Review: DOOM 3: BFG Edition

DOOM was one of the original First Person Shooter games out there, and due to the huge success of the game, spawned an entire series and the FPS games that followed quickly got the tag, DOOM-clone. This was quickly replaced by the now standard tag First Person Shooter. After the original DOOM, DOOM II quickly followed, which had more of the gory shooting goodness. Then the series went silent for nearly 10 years, till 2004, when DOOM 3 was released, and then a year later there was the DOOM film (The less said about that one the better). DOOM 3 deviated from the previous stories, and was classed as a reboot of the series. Although it retained the FPS choices, it had more of a proper horror aspect to it as well. Now why I have I gone into the history of the DOOM franchise? Well because every single version of DOOM is available for you to play on the BFG Edition. If you want your retro fix you have the classic DOOM and DOOM II games, along with the No Rest for the Living update for DOOM II, and for the people who loved the horror aspects of DOOM 3, well you have a graphically updated version of DOOM 3 as well as the Resurrection of Evil and the Lost Missions as well. BFG is obviously the name of one of the guns in the game, but I think here it also stands for this- Big Frigging Game.

This is a must for all DOOM fans, just for the pure amount of DOOM goodness involved. Although DOOM and DOOM II are available on XBLA and PSN, if you haven’t got them yet, it would be worth getting this game. They are both here and present and correct. It adds to the collection and offers Retro fans something, which a lot of other games don’t do on the full releases. The MIDI score that opens DOOM is pure nostalgic.

Now DOOM 3, the Ressurection of Evil and The Lost Missions are fully updated for this generations consoles. Graphically they are upgraded and it all looks very nice and pretty, but does the gameplay stand up? Both yes and no.

In preparation for this review, I went out and re-bought the original DOOM 3 for the original Xbox and gave it a few days play through to get the feel back for the game. Having done that and then playing the BFG edition, a lot of the differences became very apparent. First thing that was updated, and this was a very welcome addition was that you can fire as well as having the flash-light on. This is a very welcome addition you could easily shoot into the dark recesses of the ship. However in a trade-off you can’t keep it on all the time now, it has a limited  battery life, which then recharges. Thankfully though, it recharges quickly, so it isn’t a considerable pay-off for the trade.

Also gone is the quick-save feature that was prominent in the original DOOM 3 and in it’s place is a check-point system, which is good. If you forget to manually save in the original DOOM 3, you can go back a long way, whereas here you’re sent back to the latest checkpoint. Also you can save the game manually as a proper save, so the need for the quick save feature is fairly redundant now.

One of the major differences I did notice, is that the difficulty seems to be scaled right back and this is disappointment as part of the original challenge was the difficulty, the finding ammo for your guns and the constant fight for survival. After playing DOOM 3 on the original Xbox, the remake felt incredibly easy, which was incredibly disappointing, as I felt that if they had preserved the difficulty of the previous game, then this would have been an amazing game. Unfortunately, even looking for ammo isn’t a problem as you always seem to have your pistol and one other powerful gun at full ammo nearly all the time.

On the subject of the guns, some of the power ratings seem different to the original, as with the shotgun on the BFG Edition is exceedingly week, yet the machine gun is a hell of a lot more powerful. This can lead the game to be exceedingly frustrating, especially when fighting the bosses or more powerful enemies.

Online was a disaster when I tried, no-one was online whatsoever, it was like a morgue. Utterly dead. When I did connect, the game was slightly glitchy, which turned me off completely. There are 4 modes, which are Deathmeatch, Team Deathmatch, Last Man Standing and Tourney. . When a match did begin, their were to few players for an enjoyable experience. On one team deathmatch game, there were three players. Three! Online is definitely not recommended for this game, just go through the single player experience. The same is said for DOOM and DOOM II as well.

Overall an enjoyable and nostalgic experience. If you want all your DOOM fixes in one place, this is the game for you. That is if you don’t mind the small alterations made to DOOM 3. If you want an exact copy of the game, go and get the original Xbox copy. That being said, this is a worthwhile title for those new to the DOOM series as well, and it has stood the test of time to still be one of the finest FPS games out there. Now we just want DOOM 4.

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