And the only real innovative weapon in your arsenal is the “soul cube,” an alien device which automatically devours the most powerful enemy on screen and transfers its life force to you. You can jump, run and crouch, but you can’t lean around corners or crawl. The game has a few shortcomings compared to other recent titles in the same genre. The low-frequency hums and high-pitched whirs of giant high tech machinery, when mixed with the grunts and groans of nearby, unseen demons, really added a convincing sense of atmosphere. I enjoyed the game’s rich, layered sound effects. By the end, my fear had been a bit numbed by a familiar pattern: enter darkened room, wait for monsters to spawn all around you, kill them all, go to next chamber, repeat. I only wish there had been another tactic besides shooting first and thinking … never. While they aren’t particularly intelligent, there’s a steady supply of flying demon heads, oversized spiders, flame-throwing demons and other more sinister foes lunging, leaping and dive-bombing you from all directions. “Doom 3” doles out monsters in small batches.

Just as it starts getting repetitious, you enter a portal to hell and fight the demons on their own turf. You start out on the base, worming through one narrow, dim corridor after another. The vivid three-dimensional graphics, a true step forward for computer games, allow for some extremely gross death scenes involving large quantities of blood and various human and monster guts. What you see in this M-rated game is definitely NOT for children or the squeamish.

Doom 3 last man standing