Doom 3

Xbox Nation Magazine

Grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go until your eyes bulge, your face turns blue, and your heart thuds against your rib cage like a charging rhino... Screw the PC version. This feels like the game Xbox was always meant to host. [Feb 2005, p.81; NOTE: 1UP's Doom 3 review is simply XBN's review republished without credit.]

GameSpy

The biggest and best addition to the game is a cooperative mode, allowing players to battle Hell's minions either via system link or on Xbox Live... It's gory, it's violent, and it's one of the best uses of Live we've seen so far.

Maxim Online

In the end, you'll be reminded why Hell is such a bad place to spend eternity—but such a good place for four friends to join in multiplayer bullet-tossing.

Detroit Free Press

From its blood-red pentagrams to its chilling shrieks of radio chatter, the single-player campaign in Doom 3 will scare your pants off like nothing else on the Xbox.

eToychest

It's slower, scarier, and altogether one of the best offerings in the genre for any console.

Game Chronicles

You don't play Doom 3; you experience Doom 3. I was reminded of those haunted mansions or “dark rides” they have at theme parks with all of the scripted scares.

Next Level Gaming

Incredible graphic power, solid FPS gameplay, and the online co-op mode I know a lot of people wanted to see in "Halo 2."

Stuff

The graphics on the Xbox are as perfect as the platform can deliver, and walking into steam-filled rooms only to have the lights blink out, then hearing something hiss at you out of the darkness, are moments that would have made Dante soil his short pants.

Deeko

Embracing the legendary status of the original titles, Doom 3 offers up a more fully developed and technologically superior gaming experience that upholds the feel of the series without sacrificing its integrity.

TotalGames.net

We can highly recommend having a crack at finishing it on the hardest difficulty setting with the lights turned down low and the surround sound up high. Especially since, on the hardest difficulty setting, your health is constantly ticking down to a base level of 25 points. For this challenge only the hardcore first-person gamer need apply. Forget "Halo 2" on Legendary - that's for whiny pussies.

GameZone

If this game doesn’t have your heartbeat up, you are likely a casualty on that Mars station and fighting against the lone Marine.

Game Informer

An absolutely amazing Xbox title. [Apr 2005, p.134]

Electronic Gaming Monthly

Mostly due to its insanely detailed environments and outstanding state-of-the-art lighting effects, Doom 3 succeeds better than any game I've ever played at making you feel like you are living the game. [Apr 2005, p.132]

IGN

As a single-player game, Doom 3 is a rocking, frightening, tension-filled yet straight-forward, linear, and redundant single-player game. It packs superb visuals and some of the best audio useage of any game on Xbox, and the atmosphere is thick enough to slice.

Games Radar UK (Pre-2006)

It may not be as innovative as "Half-Life 2" but it's the perfect console game and is by far the best looking game on Xbox. Doom 3 is FPS butchery in its purest form. [GamesMaster]

GamingTrend

Doom 3’s visuals are an amazing testament to Vicarious Vision. They have taken a PC benchmarking staple and turned it onto an impossible console port.

Official Xbox Magazine

The Hell levels are beautiful in their nightmarishness. Add in cool features like online play and the inclusion of older Doom games, and you've got a genuine horror masterpiece for the Xbox. [Apr 2005, p.82]

My Gamer

Doom 3 doesn’t just scare you; it mortifies you, just before it breaks your glasses, gives you a stern beating, and steals your lunch money.

XboxAddict

Id did a terrific job of using the audio effectively for creating a creepy mood. The music, grunts from zombies, and the marine chatter over your radio are all used very well to paint a scary picture as you walk along the dark tight corridors.

Gaming Target

Without hesitation I can say it’s one of the best looking and sounding Xbox games to date, and virtually nothing has been lost in the translation from PC. It’s creepy, immersive, dark - and features a style that really gets into your head.

Gamezilla!

The audio only helps build the chilling atmosphere, and in the end, helps give it some of the frightening body that most people want from a more horror driven title.

DailyGame

Gameplay-wise it's pretty standard, but for the sheer fright and experience, this is a Doom fan's dream.

VGPub

It’s also the best looking game ever seen for a console.

Xbox Solution

DOOM 3 proves that with time and effort a PC game can be brought to the Xbox and look and play well.

Cheat Code Central

Succeeds because it's able to exploit our primal fears of the unknown. Even when the unknown becomes the known the amazing graphics breath life into these demonic enemies so that their very presence unlocks new facets of fear. It's what makes this game different from a shooting gallery.

GamerFeed

If the video game world was one big butcher's block, then Doom 3 would obviously come down to being one tough piece of prime rib. The game packs lots of hideous monsters to bring down and does so in a beautiful package, with the kind of sound and visuals that push the Xbox to its very limits.

Worth Playing

It is just a cleaner and higher-quality gameplay experience, since many of the uninteresting segments from the PC have either been changed or completely removed.

GamePro

Though Doom 3 is lacking in innovative gameplay, it more than makes up for it with amazing graphics, flawless sound design, and excellent storytelling. [Apr 2005, p.72]

Yahoo! Games

Doom 3 won't win prizes for originality, but for low-key storytelling combined with all-out action and immense atmosphere, it's deserving of any shooter fan's time.

MS Xbox World

Whilst the game play isn’t as complex as other first person shooters as it’s simply a case of kill or be killed in the mindless sense (but would you have it any other way), the fact remains that Doom 3 is an engaging, scary and highly entertaining title.

TeamXbox

FPS fans looking for a killer single-player campaign will get just that. Players hoping for yet another awesome multiplayer shooter on the Xbox other than "Halo" won’t find what they are looking for in DOOM 3, and they will just have to wait for "Quake 4" to get their fix.

Xequted

After getting through the initial few difficult levels and desensitizing myself to the gore and macabre of Doom 3 I was hooked.

GameShark

As much an experience as it is a game and is as close as you’re likely to get to being in an Alien movie anytime soon.

AceGamez

The single player mode is a huge, action-packed adventure, dripping with atmosphere and tension, brought to life with beautiful lighting, incredible textures, realistic sound effects and great voice acting.

RealGamer

Pretty amazingly, Doom 3 looks, by and large, exactly the same as its PC brother, which is a quite outstanding achievement.

Gamestyle

If there's light beyond the fringes of Doom 3 multiplayer, it's the eternal flame of id's past: the perfect emulations of "Ultimate Doom" and "Doom II."

XGP Gaming

Although repetitive and flawed at times, Doom 3 is still one of the very best games to grace the Xbox.

3DAvenue

They have maintained the scared out of wits feel while keeping the framerate stable.

Console Gameworld

Id Software and Vicarious Visions have painted a hellishly beautiful portrait with graphical nuances that illustrate just how much effort went into the console version.

Xbox World Australia

Brilliant audio, amazing graphics and the inclusion of Xbox Live co-operative play go a long way to minimising the pain of the game’s shortcomings, though a more fleshed-out Deathmatch mode would’ve been great.

Armchair Empire

Doom 3 stumbles a bit in its online play, but it still offers a great alternative to Halo 2 for FPS online gaming, although it won’t exactly make anybody forget about Halo 2’s much better online package.

Gaming Illustrated

The game has all the same fun as the PC version, a very nice XBox Live multiplayer support, and all the visuals and sounds that made the PC game such a hit.

Inside Gamer Online

Even though the multiplayer deathmatch is a little basic, it’s still pretty fun, and the levels are laid out just how any old-school shooter should be. It’s fun, just nothing spectacular.

GameSpot

Doom 3's old-fashioned gameplay mechanics and level design are very much at odds with its cutting-edge, ultrarealistic looks. Yet the quality of the presentation truly is remarkable--enough so that it overwhelms Doom 3's occasional problems.

Gamers' Temple

What it does it does well. Hunting demons in the dark is fun at times, but there’s not much more to DOOM 3 than that.

Pelit (Finland)

Scares you like no other game when played with headphones or home theatre sound, and preferably sitting in the dark. Best enjoyed alone. [May. 05]

Warcry

Go into a room, a closet opens and about a million monsters pile out. You shoot these things with a gun and go into the next room. I mean, seriously, it's Doom. What do you expect?

WHAM! Gaming

While the graphics are undeniably great (especially after blasting demons and zombies into a bloody pulp) in Doom 3, it's the smart use of suspense and the creepy soundtrack -- including moans, groans and frantic cries for help --which make the presentation downright terrifying.

Play Magazine

What matters is that Doom 3 looks amazing, plays as well as it possibly could next to the acclaimed PC behemoth, and carries a foreboding atmosphere that is unmatched in a first-person shooter. [Apr 2005, p.47]

GameBiz

Technically brilliant; it just doesn't offer any innovation or game play variation.

Game Revolution

It looks great, plays good, takes a nice 20 hours or so to complete and it’s genuinely scary, which is all you really need to have a good time.

Gaming Age

The one shining part of online play is the addition of being able to play through the game cooperatively with a friend.

Into Liquid Sky

For some it’s been a mixed bag. Some people love it for its creepy and intense atmosphere and others hate it for its stale game play.

Gaming Nexus

The game modes are not innovated, just your standard game modes, and it plays a lot like Quake online. There’s nothing really new here, just a place to play Doom with real people.

Extreme Gamer

One area where you could note Doom 3 as being innovative is the way it uses its great lighting and atmosphere to effect the small spaced environments of the game. Doom 3 achieves this like no other first person shooter giving the player a great sense of paranoia.

Xbox Evolved

A scary romp into the dark trenches of the mind that is ironically using a formula used for games of the same name for the past fifteen years.

DarkStation

This can get tedious playing by yourself, but when playing in co-op this game really shines and is actually quite a bit of fun to play.

Sydney Morning Herald

The best new inclusion in this console version of the PC hit is a two-player co-operative mode that lets mates tackle 20 intense missions together. It's a blast.

Boomtown

Doom 3 definitely has gameplay to back it up but it's gameplay from a few years ago while the rest of the world has moved on.

VideoGamesLife

So on a positive note, if you didn’t have a graphics card with enough oomph to play Doom 3 the first time around on PC, this is a suitable and acceptable way to finally scare the bejesus out of yourself.

G4 TV

It’s dark, tense, and occasionally scary. The levels also have an inordinate number of secret hiding places that spit out demons when you walk over some invisible trigger. It's a cheap design tactic that completely pulls you out of the realistic setting.

Electric Playground

One final note: if you get the Collector's Edition of Doom III, you also get ports of "Doom II" and "Ultimate Doom." If you're an old timer, that's a lot of great nostalgia.

Eurogamer

"Riddick," "Halo," "Half-Life 2" - these are games you can play again and again and find new things. In Doom III it's hard to find anything fundamentally new on the second level.

Kombo

Like a finely prepared meal- great graphics and sound, finely tuned gameplay- that’s been served in a dumpster- a poor singleplayer mode and Xbox Live implementation.

Computer and Video Games

Groundbreaking in graphical and audio terms. It's just that the combat and the mission pacing come across as slightly dated and they're two very important factors. [Official UK Xbox Magazine]

Total Video Games

Sadly there’s very little to sustain your interest beyond the Campaign mode, so if you’re looking for something beyond a frantic blast from the past you may want to look elsewhere.

netjak

Superficially, this game looks incredible, but digging deeper will spell out otherwise. Doom 3 is by no means a bad game, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was lacking.

Talk Xbox

I can 100% guarantee that if the Doom name was not attached to this game, no one would pay this repetitive game any attention and it would hit the bargain bin like it deserves.

Computer Games Magazine

This console-friendly redux has just enough polish to make a bog-standard virtual murderer simulator seem fresh. [July 2005, p.87]

AltGaming

But Doom 3 not only manages to scare and surprise you at every step, but also pushes you along at a terrifying rate, leaving you eagerly anticipating what the developers are going to put you up against once you turn the next corner. And that, at least, is a feeling that other FPS games should try to emulate.

PALGN

With more work put into the weapons, more diverse locations and more/or smarter enemies this could have been up there with the best.