Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil (PC) Review

This is not a game-changer. Don't expect any major differences with the original, since this could very well be Doom 3: Slightly Updated Edition. All the previous enemies and weapons are back (and they are as boring and non-threatening as they used to be), the visuals are still great, despite being somewhat uninspiring and annoyingly dark, and, once again, levels are awfully linear, simplistic, and as scary as those of the original Doom.

The story? Similar to every single title of the series: demons have appeared, blah, blah, blah, a lone space marine must destroy them, yada, yada, yada, the end! Yes, it's supposed to be different this time, but this is a Doom game, therefore, the storyline goes something like this: kill stuff, stay alive. Is that bad? No, as long as the actual gameplay is entertaining. Is it so? Yes… but, like Doom 3, it becomes boring a bit too soon.

The main reason is that the level design is still too linear, with every single stage being a simple journey from A to B, with a couple of easy-to-handle demons and hazards along the way. Some new enemies have made an appearance, like a faster and more lethal version of the Imp, a re-coloured Lost Soul, which is similar to the ones in the 1993 game, and a new cannon-fodder zombie, amongst others, but none of them really makes things any better. As for the new weapons, there's a Half-Life 2-like gravity gun that's awesome, since it can grab and throw enemy projectiles, and the return of the Super Shotgun.

The only true addition, however, is the Artifact, which, similar to Doom 3's Soul Cube, is a magical item that uses souls as ammunition. The cool thing about this new item is that it adds new skills after certain bosses get killed, like slowing down time, making the protagonist much faster, or providing brief invulnerability. Since the expansion is a bit harder than the main game, this weapon turns out to be very useful, but it's a shame that the experience as a whole is not something special.