A game has been released that has PC gamers everywhere peeing their pants. A game with such stunning visuals that graphic whores all over the world have weeks worth of masturbation material from the thought alone. A game with a story so ridiculous that the caveman who invented language has been sent to caveman hell where he will be eaten by demon tigers and stomped upon by demon mammoths for all eternity.

Yeah, it's Doom 3.

I haven't played it yet - hell, I have yet to see it boxed in a store - but it's going to take more to stop me from posting my first impressions of it.


If you've seen the screenshots, you already know that this is one sharp looking game. People made of plastic have never before been rendered more realistically outside a PIXAR movie - this is a huge leap forward in realtime digital depiction of plastic, which is a big deal if you're one of the 4 people looking forward to the next 1,000,000 Army Men games. If Neil Armstrong was to play this, he'd surely utter "One small step for a man, one giant leap for..." just before Buzz Aldrin would clobber him to death with a walker for once again stealing the limelight.

[i]pitch black hallways have never looked more realistic[/i]

The story on the other hand is just retarded. If I read another 'first impressions' feature on Gamespy with the words "hell breaks lose on Mars - literally!" I'll put a gun to my head and paint a pretty red spot on the wall besides me. Yeah, a portal to hell opens on Mars, we get it. It's so original I could vomit blood. This game may have graphics of the FutureŠ but the plot is stuck in the mid-eighties, back when 5x5 pixel sprites would zip around on a TV screen and kill smaller sprites in what is considered the pinnacle of gameplay by old school gamers. They're also known as idiots.

[i]Our space-marine hero, ready to kill a man for having acne scars[/i]


To battle all the poorly designed hellspawn you assume the role of a space-marine. Now, the concept of a space-marine is pretty ridiculous. He can be a marine in space but not on Earth? What would happen if he was to do battle in France or Sacramento? Would he pee in his pants? Would he explode?

As for gameplay? You have guns. Zombies try to eat you. Go figure.

[i]This poor man locked himself out but left his keys and his jaw inside.[/i]

Maybe it's the monsters that look like turds with teeth or the fact that I couldn't get it to run with an acceptable framerate on my Amiga 500, but Doom3 doesn't do much for me. I'm hoping for a bunch of spin-off's though. Who wouldn't love "The Sims: Hellspawnin' It" where your Sims would turn into zombies and upside down skulls on fire and eat their children alive? Or who could resist the Doom3 RPG, where instead of Mars it's medieval Europe, and instead of a space-marine it's a knight, and instead of hellspawn that shoot rockets out of their eyes it's dragons? Finally, my life would be forever incomplete without the Doom3 3rd person stealth action game. Sure, it'd be very easy since there'd be nothing but darkness, but Solid Snake vs. army of zombie demons would be a beautiful thing.

[i]Holy shit! Excuse while I ejaculate in my pants![/i]

I smell a GOTY.