Doom 3: BFG Edition Reviewed By Ben McCredie

Rating: 80% (Ratings Key/Explanation)

It's an understatement to say that Doom has attained a sizeable cult following since it's original release back in 1993. It was such a critical and commercial success that the developers, Id Software, pushed out Doom II: Hell on Earth only a year later. The series revolutionised gaming; paving the way and undeniably setting a standard for FPS titles even to this day.

Aside from various re-releases and expansions, it was a decade before Doom 3 would blast its way onto store shelves and remind us all that Id Software were still a heavy weight in the FPS ring. Offering solid gameplay and then-leading edge graphics for the PC and Original Xbox, Doom 3 was a success among Doom fans and those new to the series alike.

With this in mind, one might safely assume that dusting off, polishing and re-releasing these cherished and revered titles for current-gen consoles would be a sure-fire success. At least that's what Id software are assuming with their latest addition to the long-standing series.

October 18th, 2012, saw the Australian release of Doom 3: BFG Edition, a lovingly restored compilation of all 3 Doom titles and their expansions (and some added content) neatly packaged onto a single disc for the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, complete with trophies and achievements. Doom 1 and 2 are simple ports, containing their original campaigns and library of expansions, but not a whole lot else. Doom 3, also including it's Resurrection of Evil expansion, recieves the bulk of the attention, with technical and gameplay enhancements for a more streamlined experience than it's original release.

Technical changes include improved textures and lighting, higher resolution and framerates, some remastered sound effects, and support for 3D and Head-mounted displays. More interestingly are the gameplay changes, such as a checkpoint save system to smooth progress through the single player campaign, and the armour-mounted flashlight which allows the player to both illuminate their path and fire their weapon at the same time (as opposed to the original release, where players were forced to decide if they wanted to see the demon or shoot it). As an added bonus, Id have included a new campaign titled "The Lost Mission", containing seven levels of extra hell-infested goodness for players to indulge in.

Accessed from the main menu alongside Doom 3, Dooms 1 and 2 appear untouched and faithful to their original forms. Kept in their original 4:3 ratio, I actually had plenty of fun revisiting both these titles. With the bulk of my FPS experience being on consoles, the first thing I noticed was how nicely the controls have been mapped to the PS3 (and assumedly xbox 360) controllers, feeling arguably more intuitive and less clumsy than it originally did on PC.

Unfortunately it only took me 20 or so minutes with Doom 1 before the nostalgia bug had come and gone. Eager to get into some remastered Doom 3, I was disheartened to find no easy way of returning to the disc's main menu from Doom 1. I quite literally had to leave the game entirely and head back to the PS3 dashboard, then reopen the game. This is the same for Doom 2, and I cannot help but wonder how Id managed to overlook what isn't as much an irritation as an inconvenience. Particularly when many players are simply going to play the first 2 titles for the same reason I did: a 5-minute nirvana of nostalgia.

Having never played Doom 3 in it's original format, the changes in the BFG edition weren't immediately apparent to me. Textures are smooth and clean, whereas the original had issues with texture load time and transitioning, so this is definately an improvement. Despite the upgrades, it is still graphically on par with original Xbox titles. I often had to remind myself that this wasn't supposed to be a major graphical overhaul, such as what we saw with the Halo: Anniversary edition, but a simple remastering to create an identical albeit smoother experience to the original release.

With this in mind, it's easy to see why Id would proceed to "Iron out" aspects of gameplay that were rough around the edges, or may have felt clumsy. Particularly the flashlight, which in the original release could not be used in tandem with a weapon. Now, the flashlight is seemingly mounted on the player's left shoulder (resulting in the illuminated area being somewhat left of centre), and is easily turned on or off without affecting said player's ability to give Hellknights a new chest cavity.

Whilst I can see the logic in the flashlight's change, and thereby the illogic of it's original design, I can't help but feel that having to choose between seeing what's in front of me and being able to protect myself would have upped the scare factor for Doom 3 considerably. I was less than an hour into the campaign before there really wasn't much left in the way of scares. Dimly lit rooms definately made me feel uneasy, but this was mainly due to the creepy environment design, and could easily be fixed by simply turning the flashlight on. The only thing close to any sort of penalty for using the flashlight was its charge, which would deplete after about 15-20 seconds of continued use. The charge would refill in only a couple of seconds however, rendering this "penalty" almost inert.

The checkpoint auto-save system, whilst appreciated and understandably necessary, is my only real gripe with this updated version of Doom 3. For a feature that is meant to REDUCE the irritation felt when a particularly stubborn Zombie manages to (embarrassingly) get the better of you, it sure as hell (pun intended) irritated me. These "checkpoints" are sudden and unannounced, and pause all gameplay while the system saves your progress. This seems counter-intuitive to the thus far "Smoother is Better" approach Id seem to be taking. Especially when we consider titles such as Borderlands which utilises the checkpoint autosave seamlessly and without interruption, and actually has a physical game object to identify such checkpoints.

To make matters worse, the save pause sometimes took upwards of 10 seconds, reflected even worse in the load times between levels, which can often take a couple of minutes. For what is essentially a HD port, you would have thought that "Better load times" would be somewhere near the top of Id's checklist. Again, I understand the necessity for this feature, but it comes across as poorly executed.

Doom 3: BFG Edition is a great compilation of a landmark series in the FPS genre. The tech improvements to Doom 3 are nothing but a positive change, and the quality of life improvements, though sometimes questionably executed, are still improvements nonetheless. Despite the "quick cash" stigma surrounding HD rereleases these days, this is definately an act of love and appreciation by Id Software. Love for their series, and appreciation for their fans who've kept the series alive. And it definately shows in the BFG edition.

A definite purchase for the collection of Doom enthusiasts and veterans, and worth a look for those who are unfamiliar with the series and aren't aware that Hell is, in fact, accessible from Mars, and has bugger all to do with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.