Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil [Xbox]

Sometimes, when seen from a distance, things look different than when first encountered. More than a year after its release, the initial reaction to Doom 3 could have been considered on the overenthusiastic side. Like many, our typically critical eyes were blinded by a superb graphics engine, and we glossed over a relative lack of gameplay, sportingly calling it "refinement" rather than redundant. Now, if Half-Life 2 had arrived before Doom 3, we have little doubt it would have been completed overshadowed.

So an expansion, even one already available for the PC, is a chance at new life both for the game and our assessment of it. Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil fixes a few problems and adds great features that have been better implemented in other games. But it does so with impressive performance and at an affordable price.

Resurrection of Evil returns players to Mars shortly after the events of Doom 3. The lead is yet another almost anonymous space marine, albeit this time one who has found a very strange stone artifact. Shaped somewhat like a heart, this artifact is supremely powerful, and is releasing new waves of demons upon the red planet. In short, the story is as thin as ever, with just enough to keep players turning that next corner.

Nerve Software hasn't changed much in their update of the year-old shooter. The same graphics engine is pumping away, still churning out some of the most impressive images in console gaming. The sound design is huge, and most of the effects will be instantly recognizable. The presentation, needless to say, is impressive across the board.

On the PC, Resurrection lit many areas more brightly than did the original game. For the Xbox release, Nerve has taken the refinement a step further, and the flashlight is now permanently affixed to the pistol. Tapping the white button immediately calls it up, which can be useful both in the dark and in situations where ammo suddenly runs low.

Otherwise, not many differences are evident between this release and the expansion as it originally appeared on the PC. A gamepad makes corridor crawling feel even more constrained than when using a mouse, so the game's slightly more open spaces (relative to Doom 3) are welcome. Also welcome is the relative lack of monster closets, those hidden areas which pop open after the player has passed, loosing a bunch of demons in a cowardly attack.

For players without a PC, this is the first chance to use anything like the grabber, a weapon obviously derived from the gravity gun in Half-Life 2. The device is great for snatching fireballs out of the air, instantly changing the balance of power to provide the first new wrinkle in Doom gameplay since the series launched.

That's not really enough to make this a wildly different game, however. Players still lurk through each level, killing and trying not to be killed. The grabber facilitates some new action, yes, but even the moments which couldn't exist without it still feel like old-school Doom, for better or worse. Anyone hoping for more than sparse, if challenging shooter action will have to go elsewhere.

The artifact also has the power to change things, as it can slow time and provide a few other powers that are worth keeping secret. The small 10-hour campaign only has a few cards in its sleeve, after all. And while the artifact's powers can be useful in combat, for the most part they're best employed to slow the action down enough to take in all the great details of the graphics engine. That's worth spending some time to investigate, but afterwards the artifact frequently feels like a novelty that won't live to see further games.

If anything, we'd hoped for more multiplayer action out of this edition of Resurrection, but the offerings are slim. A few new maps are to be found, but forget about using the grabber or artifact in them. In fact, four players is still tops, which is disappointing. Otherwise, players will find some old-school content: Doom 2, Ultimate Doom, and the Doom Master Levels. That's well and good, but will Live servers be populated with gamers enjoying those now ancient delights? Unlikely.

Nevertheless, this expansion provides solid shooting and a great graphics engine to visualize it. Resurrection of Evil has faults, to be sure, but most are embedded within Doom 3 itself, and this expansion even addresses some. That makes this $30 standalone release the best way for Xbox owners to discover Doom. In fact, this is a strange instance where an expansion is actually better suited for new players than returning vets.