Shoot Club: The Doom 3 review
TomChick - Columns - Comments - 08/05/04
It's a good thing Trevor didn't let me talk about Doom 3 before he played it. Because I have to say I'm not a fan and I probably would have sapped some of his enthusiasm. He was practically beside himself as he installed it, downloaded the no-CD crack, and then turned out the lights as it started up. That ardor was still going strong when I left a few hours later to go home and go to bed. He called me the next afternoon to say he'd come home for his lunch break to play a little more.
"I kind of figured you were going to call in sick," I said.
"I was going to, but I'd been talking about the game so much that my boss knew it was coming out today. He told me I better not try to call in sick."
"Busted."
"I should have kept my mouth shut. So, dude, what did you choose when it came time to send the message to earth and that guy from the board of directors told you not to do it? Did you transmit or did you cancel?"
"There was some guy from a board of directors? How do you know that? Is it in the manual?"
"It says it in the game. So what did you choose?"
"I think I picked 'cancel'."
"No way! I picked 'transmit'. But first I saved the game so I can go back and replay it from that point."
"I don't think it matters."
"What are you talking about? I bet the game plays completely different based on what you choose. Anyway, shut up. You're going to start giving away spoilers. I gotta go. I'm in the reactor support hallway for Delta Labs 1?"
"Where?"
"Delta 1. The reactor support hallway."
"How do you know that's what it's called?"
"Duh. It fucking says it in the lower left hand corner of the screen. I don't see how you could have missed it. I gotta go."
Trevor had called again after sneaking out of work early. He was stuck on the rail lift puzzle. He had spent two hours trying to figure out how to unlock the exit. He didn't notice that you could raise the lifter to reach higher areas.
"There's an up and down arrow on the control panel. I don't see how you could have missed it."
"Aw, that's cheap," he said before hanging up. "But Doom 3 still rocks. Woo! Okay, I gotta go."
I could tell by the tone of his voice he'd lost some of his enthusiasm. It might have just been because he was stuck. But he was trying to buck up. He'd just spent sixty bucks, a few weeks of being really excited, and six hours of standing in line at Best Buy. It's only natural to try to deny that it might not have been worth it until you're absolutely sure. And if it wasn't worth it, better to put off that realization as long as possible. Sometimes you can fool yourself into having fun if you don't think too hard.
Of course, I could be completely full of shit. Maybe he really does love it.
He called again a little before 3am.
"What are you playing?" he asked.
"Mario Golf Advance."
"That game is for little kids."
"Don't make me bring up Animal Crossing."
"Fair enough."
"What's up?"
"Okay, don't give anything away, but I want to ask you just one thing." He sounds deflated. This might be a last ditch effort to buck himself up.
"Okay."
"Do you ever get to drive that car that Swann and Campbell are using?"
"Who?"
"Swann and Campbell."
"Who the hell are Swann and Campbell?"
He sighs like I'm a total moron. "They're the guys the UAC board of directors sends to Mars City to investigate Betruger. There's a car they used to get to the communications center. I can't believe I have to explain all this. Did you even play Doom 3?"
"I didn't know those were their names. Who pays attention to that stuff?"
"Did you even read the PDAs?"
"Not really. I scanned them for three-digit locker combos."
"You missed out. There's some funny stuff in there. There's something about a guy who flips out and attacks a Coke machine, you know, like Derek Smart. I even wrote down his name."
I hear Trevor rustling around some paper. "You're taking notes?"
"Here it is. Steve Hammer. Ha, that's funny. I didn't even realize that. Hammer. Oh, and check out this quote: 'I can't think of a more useless piece of equipment then a chainsaw on Mars'. That's in one of the emails. They explain that they accidentally mis-shipped the chainsaws to Mars. Isn't that funny? There's also all these fake spam emails. It's funny."
"You think fake spam is funny? Any game with email in it has joke spams. That hasn't been funny since, I dunno, being able to pee in Duke Nukem. At least that healed you up. What do the fake spams do?"
"It's called atmosphere."
"No. That stuff only qualifies as atmosphere in a game where back story is important. A game like, you know, System Shock. Otherwise, it's filler. In Doom 3, it's just another example of these guys at id aping what they've seen in other better games because they're lousy game designers."
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