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A new era of PC gaming is here!

» Pros

-best PC graphics to date
-dark and atmospheric sound
-great level and character design
-special effects are some of the best to date
-realistic lighting and shadows
-scares the crud out of you and keeps you on your toes
-game still looks good on lowest settings
-gameplay is perfect to the type of game Doom 3 is

» Cons

-requires a top of the line system to play on the highest settings
-gameplay gets a little repetitive after a while
-cant find a game to compare it with
-not for the faint of heart
-repetitive run and gun
-low AI

» Review

First of all I'd like to say that I am a new member to Firingsquad and that this is my first posting. I have been playing PC games for the past 10 years or so, therefore I am familiar with the Doom franchise. My review will be short and sweet.

I have been waiting for this game to come out for the past 2 years and I can tell you now that my wait has not been in vain. For all fans of the series this is a definite must. Even for those not into the FPS scene you'll enjoy this game as it is not a regular shooter where you can plow through your enemies. Doom 3 is a much slower paced game that relies more on strategy and watching your back. This game will not dump endless enemies at you like the original Doom game. It will rather spread the action out. It starts off slow and gets tougher as the game advances. The visuals and sound effects will blow you away. The creepy atmosphere will have you edgy and focused at most if not all times.
The variety of enemies is always welcome as is the variety of weapons and items. You WILL will waste a lot of ammo on your foes and will always need a little extra especially on higher difficulties. Game design is nothing short of extraordinary, although the gameplay is nothing new; but perfect for this type of game.

I will not describe the game in great detail, not to spoil your Doom 3 experience.

The only real disadvantage most people will find with this game are game requirements to play this game. Anything less than the specified minimum requirements and the game will turn off most if not all effects and will run at the lowest settings available. Even then the game will lag and will be considered unplayable by most users. I ran the game on my 1st computer spec'd at:
950mhz,
512mb PC-133ram,
nVidia GeForce2 MX200 32mb,
30GB PATA hard drive,
Win98
The game didn't even run at first and when it did, it was abismal.

On my 2nd computer the game had no problems running on the Ultra settings with everything enabled and set to max. It ran great at 1024x768(my max monitor setting). Here are my system specs:
2.4Ghz AMD Athlon 64 3800+
1GB Corsair XMS Pro Series C2
ATI Radeon X800XT Platinum Edition 256MB GDDR3
200GB Maxtor Plus9 SATA
WinXP Home
-note that these specs are not a must to play the game at the Ultra setting. The game will also run great on other Athlon 64 procs such as the 3400+, or even the 3000+. The main upgrade option is the video card. Currently nVidia's 6800 line holds a slight advantage as it was made with the game in mind. Any of those cards will run the game well. 1GB of memory is a must to play the game at the highest settings. Currently AMD chips run the game better with higher fps.
If you experience a huge drop in fps try turning down the AA and AF as they drain your performance.

I hope my review and system requirement sections helped many of you. The game is a true breakthrough in PC gaming and should be purchased by all FPS fans. Enjoy.