Facebook – Top 100 FAVORITE Video Games: 70

70: Crisis Core – Final Fantasy VII (PSP)
Developer: Square Enix
Year: 2007

 I love Final Fantasy VII and, by association, anything related to it. One of the primary reasons I wanted to get Kingdom Hearts, for example, was because Aeris, Cloud, and the gang were to be featured, at least somewhat, with new graphics and updated models. I almost couldn’t have cared less about the game itself, just that it had my FFVII characters in it. As such, when the “Compilation of FFVII” was announced, a movie, prequel games, and possible sequel were enough to make me drool in anticipation. And while the movie was polarizing, the cell phone game never came stateside, and the sequel game redefined lackluster, the game featuring overly-peripheral character Zack Fair was fantastic and not only recreated some of the classic feelings from the original game, but lended some new depth to characters that were both fantastically crafted and also those left merely as charicatures and architypes. Also, it played like a gift from God!

Taking place in the years prior to Final Fantasy VII’s opening train ride, CC, as stated, places players in the role of Zack, the member of Soldier that Cloud was under the impression he was during the first and second acts of FFVII. While playing as Zack, you gain new insight into the role Sephiroth had in Shinra, as well as a much more fleshed out feel for just exactly what Soldier’s purpose was, and the role they played both in the expanded story involving the Materia War with Wutai, and also in the fallout of the first Jenova incident. Along the way you meet old friends for the “first time” (Yuffie is annoying no matter WHAT age) and some new allies, as well. Most notable in regards to their expanded development are the Turks, who were cool antagonists in FFVII and Advent Children, but really played up as being cogs in the great Shinra machine in Crisis Core’s narrative.

Using a graphics engine very similar to the one employed and perfected by the Kingdom Hearts series, the animation in this game is rock solid. Character models are updated a ton from the days spent in FFVII, most notably the monsters! Creatures like Flans and Bombs get updates in every Final Fantasy title, sure, but in this game they simply touch up the art style used in its predecessor, making everything you fight look familiar and in its right place, without looking too different yet looking really great in combat. The cinemas, too, are SE standard: really gorgeous to look at and spaced far enough apart to keep you waiting for the next excellent sequence.

The gameplay, though, is the real heart of the game; borrowing somewhat from Kingdom Hearts again, Crisis Core offers a more real-time combat, rather than the turn-based fare of FFVII. It is a mix of both, to be sure, but moves away from the normal battles you’d see in an average Final Fantasy title. Having only one member on your “party” as you have, this makes sense. You learn powerful moves, combine and master Materias, and learn summons and combos, just like you would in a KH game, but here they have that nice “FFVII feel” we true fans of the game still miss. There’s a great main quest line to follow, with tons of side quests and challenges to trudge through, too, leveling your up in a standard fashion, stats and HP raising in time. Its addictive and, paired with the game’s excellent and well-told story, hard to put down.

All in all, Crisis Core proves that the Final Fantasy VII storyline still has some very interesting tidbits left behind for us to discover. While return trip after return trip to the basement of Shrinra mansion got old in the main game, and certain plot holes arise any time you retell a sequence previously seen, the game actually works flawlessly alongside the primary “Compilation” entry’s narrative, particularly with the characterization of Zack, as little as there actually was in the game. While not worth the price of a PSP, it is one of the standout games for the handheld system and, as such, worth investing some thought into.

Classic Moment:
We all know how Zack bites it; battling wave after wave of Shinra troops to protect a drugged-out-of-his-fucking-mind Cloud. But this game makes you play it out. In a brutal battle sequence that never seems to come to a close. I’d rather not spoil the epicness of this entire thing, especially paired with the scenes leading up to it and – especially the scenes right after – because its a chilling and well crafted sequence of events that really should be experienced first hand, at the end of the game, with the player having invested all that time and energy getting to know a character they knew was going to die at the end, no matter what. Good work, Square Enix, you bastards. Another FFVII character I cried over during his death. Jerks.

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Added January 17, 2017
Back with the games list off Facebook.
I watched a “movie” version of this a year ago and was enthralled. It is a solid story told through a pretty solid gameplay experience, and while it complicates the FFVII story in some meaningless or destructive ways, the bottom line is, this game is a solid win.

Facebook – Top 100 FAVORITE Video Games: “Cover Album”

This week I’m going to detail my favorite covers for video games. Box art and the like.

Top 10 Video Game Box/Cover Art:

10: Doom 2
I like this cover for its simplicity and the fact that it shows possibly the most futile battle possible – man vs. cyberdemon, with only a shotgun to his name. It speaks to the scope of the game’s giant monsters and, often times, desperate lack of ammunition. The first Doom game had a great cover, too, which DID feature the space marine in costume, but this cover speaks to the nature of the game itself, the feeling of “taking the fight to the aliens themselves” and, in a game featuring no in-game narrative, that is essential.

9: Chrono Trigger
Its no surprise that I love CT. But the cover art (which I think has remained the same across all ports) speaks to the game 100%. Using the DBZ-style art (same artist!) to great effect, it shows a party taking down a beast, each showcasing specific skill sets they have and use in game, too. It really sets a nice tone for the game itself and I think, in a time when there was no internet to help hype games, a box art was all you had to go by.

8: Contra
As a kid this cover was made of cool. Two bad ass looking marines fighting with giant guns against horrible looking aliens. Back when I was into the second Terminator movie and Predator and anything with “Ahnold” in it, any army guy blasting ANYthing was awesome to me. Its really ugly and would never make it past the concept phase, these days, but it spoke to the game’s action really well.

7: Final Fantasy VII (this was not on purpose)
I like FF covers, mostly I love the ones that feature the logo against a white background (see Final Fantasy X for example), but VII has such an epic coolness to it. The mostly-white background, the looming, steam-punk structure in the background, the giant fucking sword… these elements helped add to Squarsoft’s marketing campaign for the game, a campaign built around showcasing a cinematic experience unlike those in any other home RPG. I think the cover worked very well to sell that idea.

6: All Zelda covers
I’m using the first game’s cover, but that’s just to make a point – they’ve all been great, since the first game. They all feature a simple logo, a gold background (aside from Majora’s Mask!), and, while in recent history they’ve moved away from a simple, static logo, they always feature nice, good looking art work to help give insight into the game itself (Twilight Princess did this with a split Link/wolf image).

5: Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core
I love this cover. To me, there is something so sad and bleak about it. It features a similar image to the one on FFVII’s cover – huge sword, large structure, etc. But there’s something to it that adds an extra darkness to the tone of the game you’ll find inside. A beauty and a work of art itself, in my opinion, Crisis Core’s box art is also just fun to look at an examine, the details popping right out of the image. Zack, here, for instance, looks amazing and the stoic nature of his image on the cover showcases a part of the evolution his character will end up going through in the end.

4: Xenosaga: Episode 1
The image of KOS-MOS on the front of the box is so majestic, in my opinion. I had such a stupid-as-hell, overly strange crush on this huge-ass-anime-eyed robot when it first came out, and the white, angelic cover helped to further that crush as I ripped the game open and started playing. Once again, it helped to really provide a feeling for what you were to play upon placing the disc in your PS2, a game that seemed to be epic and uber-cool. Which it is.

3: Homeworld
I love this cover. The scope, the imagery, the colors, everything. For a game about a giant ass ship being led through space by the player, Homeworld’s cover captured that all with one image. The blackness of space has such a contrast against the ship and the over-sized logo doesn’t even distract from the picture of ships and planets and stars behind it (ok, maybe it does a little bit…). The GotY edition of the game – which is the one I have – has a rather different approach to the same idea, but it doesn’t work as well as this one.

2: Mass Effect 2 – Collector’s Edition
It really isn’t that interesting to look at, especially in comparison to the standard release of the game, with its characters and colors. But the simple, refined nature of the CE really works for me. The bold, N7 logo, the bleeding gash on the armor, the sweat drops running down… It creates a dramatic feel that the standard cover couldn’t possibly hope for (with its epicness. I like that cover, but it just doesn’t stand up in comarison). On the inside of the game, the actually case for the game is metal and features a picture of Shepard on one side, a Collector on the other, against nothing but blackness. Two sides, pitted against each other. This art combo nailed it.

1: Shadow of the Colossus
The size difference! Its exact! You fight something that huge, a ton of times! A game that is ALL BOSS FIGHTS shouldnt’ be that much fun, but its the scope and scale of the game that sells the majesty. As such, the cover does a great job of providing you with that scale, of your character to the monsters he must defeat. As it stand, too, I wouldn’t mind having an image like this as personal art work for my home. Amongst all the other images on this list, this cover really provides a mood the others can’t produce, themselves. A great game with an equally great cover. Solid.

Honerable Mention: Pokemon (first generation, Red/Blue)

Talk about simplicity – the covers for the game(s) simply show you a monster, but the colors work so well with each other (Blue’s Blastoise and Red’s Charizard each sharing their game’s color scheme). For a kid, this cover stands out really well and helped to launch America – and the world – into a Pokemon frenzy that still isn’t REALLY over, is it?

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Added September 30, 2016
What an odd list. I can think of, like, a billion better ones, right now, that I like more than some of these, and they aren’t games I’ve played since this post originally went live.
Tastes changed? Possibly.

Facebook – Top 100 FAVORITE Video Games: 71

71: Mortal Kombat II (Arcade and EVERY HOME CONSOLE EVER)
Developer: Midway
Year: 1993

Every kid played Mortal Kombat on the SNES or the Genesis. Why wouldn’t they have? You could cut people up, start them on fire, rip their heads off, and/or blowing them up to bits. Blood and guts, man, blood and guts. Everyone did battle with their best friends, going to each other’s home, trying to beat the best scores, “testing their might” against wood and stone and… like, ruby? For some reason? It was a reason to go to the arcades, again. Eventually, though, people were going to get tired of it. And when you have such a popular game, the only choice is to create a franchise. Thus, the much more fun, better balanced, and best game in the series was released not long after.

Mortal Kombat games have never been about story, although they have become more fleshed out in recent years, detailing the characters lives and reasons for their inclusion into the tournament. But all you need to know is that these fighters have entered into a competition in order to either damn Earth or save it from the emperor or Outworld. Its a pretty dumb plot, really, that has only gotten more convoluted and stupid as the years have gone on. But if you had a sense of who your characters were between this game and the second one, it made playing them that much more interesting. Knowing that Liu Kang’s temple and family were killed by invasion forces makes him more likable. Or not really. People just wanted him to turn into a dragon and eat people.

The gameplay, though, is clearly where the real value of this game comes from. Building from its predecessor, MK2 introduces a handful of new characters into the mix (Baraka, Jax, Reptile, etc.) while taking Kano and Sonya away (because, seriously, who the fuck played as Kano or Sonya?), and it introduced a new four-armed enemy and final boss. The structure is classic arcade style go-down-the-roster, two-of-three contests. But unlike other games, this one had bloody “Fatalities” – something fighting games since have copied because its expected of them. The controls are tight, the combos are both intuitive and challenging, and each character has secret moves that are responsive and simple to master if you have the know-how (or cheat guide!) to figure them all out. But back in the time it came out, MK2 didn’t have a huge following on the internet, providing gamers with tips and walkthroughs for the cast; we had to figure the moves out on our own or make a trip to get an EGM  or other gaming magazine. It added to the challenge and, against friends and family, the prestige in defeating someone with a special move they’d never seen before.

Everything else about the game is top notch; the battle fields have been completely scrapped and then redone since the first game, still providing a few opportunities to perform fatal finishing moves using surrounding dangers (spikes on the wall, acid pits, a long, Pit-like fall in a level called “Pit 2”, etc.). The models in this time were also done using mo-cap to get the fighters perfect, but they didn’t go over the models with graphics. Instead, they simply digitized the actors in costume and recorded the moves, pain reactions, and everything else. So your Scorpion on screen is some guy in a yellow costume (who actually played the same guy in the blue costume. The green one, too).

All in all, Mortal Kombat 2 took everything that the first game provided and simply made it that much better. A more diverse roster, more interesting finishing moves, a bit more lore for story-focused nerds, and a better control setup. Further games in the series would offer more moves, much more outrageous finishing moves, and far too many characters (the last MK game had, I think, every character in the entire series, including people that aren’t really characters; the guy on fire in the background of Pit 2 from MK2? Yeah, he’s playable. Why? Why not, I guess…), but after MK2 every single game started to lose more and more of what made the series great. That’s why 2 is the best.

Classic Moment:
Can a fighting game have a classic moment? I mean, I guess this game introduced “TOASTY!” into both the franchise and the vocabulary of thousands of annoying teenage boys. Don’t know that it counts as classic though, per se….

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Added September 30, 2016
Man, archiving the Top 100 Games notes is time consuming…
I don’t know that this would make it anymore, either. Maybe. But maybe not. Fighting games didn’t really do it for me, you know? Hm.

Facebook – Top 100 FAVORITE Video Games: 72

72: Eternal Darkness – Sanity’s Requiem (Gamecube)
Developer: Silicon Knights
Year: 2002

 

Because Adam Jaco demanded it, here it is (not really, it was on my list to begin with). One of the quirkiest yet most awesome survival horror games, this one takes the form of an “adventure” game, and what a game it is. Delving further into the idea of “messing the player’s head” than most survival horror games, Eternal Darkness, the first – and only – game in what would otherwise have been an amazing series, provides gamers with unique gameplay elements that really set it apart from other titles in the genre.

Taking place over decades and in hundreds of different locations, Eternal Darkness starts you off as a a young blonde girl that kicks ass (she looks a lot like later-seasons Buffy, actually) as she discovers, through investigation, what happened to her now-dead grandfather in his mansion. During her investigation, she stumbles upon hints at a book that is the cause – and the curse – of her family’s whole plight: the Tome of Eternal Darkness. This takes players “back in time” so to speak as they live out the lives of characters who have encountered either the Tome, or have had close calls with its past. The story also revolves around a set of god during a war. In the end, the player elects who wins and gets a different ending. Its actually very Lovecraftian.

The gameplay elements are fairly standard, overall, for an adventure/action game; you run, jump, solve puzzles, and attack enemeis. Depending on what time period you’re in, though, you have different tools to use. More modern characters can have guns and – in once case – a fire axe. But further back in time you’re stuck with scimitars and blow-darts (seriously. Blow darts) to kill off attacking enemies. And the levels revolve well around their characters, providing for interesting world to go through in an attempt to stop the enemies. Things very rarely get old since each mission your character(s) go on is different. Its real solid, even the final level, which is sprawling and epic in its own right, leading to a final confrontation with the game’s primary antagonist, who looks like a Roman Skeletor.

“Work it, Roman Skeletor! Oh, that helmet is FAB-U-LOUS!”

The real treat of the game, though, is the reason any of us have ever heard of it in the first place: The Sanity Meter. As you progress through each character’s segment, you are attacked by monsters, sure, but each time you face one, your character reacts naturally, as anyone would, to seeing zombies or skeletons come to life and chase them; they freak the fuck out. Too many freak-outs and the game causes your character’s sanity to break down, leaving your characters to suffer awesome – sometimes hilarious – effects. Some of these are cute (ex: enemies on the roof, giant monsters, your character’s head simply falling off on its own, etc.) and other times they are so well crafted they make the player have an honest-go-God freak out moment. One example that sticks out is when the volume on the TV suddenly decreases, a bar showing it do so across the bottom of the TV. My TV’s volume bar looked nothing like that, but when it happend, you bet your ass I grabbed for the remote to stop it, droping my control and almost dying before I’d figured it out.

All in all, Eternal Darkness is a great yet sad game. Great because of the fantastic gameplay, wonderful visuals, great sound effects and moody music, and also its “never-got-old” sanity effects. Sad because there will likely never be another one. A cult classic if ever there was one, this game deserves another chapter, but will likely never get to have one. However, Nintendo did just recently re-up the Trademark and rights to the game, meaning it could see, at the very least, a re-release on the Virtual Console. Could it also mean a sequel? Time will tell. Either than or its just a lingering sanity effect 😦

Classic Moment:
One of the playable characters, Paul Luther (a monk) makes his way through his level, doing what he can (which is very little, as he is not a warrior). He finally comes face to face with his levels’ end-boss, a giant, towering bug-like thing with giant claws. After playing the entire level, having to use quick reflexes and wits to dodge, avoid, and trap enemies, the player thinks they’re about to encounter a brilliant bit of boss battle design by having an alternate means to killing the boss, rather than just shooting it until its dead. But nope! The giant bug just crushes him before the cut-scene revealing it is over, thus ending the life of poor, poor Paul Luther, and shocking game players everywhere who really, really weren’t expecting that at all.

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Added September 30, 2016
Where’s my sequel, Dyack?

Facebook – Top 100 FAVORITE Video Games: 73

73: Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness (PC and, uh, PS1?) – also its expansion, Beyond the Dark Portal
Developer: Blizzard Software
Year: 1995

 

There are very few games in my gaming history that has as deep-rooted a place in my heart as Warcraft 2. One of the first games that I played “to death” (as to say, I played it so much that I grew sick of it, in the end), WC2 stole so many hours from me – I loved building, I loved creating armies and stealing away and hoarding resources, and I absolutely loved getting my Orcs into deadly combat with the pathetic humans. I played level after level and then, when I was finished, I would start over and do it again until I couldn’t wait any longer for the game to come out. That’s right, at this point, I’m just talking about playing the PC Gamer demo that had come on a disc. I wouldn’t get the game for a year or so after that demo, and what a game it ended up being.

Picking up after the events of the first game, WC2 tells the continuing story of man vs. green man, now set across a more sprawling and ever-changing landscape. More enemies of humankind pour through the dark portal and its the start of the “Second War” so to speak. One of the things I praise the second Warcraft game in having done is started the game on a dark note – Humans are losing, hardcore. The Orcs – by all accounts – won the First War, 100%, destroying, killing, raping, and basically undoing the world of man. So the second game makes the situation dire for humans, but introduces strife in the orc life by way of civil wars amongst the clans. Its pretty simple stuff, really, but a nice set of two storylines running side-by-side. In the end of either game, the results are the same… there isn’t a “canon” ending – whatever happens during the human levels happen during the orc levels, you just don’t play the opposite side or anything. Orc losses are accounted for in both storylines, leading to one final conclusion that is – I think – real solid.

Gameplay is slightly better than the original game; new units make it very interesting at the start, giving troll axe-throwers and elven archers to the orc and human sides, respectively. The real additions, though, are the naval and air units, the former never showing up again in subsequent games. This is likely because finding, buidling, using, and defending oil platforms is tiresome, expensive, and repetitive. Once you have one, you almost empty your bank just to build and upgrade the ships needed to protect the damn things. It gets old, fast. The air units, on the other hand, are sweet. Dragons and other fantasy air-mounts populate the skies in no time, creating havoc from above. The addition of more powerful spellcasting units is also a treat.

You still maintain city stuff, like in any RTS;  you build a base, supply your troops with food, dig for gold, cut trees for lumber, and upgrade and train soldiers to die on the front line again and again. Its a tiresome gameplay mechanic, to be sure, but it is one that used to work (before Starcraft came along and changed RTS gameplay for, well, ever…) and this game did offer some improvements over the previous game. For starters, you don’t HAVE TO BUILD FRIGGIN’ ROADS. That’s right, in the first Warcraft, to even use a building it had to be connected to a road. Well, those are gone, entirely. Also, you can’t build walls anymore. While at first that was a drag, in the end not having an extra thing to build and waste resources on was a blessing and never did you regret building a wall only to have to tear it down later. Manually. With your own units.

All in all, Warcraft 2 is one of the few RTS games I love with my whole heart. You’ll notice that, as of #73 on this list, the only games to show up are either Blizzard games or Homeworld. Don’t expect that to change too much. I’m not very good at them, for the most part, but I do recognize the ones that are of “high quality” enough that I will play them and, likely, buy them. WC2 gets massive props for being interesting to play, fun to look at, and a treat to cheat through (yeah, that’s right. Cheat. There really isn’t any better guilty pleasure than having a group of strong, invincible peons rampaging through a human city. Heheh).

Classic Moment:
In classic fashion, a man that wants the power of a demon is betrayed by – you guessed it – a demon. Orc warlock Gul’dan, one of the heads of all orcish clans, divides Doomhammer’s entire war group tp raise a sunken demon temple to gain godhood. Not only does he have the other half of the army behind him, waiting for him to slow down for a moment so they can slaughter him, but Gul’dan also has the ultimate shame of not only raising the demon temple and releasing upon the world dozens of crazy-as-hell demon lords, but he also gets torn to fucking shreds and destroyed by them when he walks in. Nothing says “whoops” better than the last act of foolish, foolish Gul’dan (note: the armies that didn’t die in the temple were in fact killed to death by Doomhammer and his troops, but the divide of forces and time away from the war front against the humans gave The Alliance time to regroup and, ultimately, defeat the orcish hordes. Way to go, Gul’dan. Way to go).

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Added September 30, 2016
Big rumor that there is a remaster of this and other old Blizzard games coming.
I’d buy this in a heartbeat.
NOSTALGIA, ladies and germs!

Facebook – Top 100 FAVORITE Video Games: 74

74: Disgaea: Hour of Darkness (PS2)
Developer: Nippon Ichi Software
Year: 2003

 

I really hate turn-based strat games. I do. I’m not very patient and I often times just run into battle head-first and attack-attack-attack until I either win or am dead. It really mostly ends up with me getting too frustrated to finish the game. But this game presents me with a reason to enjoy it; it lets me play a turn-based strat game the way I want to – head-first and with little care for my party’s well being. In this way, the first Disgaea game, a title so popular that, years after it went off shelves, it was repackaged in a gamer’s choice, red-striped re-release, makes its way onto my list.

The primary reason one would want to play this game is for the story and the writing and the storyline. You play the prince of the underworld, Laharl. After sleeping for two years, he wakes up to find out his dad is dead and the throne has been taken over. So you have to set out into the world and tackle all the people in your way of becomining the new king. Along the way you have some team mates, some of which are demons, some are angels, and all are funny. Certain events are hilarious, such as defeating one of the first major enemies and then renaming him “Mid-Boss” just to embarass him. Comical scripting takes the game from start to finish with releative ease.

The gameplay is standard turn-based fare, but it does have some interseting additions. For starters, there are Geo Panels, things you can destroy to change the layout of the battle, cause status effects, and damage entities on the ground, friend and foe alike. There are a ton of different classes; mages, warriors, archers, and the like. But the real treat comes from the game’s in-between-mission segments. Here, you can raise rank by taking “classes” so to speak, creating new party members from scratch, and buying weapons. Most importantly, though, is the Dark Assembly – you create proposals the highest ranking members of the underworld and get them to vote in your favor – or kill them. This allows you to get new items and powers, etc. Really cool.

The best part of this pixel-based gameplay, though, is what I enjoy most; you can lose the game and then keep going. That’s right, you can keep going. If you get to the end of the game, high-leveled party, best weapons ever, and you die? Sure, you can load the game and try again. Or you can blaze through the game from its start with a story-line-based mechanic that allows you to start with the powers, party, and levels you died with. And the best part it, elements of your gameplay turn it into a better story. This is the only reason I ever managed to beat this game.

All in all, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness is a great game. I love it. It combines great humor with even greater gameplay. There are a number of sequels and spin-off games featuring the Prinny, penguin-like characters, and remakes on the PSP, making this game – a game that was once impossible to get one’s hands on – really easy to get, and even easier to play and enjoy. Solid gameplay, great voice acting, and even better comedy. What’s to hate?

Classic Moment:
After Laharl becomes the head of the Underworld, he faces some people from Earth. One of them, a fantastic warrior named Gordon, comes with a robot. His name? Thursday. These two are some of the funniest characters in the game, when paired together. His sense of justice paired with the robot’s sense of sarcasm creates situation after situation. Its hilarious.

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Added September 30, 2016
Absolutely need to replay this. I didn’t even begin to scratch the surface of this one.

Facebook – Top 100 FAVORITE Video Games: 75

75: Doom 3 (PC/Xbox)
Developer: id Software
Year: 2004

As stated not more than a few games ago, one of my favorite aspects of the “survival horror” genre is its ability to shift into other sub-genres. While FEAR 2 is a great example of an FPS that has scares aplenty, Doom 3 is an even greated example, providing horrors and terrors around every corner of the game’s setting. While other horror FPS titles generally rely on more realistic areas and what-have-you, this game delves heavily into space-aged Sci-Fi, giving it an extra level of weirdness otherwise not seen in most games. A sequel to a game that came out 10 years prior, Doom 3 is an amazing game.

Rather a reboot, actually, than an actual sequel, Doom 3 retells the events of the first Doom in a much more highly stylized way, with a narrative that actually makes sense of the events that transpire. Digging on Mars revealse an ancient race and an even more ancient war against some aliens from another dimension (Hell?) that mankind has not only re-unleashed this evil, but absentmindedly helped it become more powerful by sending high powered machiney and weapons through a giant portal, thus providing the “demons” with the means to increase their power. Of course, some humans always want to be evil just to survive, so you do discover that one of the scientists has been helping them all along. But, you know what they say: “Some motherfucker’s always trying to ice skate uphill.”

The gameplay has been improved a ton, too. While, for the most part, the game is a very standard button-pushing, switch-flipping, run-and-gunning monster hunt, its the presentation of the material that really brings it all forward. Monsters are revealed in a nice order, through gameplay. The AI is a touch better, too, meaning monsters don’t just stand around and let you shoot them. One of the best parts of this, though, is that they retained the hatred between different types of enemies. And all your old favorites are here; imps, demons, hell knights, lost souls… everyone is here and waiting to kill you, fresh with nasty looking make-overs. All the great guns are present, too, including the awesome plasma rifle.

The visuals are STILL a treat, in my opinion. Dark and insanely horrifying settings make the game a nightmare to experience, right off the bat, creating a world that presents the terrors of the game well. The monsters are gross and fiendish looking, the jump-out moments are well utilized and scary, and the human models look great. One of the best parts of the graphics, though, is on the zombies; where skin has worn off or wounds are present, there is an obvious layering going on and you can see how deep the gashes go. Its remarkable and adds a ton to the game, presenting aesthetic appeal that is unmatched.

All in all, Doom 3 is a wonderful remake of the classic shooters, dark and nasty, bloody and gross. A welcome – but overly cliche – narrative helps move the game along at a great clip, and the game’s run-time never allows it to grow stale. Some nice outdoor environments also add to the experience and, when you go to Hell – and, likewise, when Hell comes to you – you experience some of the coolest maps in FPS history. With a sequel due out in the near future, the events that transpire in this game are well worth experiencing.

Classic Moment:
Near the game’s final moments, you stumble upon some ancient tablets depicting the war between aliens, found buried under Mars’ surface. They showcase one of the game’s new weapons, the Soul Cube, being used to end the war once and for all. The coolest part? One of the tablets is clearly the box art from the first game:
This is a great nod to the old games and well utilized. And, most of all, in the game’s stressful finale section, a nice moment of humor and throwback is welcome.

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Added September 30, 2016
Played through this and the expansions not that long ago (well, like four years-ish? Three?), and it was still fun. But now that the new one is out? There is no more room on a list for this game. Sorry, Doom 3. You’re out.