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Doom 3 Preview
Mark Simons
00/12/0000
id software look to re-ignite the genre they created with the eagerly awaited Doom3.
Doom is a title that has a special place in the hearts of many gamers and marked a hugely important stage in the progress of videogames. Sure there had been first person shooters before, but Doom was the blockbuster that introduced us to so many things that have now become standard; network deathmatch, internet play, mods and hugely atmospheric game worlds. But you people should know Doom, it has appeared on practically every format out there from the Atari Jaguar to the GameBoy Advance; itās even been ported to some digital cameras, so the chances are, youāve played some incarnation of Doom at some point.
This omnipresence presents a rather unique problem for Doom 3, whilst it has instantaneous huge brand awareness that comes with the expectations that everyone has for the game, as well as what they would like to see thrown in there. The main thing though is that people wanted this, and now it is on the way and it looks like id Software are going to bust a gut to meet and exceed what we expect from them.
Doom 3 is probably a bit of a misnomer, as it seems that id will be retelling the first game in terms of plot and location. Specific details and twists are naturally under heavy wraps as there is a lot of effort being put into this aspect of the game. What we do know is that the game is set in the year 2145, and starts off on the UAC facility built on Mars eventually youāll end up venturing into hell itself. The beginning of the game will probably see you deal with the devastation of the UAC mars laboratories due to the opened portal from hell. The journey through the laboratories and into hell will be peppered with cutscenes and scripted events, designed to scare the crap out of you. Although this is meant to be a retelling of the Doom story pretty much everything you see and do will be brand new, just due to the advancements in technology allowing the level designers to do, well pretty much whatever they want.
Technology is key to delivering the Doom 3 experience, the game engine that John Carmack has developed features all manner of cool things. The first thing to strike you about the game is the lighting, which is astounding. Every object in the game reacts realistically to lights cast on it, this means in terms of shading and shadowing, all the shadows are completely accurate, this is not just self shadowing on characters this is every object casting, and having shadows cast upon itself. This would make any other game look amazing, but given that Doom 3 also pushes a stupidly high number of polygons and does things like accurate reflections ā“ meaning objects glint, bump mapping as standard on everything, the end result is a game that looks almost photo realistic. That said you will not have seen many photos showing what you will see in the game, the designers have really gone to town creating some scary environments and even scarier creatures. The actual thought behind the characters and time spent creating them appears to be very high, one would assume easily more than in previous id titles. Having an animator who has worked on Antz and Shrek demonstrates what id are aiming for with regards to level of detail and consistency within the game world.
Characters in the game are modelled in to a crazy level of detail, you can see pores on their face, individual strands of hair, even liquid oozing out of their mouths as they turn to face you from eating a body. Coupled with an animation system that allows for some seriously detailed and very well blended animation that is linked to the physics engine, allowing for example an accurate and real-time animation for falling down stairs, and you have some of the best looking characters ever. Features such as eye movement, full facial expressions and detailed lip-synching are of course all present. With a good scripting system and an eye for directorial style, the characters will be used for numerous cut-scenes as well as little cut away shots that not only set the scene but also will make your jaw drop.
The animation system as we mentioned is linked to the physics engine with a skeletal animation system. Physics for other objects are realistic, clipping and oddities should not be present, when you knock things off shelves they should fall around accurately. Everything in the game world looks solid and realistic due to the lighting being used but the physics should ensure that everything behaves as it should. An example of this, is the use of inverse kinematics being used to ensure every frame of animation looks realistic and flows naturally, for example if you took a shotgun to a large enemy, shoot their shoulder and see them jolt back rotating at their waist and dropping the opposite shoulder before regaining their stride and coming on to keep walking towards you. This sort of thing will be in the game and probably a lot more than my imagination can come up with, when the physics, level design and graphics are all of the quality of Doom 3 it should allow for some truly breathtaking moments.
In the audio department Doom 3 will naturally allow you to show off if you happen to have a top end system. Support for 5.1 surround set-ups will be there, although it has not been stated yet what encoding methods this will be available in. Trent Reznor formerly of the Nine Inch Nails will be back on board to provide the sound effects and music, after doing a great job on the original Quake. So far it sounds like everything hits the spot, and it seems relatively safe to assume that everything will suit the mood given how much attention id are paying to getting every detail spot on.
Concentrating on the single player game is an interesting move from id, the first time they have really tried to make a narrative driven engrossing adventure. It has been stated however that there will be a deathmatch mode although how comprehensive this will be is unknown at this stage. Given the level of detail on the characters it seems safe to assume that there will not be say 32 players running around each level, but the potential for small scale deathmatches, or indeed co-operative play are rather intriguing and we look forward to seeing what id put in.
Perhaps the only concern is that the technology required to run the game will make it an unrealistic proposition for most people. Certainly with a GeForce3 being required as a minimum it certainly seems hi-spec. However you must bear in mind that the game is still a long way off ā“ 2003 at this stage ā“ and by the time it is released processor speeds, ram and graphics cards should all easily be able to cope with John Carmackās game engine.
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