Doom 3 is a first-person shooter computer game developed by id Software and published by Activision. Set in 2145 in the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC) research center on Mars, it is a reimagining of the original Doom, with completely new graphics and game engine.

The version for the PC (Windows and Linux) has been released, a Mac version followed (ported by Aspyr), and a version for Xbox (co-developed by Vicarious Visions) was released on April 4, 2005. The Xbox version was graphically similar to the original but featured an additional two player co-operation mode.

An expansion, Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil, was released on April 4, 2005. It has been co-developed by id Software and Nerve Software and includes an all new single-player campaign with new weapons, including the much anticipated double-barreled shotgun as well as new multiplayer maps with support for up to 8 players.

A Doom movie, loosely based on the franchise, is currently in the works.

History

In June 2000, John Carmack posted a .plan [1] announcing the start to a remake of Doom using next generation technology. This plan revealed controversy had been brewing within id over the decision.

Kevin Cloud and Adrian Carmack, two of id Software's owners, were always strongly opposed to remaking Doom. They thought that id was going back to the same old formulas and properties too often. However, after the warm reception of Return to Castle Wolfenstein and the latest improvements in rendering technology, most of the employees agreed that a remake was the right idea and confronted Kevin and Adrian with an ultimatum: "Allow us to remake Doom or fire us" ( including John Carmack ). After the reasonably painless confrontation (although artist Paul Steed, one of the instigators, was fired in retaliation) the agreement to work on Doom 3 was made.

The game was in development for four years. In 2001 it was first shown to the public at MacWorld in Tokyo and was later demonstrated at E3 in 2002, where a 15 minute gameplay demo was shown in a small theater. It won five awards at E3 that year. Shortly after E3, a development version of the game leaked from ATI Technologies and quickly spread on the Internet. The game was also shown at the subsequent E3 exhibitions in 2003 and 2004, although id software's website was not updated to include the Doom 3 project until America's autumn in 2003. According to some comments by John Carmack, the development took longer than expected. Originally the game was planned for release around the same time as two other highly anticipated games, Halo 2 and Half-Life 2, in Christmas 2003. However none of those games managed to make Christmas season.

Doom 3 achieved gold status on July 14, 2004, and a Mac OS X release was confirmed the next day on July 15, 2004. Doom 3 was released in the US on August 3, 2004. Additionally, a Linux version was released on October 4, 2004. Due to high demand, the game was made available at select outlets at midnight on the date of release. The game was released to the rest of the world (except for Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union, where official localisation was delayed) on August 13.

Two days before its official release, Doom 3 was released by pirate groups onto the Internet where it became possibly the fastest spreading pirated game ever. As the game's focus is its single-player mode, the need for a valid retail serial number for online multiplayer gaming was a weak deterrent against piracy. Other factors contributing to the high demand for the pirated version were the gamers' expectations for Doom 3 and delayed release outside of the US.

Features

According to John Carmack, the lead graphics engine developer at id, the "tripod of features" in Doom 3 technology are:

• Unified lighting and shadowing
• Complex animations and scripting that show off the real-time, fully dynamic per-pixel lighting and stencil shadowing
• GUI surfaces that add extra interactivity to the game

The key aspect of the Doom 3 graphics engine is the unified lighting and shadowing. Rather than computing or rendering lightmaps during map creation and saving that information in the map data, most light sources are computed on the fly. This allows lights to cast shadows even on non-static objects such as monsters or machinery, which was impossible with static lightmaps. A shortcoming of this approach is the engine's inability to render soft shadows and ambient lighting.

To create a more movie-like atmosphere, id interspersed the gameplay with many in-game animated sequences of monsters ambushing the player or just lurking around.

To increase the interactivity with the game-world, id designed hundreds of high-resolution animated screens for in-game computers. Rather than using a simple "use key", the crosshair acts as a mouse cursor over the screens allowing the player to use a computer in the game world.

Other important features of Doom 3 engine were normal mapping and specular highlighting of textures, realistic handling of object physics, dynamic, ambient soundtrack and multi-channel sound.

Story

Similar to the story of the original Doom, the game focuses on the marine who was transferred to Mars and sent out on a routine mission. In contrast to its earlier disdain for storytelling, this time id Software employed a professional science-fiction writer Matthew Castello to write the script and assist in story-boarding the entire game. id focused on retelling the story and creating a tense horror atmosphere. The game's events and atmosphere show a great deal of influence from George Romero's Living Dead series.

Unlike in previous id games, there are now cut scenes that give purpose and context for the player's actions. Similar to other science fiction action/horror games such as System Shock and Aliens versus Predator 2, hundreds of text, voice, and video messages are scattered throughout the base. The messages are internal e-mails and audio reports sent between lab workers, administrators, maintenance staff, and security personnel at the Mars base. The messages explain the background story, show the feelings and concern of the people on the Mars base and reveal information related to plot and gameplay. Video booths and televisions give planetary news, corporate propaganda, visitor information and technical data about the base.

The story of Doom 3 surrounds the discovery of ancient ruins underneath Martian soil. These tablets record how an ancient Martian race developed a form of teleporter technology. They realized an important fact all too late, however; the route the teleporter took passed through Hell. Quickly invaded by demons, this alien race created and sacrificed themselves to a weapon known as the Soul Cube. This cube, powered by the souls of almost every being of this alien race, was used by their strongest warrior to defeat and contain the demons in Hell.

Having done so, the remainder of the alien race constructed warnings to any who visited Mars, warning them not to recreate this technology; to avoid opening Hell. They then teleported to an unknown location, fleeing Mars, although there are hints that humans may be the descendants of this race. It's stated that the demons once inhabited Earth but lost it (probably due to the martian race coming to Earth and defeating them there, or some other unknown cause) and were banished to Hell which they consider to be a prison. That shows that the demons want to reclaim Earth. The concept of the demons living on Earth could also explain the extinction of the dinosaurs.

The UAC, discovering the Soul Cube and the warnings, used them to invent the same teleporter technology. Discovering that they opened a gate to Hell, scientists instead decided to explore further (encouraged by the head scientist, Malcolm Betruger), sending teams in and even capturing living specimens from the realm. After Betruger took the Soul Cube into Hell, the Demons again invaded Mars, confident that the only key to their defeat lay safe in their hands. However one man, the marine who the player controls, proves too tough for the forces of Hell to contain, and soon learns of the Soul Cube, and the portal to Hell where it is held.

Surviving many battles, the player enters Hell, and defeats The Guardian of Hell: A blind demon which uses smaller creatures named seekers to "see". With the Guardian defeated, the Soul Cube is used to defeat the horrific Cyberdemon, and seal the second portal to Hell. The ending scene shows the sole surviving marine being rescued by the fleet, and Malcolm Betruger's head is briefly seen before "half becoming" a dragon-like demon called the Maledict.

Atmosphere

Perhaps most important in the gameplay and action of Doom 3 is the atmosphere. Most of the levels are very dark, to create the feeling of helplessness and scare the player with surprise attacks from the shadows. To showcase the dynamic lighting and shadowing, Doom 3 uses many moving light sources. Most importantly, on a Mars base with insufficient lights, the flashlight becomes one of the most important tools. Rather than allowing a weapon to be equipped with the flashlight which would create a sense of security, id decided to only allow the weapon or the flashlight to be used. Also inherent are the use of sound effects to startle the player.

Hardware requirements

For a modern game with an advanced graphics engine, Doom 3 had suitably high minimum system requirements. Early during development it was widely expected that the recommended video cards would be DirectX 8 capable, such as Radeon 8500/9000 and GeForce 3 (where Doom 3 made its debut in 2001), but nearing release those cards only constituted near-minimum requirements. Early reports also indicated that there was supposed to be legacy support for the widespread DirectX 7 technology such as the Radeon 7200 and GeForce 2, but at release, the GeForce 4 MX was the only DirectX 7 chip officially supported.

It was widely reported on various review sites that a minimally recommended 1.5 GHz processor coupled with a GeForce 2 MX graphics card achieved satisfactory performance with the game (about 20 frame/s in low resolution). The Macintosh version runs satisfactorily even on a 1.25 Ghz G4 powerbook with an NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 GPU.

However, to make full use of the game engine, newer hardware is required. A high-end CPU (based on those available in 2004) coupled with the GeForce 7800 graphics card or ATI's Radeon X800 benchmark well over 70 frame/s in 1024x768 resolution (more than the built-in engine's framerate of 60 frame/s). A 6600GT however will also easily play the game on the same hardware at those speeds under the same conditions in most situations. As of mid 2005 the best videocard for Doom 3 is two Geforce 7800 GTX's running in SLI mode.

While the game's packaging declared that 384MB RAM was required to run the game, it was highly recommended that around 1GB RAM be present in the machine. Having 512MB RAM or lower would cause the game to freeze for lengthened periods of time when entering a new room, due to the textures being preloaded into the limited memory. This could, however, be avoided by reducing the texture size to medium and keeping the resolution at 800x600 or 640x480. It is possible, but difficult, to achieve smooth gameplay at 1024x768 with detail set to high on a machine with 512MB RAM. Alternatively, the data package containing the textures could be unzipped (the file was essentially a ZIP archive with a different file ending), speeding up file access.

Reception

Few games have polarized gaming as much as Doom 3 has, causing the two groups reactions to the game to be wildly different.

Critical and hardcore reception

The most often named gameplay shortcomings of the game are:

• Reliance on traditionally overused horror techniques such as pitch black darkness, limited use of the flashlight and stock horror movie clichГ©s, to create the scary atmosphere;
• Repetitive gameplay, very similar linear levels during parts of the game, no ability to use the flashlight and the weapon at the same time (the problem known as "no duct tape on Mars"), whereas today many real-life weapons have hands-free light attachments;
• Somewhat stale storytelling techniques, forcing the player to read or listen to messages by hiding access codes in them, and a shortage of cut-scenes providing story exposition;
• Poor monster AI, over-reliance on scripted sequences;
• Somewhat limited use of physics
• A small multiplayer deathmatch mode (no co-op as in the original Doom) of only a few people, although Doom 3 was attempting to focus on the single player experience.

It has been argued that many of these criticisms are based on expectations for other types of FPS games. During development, Doom 3 was often compared with the equally anticipated Half-Life 2. Some have argued that since Doom 3 was released before Half-Life 2, many have come to expect things from it that they previously had expected from Half-Life 2. For example, the common complaint about Doom 3's lack of environment interactivity could be considered a subtle complaint that Doom 3 doesn't have a Half-Life 2-style "Gravity Gun", a weapon which can pick up small items in the world and throw them around. Ironically, Doom 3 was said to have a "Gravity Gun" item designed long before Half-Life 2, but was not in the game proper. This weapon appears in the Doom 3 expansion known as Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil, which has drawn the ire of those who feel id is pandering to Half-Life 2 fans.

Some critical reviewers consider that the visual quality of some other games released in 2004 were comparable to or matched some the qualities of Doom 3. During an interview of five directors of game development companies about Doom 3's release by DTF, a Russian game industry site, the four who had already played the game rejected the idea that Doom 3 was the new panacea in gaming. They stated that the technological level of Doom 3 was similar to that of other games of 2004, and that features such as bump mapping had already become industry standard. For example, an often mentioned feature of Doom 3, per-pixel lighting and stencil shadows, had already been implemented in many games released in 2003, even a budget title from Activision Value called Secret Service: Security Breach.

Rebuttals to critical reception

Many gamers claim the apparent "shortcomings" are not shortcomings at all, but are integral to the gameplay id determined to display for Doom 3.

Since Doom 3 is a remake of the original Doom - a game which did not have high-end concepts common in today's more complex games, remaking Doom with too much complexity would remove a key component that made Doom popular in the first place.

In addition, the flashlight is a key element of Doom 3's gameplay - the player must balance between seeing the enemy, and defeating it. In the default game, (without any modifications added) almost every monster has glowing eyes, or some aspect of bioilluminescence which offers a target for the player. Modifying the weapons to project light, results in the mystery of "the unknown" to be less potent and frightening. Additionally, muzzle flashes can be enabled for marginally better visibility while firing.

Another rebuttal concerns the story of Doom 3, which is done through the use of audio and video logs. Using logs like this harkens back to the age of System Shock 2 and aids the progression of the story. Interestingly, it has been commented that normally the type of gamer who has played System Shock 2 is the breed of gamer who would be expected to be critical of the comparatively simple Doom 3.

Despite its apparent 'flaws', the game was still a success for id Software, with the planned total revenue estimated by Activision at $20 million. The financial success was bolstered by the near-record number of pre-orders placed for the game. id Software also typically benefits from licensing the engine to other developers. Several games are already being developed using a modified Doom 3 engine, including Quake IV, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Return to Castle Wolfenstein 2 and Prey.

As of August 17, Doom 3 has garnered an average review score of 88%, according to 81 media outlets on GameRankings.com. By the same source, it is in the top 10 PC games of 2004.

List of levels

There are 27 levels in Doom 3. Most of them are quite large and require at least an hour each for a first-time player to complete.

1. Introduction - introduces the player to the game's controls
2. Mars City Underground - in the Communications Building, things start to go awry. The shooting begins here.
3. Mars City - The same level as the Introduction, but after the demon invasion.
4. UAC Administration -
5. Alpha Labs (4 sectors) - Built in 2095 and located on Site 2, Alpha is the UAC's center research lab. In Sector 4 is Vagary, the first boss.
6. Sector 2
7. Sector 3
8. Sector 4
9. Energy Processing (EnPro) - The player is introduced to the Lost Soul and must shut down the reactor.
10. Communications Transfer -
11. Communications -
12. Recycling (2 sectors) - Where trash is processed in the UAC. The Revenant is introduced here.
13. Sector 2
14. Monorail - The player must take it to reach the Delta Labs.
15. Delta Labs (4 sectors) - The player moves towards the main teleporter in Sector 4, where Betruger sends him to hell.
16. Sector 2 North
17. Sector 2 South
18. Sector 3
19. Sector 4
20. Hell - The player must defeat the Guardian (Boss 2) to retrieve the Soul Cube.
21. Delta Labs revisited
22. Central Processing
23. Central Server Banks - The player fights boss #3, Sabaoth, the demon transformation of Sergeant Kelly.
24. Site 3 - Where archaeological research is done.
25. Caverns (2 sectors) - The player advances towards the primary excavation site, where the hell-portal is located.
26. Caverns 2
27. Primary Excavation - The player must defeat the Cyberdemon (4th and final boss) and seal the hell-portal.

Software patent controversy

A week before the game's release, it became known that an agreement to include EAX audio technology in Doom 3 reached by id Software and Creative Labs was heavily influenced by a software patent owned by the latter company. The patent dealt with a technique for rendering shadows called Carmack's Reverse, which was developed independently by both John Carmack and programmers at Creative Labs. id Software would have been putting themselves under legal liability if they used the technique in the finished game, so to defuse the issue, id Software agreed to license Creative Labs sound technologies in exchange for indemnification against lawsuits. [2]

Web-integration

Shortly following the announcement of Doom 3's development, a promotional website was released that serves as the homepage of the fictional corporation operating on Mars in the game. Until the announcement of gold status, the site served as a teaser; later a countdown to the release date was added. The website for Martian Buddy, a fictional corporation prominently featured in the game, was also revealed before the game launch.

Some other developers have also created websites for in-game companies in the past. For example, Rockstar Games created sites for most companies mentioned in commercials on the in-game radio in Grand Theft Auto.

Linux

Doom 3 continued id's long track record of creating games that were Linux compatible. This was primarily a result of id's decision to use the OpenGL standard for the graphics engine as opposed to Microsoft's proprietary Direct3D API which is only available for the Windows line of operating systems (including the Xbox). The executable for the Linux version can be found on id's FTP ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/doom3/ or BitTorrent server [3]. It can also be downloaded from Doom Wad Station. TTimo also has a Wiki with information regarding the Linux version [4].

Development team

• John Carmack — Game engine (graphics)
• Timothee 'TTimo' Besset — Network Code, GtkRadiant, Linux conversions (formerly a contractee hailing from Paris, now part of the team in Texas)
• Graeme Devine — Sound engine
• Seneca Menard — 3D modelling (formerly of DreamWorks)
• Kenneth Scott — Lead artist
• Fred Nilsson (worked on Antz and Shrek at DreamWorks as an animator) — Animation
• Jim Dose — AI and scripted scenes
• Robert Duffy — Lead programmer
• Jan Paul van Waveren — Game engine (physics)
• Tim Willits — Lead designer
• Adrian Carmack — Artist
• Patrick Duffy — GUI designer
• Paul Jaquays — Level designer
• Malvern Blackwell — Level designer
• Christian Antkow — Level designer
• Kevin Cloud — Artist

Some work was done by outside specialists:

• Chris Vrenna — (one of the first members of Nine Inch Nails who wrote the music for Quake) — Music (Note: Trent Reznor left part-way through development and no longer has sound or music in Doom 3)
• Matthew Castello (a science fiction writer who worked on the famous games The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour) — (non-id) — Game script
• Splash Damage, Ltd. — The company that co-developed Doom 3 multiplayer maps

External links

• Official Doom 3 website
• Collection of Reviews of Doom 3
• Union Aerospace Corporation — A website for the fictional corporation that owns the Martian base where Doom 3 is taking place
• Martian Buddy — A website for another fictional corporation from the game
• DoomMarine Doom museum and fansite.
• Doom 3 at MobyGames
• DracoWyzard — A website mentioned perhaps only once in-game, intended to be a parody of text-based MUD games.
• Interview with id CEO John Hollenshead
• Complete List of Doom 3 Console Commands — at Tech-recipes.com
• idDevNet - Official MOD support website for the Doom 3 engine
• Doom3World.org Forums — Technical Help Forum & Custom Content Creation for the Doom 3 engine
• Doom 3 Editing Wiki - Reference material for the Doom 3 engine
• Doom3 Relief Mapping
• Doom 3 game info - Reference material for Doom 3 mods, weapons, walkthrough
• Gamer Within Review of Doom 3
• Doom 3 Portal - Fansite with fanfiction, walkthrough and more
• Doom Freaks - Map & Mod reviews, tutorials and news.

es:Doom 3 fr:Doom 3 pl:Doom III sv:Doom III zh:毁灭�士3