longer or a little more involved, I could recommend Resurrection of Evil whole-heartedly, but as it is it makes for a better experience for those new to Doom 3 than its actual prequel, which is an interesting position to be in as far as an expansion pack is concerned.

It also contains, as an extra, Xbox-ported Classic Doom and Ultimate Doom, so those pining for a quick trip around the nostalgia factory can re-live the good old days when sprites were simple.
Demon hunting has never felt or looked so good, we just wish it wasn't over quite so quickly.

Game: Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil
System: Xbox
Players: 1-4
Online: Yes
Developer: Nerve
Distributor: Activision

Rating: 80%