April 4, 2005 - Doom 3 was like a brief honeymoon of really cool stuff, but the buzz wore off early, especially in the wake of Half-Life 2, CoD: United Offensive and Brothers in Arms. Yeah, it looks damn good. But can it hold a conversation? I'll get back to you on that. While the engine has few peers (of this generation, only the HL2 renderer is about as good), the AI turns out to be oversimplified, the gameplay dated and repetitive, and the environment just too damned dark. But hey, there's an expansion pack called Resurrection of Evil that adds more levels, a continuation of the story, a couple more weapons and several new monsters. For the grab-you-by-the-short-hairs MSRP of $34.99, it better be pretty good, right? After all, you can get a full retail game for that much, on sale brand new, or a few months old at regular price. Increased cost of development, you say? Come on, now. This is being built on top of existing code. Cry me a river!

So what all do you get for thirty-five smackers? Let's talk about weapons; everybody like weapons. You get a grabber gun and a double-barreled shotgun. The new shotgun packs quite a punch but takes a while to reload, and the grabber you've probably heard about. Its main difference from HL2's gravity gun is that it can capture and redirect large projectiles (like fireballs and plasma balls, as opposed to bullets and grenades). It's pretty cool, because there's a lot of stuff you can push around this time. It can also be awkward to use, as aiming it just right for capture and release takes some finesse, and finesse is rarely something you have time for in a close-quarters situation like this. Still, it provides some sorely needed environmental interactivity, and you're actually rewarded for exploring and finding little bits of ammo and armor, instead of being punished every single time with a monster closet/teleport booby trap like in the original game.

Okay, maybe it wasn't every time that hellbeasts appeared in a flash of orange lightning right up my arse every time I picked up an armor shard sitting in the middle of the room, but it felt like it. Sadly, Resurrection of Evil does not buck this trend, and the monster closets are just as prevalent as before. I don't know, if I was a demon, I'd be running around and tearing crap up instead of waiting in a little compartment for the hero of the hour to run across my door trigger. Is this supposed to be "back to basics" gameplay? Am I asking to much for everyone to be present and accounted for when I enter a room? Perhaps. But I know what fun is, and fun is blowing crap up. There's plenty of that to go around in RoE, but there's also a demon humping my leg from behind, and he wasn't there a second ago.

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All right, so what about the new monsters? For one, there's the crawly demon with two heads who throws plasma balls instead of fireballs and packs a mean melee attack. He can be taken fairly easily at medium range, but the grabber gun typically takes a little more time to use than I can afford, and it's typically easier to just dodge the plasma and kill with conventional weapons. The flying skulls are a lot easier to handle, however, but you have to chuck them quickly, since they can apparently still attack you when you have them held in the grabber field. This creates an awkward situation because this gun distorts the air in front of you when activated, making it difficult to see to the end of a hallway and such. It's a neat effect, but I could do without it, tactically.