DOOM 3 is a drain on your system so it's advisable to kill any unnecessary utilities and processes before embarking. However, for a next generation engine it is surprisingly playable on most systems. You can get away with a GeForce 3 and 348 megs of RAM but you would not really be able to do the game justice with a severely lower specced machine. Yet once you rise to the mid-level machines DOOM 3 not only plays smoothly but it looks fantastic. My rig - 2800XP, 9800Pro and 768 RAM - can very happily run the game in 1280x1024 with the settings turned up to high. Sure, there's the occasional freeze as the textures are crunched around, and some slow down when the particle effects hit their stride, but the image quality at even lower resolutions makes the power requirements of games like seem excessive. Sure, DOOM 3 may not have the amazing outdoor vistas of Crytek's very impressive game, but don't let yourself be fooled into thinking that the DOOM 3 engine can only handle tight, enclosed spaces. As the game progresses the environments open out, and by the time you are nearing the end the levels become expansive. The level design also changes completely and the architecture becomes far more organic, showing that the engine is most definitely not a one trick pony. If you think the earlier level screenshots look great just wait until you see what id have in store for you as you travel deeper into Hell.

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I have a few niggles to get through now. There is a lack of secret areas which is a letdown and does dilute the authenticity of the DOOM experience. Later on in the game there are a few areas which require some sharp observation to locate but DOOM 3 relies on security lockers as an alternative. There are lots of these cabinets dotted throughout the levels. You have to find the right PDA to discover the key-code, but it just doesn't feel the same. Secrets seem to have disappeared almost completely from games, an unfortunate devolution from the early years of the genre when they were a staple part of any title's design. I think id have done a reasonable job of compromising the desire for secrets with the desire to make the game as accessible as possible yet I still would have liked to have seen a secret level or a secret insane arena zone.

It's also a real shame that there are no player profiles so only one person can play the game on a machine at the same time. Unless they don't mind risking a severe injury for using quicksave to eliminate another person's progress. The is also restricted to a miniscule four players. Although there's already a mod which ups this limit to 32 the multiplayer part of DOOM 3 is so different from the single player experience that it will be reviewed separately in the near future.

DOOM gave an indication of where the revolution that id has started with could lead. DOOM 3 is most immediately important as the next chapter of the game that made a name for the as a gaming platform and which has a mythological status in the pantheon of computer gaming. It's also important as a piece of technology, for id's mastery of graphics engine technology has been used over the years to drive many of the most excellent games to grace our monitors over the last decade. Naturally this trend will continue, and DOOM 3's engine is expected to herald great things for the future direction of PC gaming.

But over and above its pedigree and the ramifications of the technology DOOM 3 is a great gaming experience. I haven't had so much fun playing a game in a long time, and it has been a long time since a game caused me to break out into a massive grin in such a consistent fashion. DOOM 3 is a great experience and a hell of lot of fun to play. Killing a Revenant with a chainsaw is one of those gaming experiences that we all look for in our entertainment. And above all else DOOM 3 is a very cinematic and entertaining game. The tricks of the have been used to great effect to make DOOM 3 a total success as a piece of entertainment. And while the game is not without its minor niggles and 'what if?'s on the whole DOOM 3 is a roaring success that any self-respecting gamer owes it to themselves to play.

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By Sam Gibson