Entering the Doom Zone
Over the past year, the more I checked out screenshots and movie clips of Doom 3, the more I started feeling this game was too frightening for my taste. It looked really awesome, but I enjoy playing games that don’t shock you like a midnight horror show flick. I always end up grabbing the arm of the person next to me when I watch horror movies. Doom 3 is a single-player game, so who's arm could I grab when something creepy came out of the shadows?!

I described my dilemma to Doug Avery from Activision and he told me I needed to give the Multiplayer demo a try. I was impressed. And, I was really happy to see that Fred Nillson from id Software was showing off the demo. I played in a four-player game with three 4Kings clan members. My mouse sensitivity was way too high so my cursor flew all over the place, and so did my head throughout the first game, so that one was a warm-up.

By the end of our second game I was getting the hang of things. I changed some controls and Fredo adjusted my sensitivity in the console since the demo game's control area wasn’t functional yet. Game two was a lot better. And there plenty of arms to grab. But I was so engrossed that the only things I grabbed were my mouse and keyboard.

Doom In All Its Glory
During both games I pretty much ran around checking out the map. It was so realistic. I felt that if I were sitting in front of a big plasma screen, I'd be completely immersed and not look back to reality for days. The richness of the map textures were so striking that I didn't even think about game design at first.

In a few areas of the map there were rooms that looked as if they were coated with skin flesh on the floor and walls. Like most id games, when you see stuff like this, it gives you the creeps the first few times playing it. It also makes you wonder why the heck those guys thought of such things. ;)

In a game with such great detail in lighting your shadows may look like they are the enemy coming from the side in certain areas of the map. I would jump and shoot at them from time to time only to discover that was I was alone in a room the whole time. While figuring that out I was able to see how much splash damage the Rocket Launcher caused at short range.

Back in January 2002 when visiting the id offices in Mesquite, Texas I was able to see a demonstration of moving objects in Doom 3. The game has come such a long way since then, and these guys have worked their butts off to get this game looking extremely rich in detail and movement. The movement of items is much more realistic than what you see in most games to date. Of course, having the 4kings guys chasing after me while I checked out the map in all its glory wasn’t easy. They were like "this is Deathmatch mode, who cares about what the game looks like, lets go on a killing spree to rack up as many points as possible!" I kind of like to get the feel of a level before jumping into full throttle DM action but these guys weren’t taking the scenic route. Nevertheless, my jaw was dropping everywhere I went on this level.

I Am Queen of Doom
Fredo showed me where the rocket launcher was on the map since the demo version had only animated arrows over weapon pick-up spots. When I tried the Rocket Launcher I felt like I was Queen of Doom holding it. It's probably going to be one of my favorite weapons, with the Berserker close at second.

Screenshots provided by PlanetDoom

The craziest part about playing Doom 3 was when Fredo told me how to jump into the middle of the top layer I was on. Since the middle of the level went from blue to red, it made a type of alert noise so I was hesitant to jump in the middle of the platform. I trusted Fredo wouldn't mislead me so I jumped to the bottom, as he requested, for me to pick up the Berserker that was over this bubbling pool of blood and guts. As I grabbed the weapon he told me to jump in the middle! I told him, "NO! That's disgusting, it looks like it's going to eat me alive! It looks so gross."  He replied, "Trust me, it's a portal so jump now before you lose your berserker!" After I jumped in and started moving around I realized I had turned into a maniac running with my fists up in the air. I was running so fast that my velocity had the effect of blurring out my game screen. Who knew bubbling blood and guts could be so much fun?

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