The most obvious departure for the series is the new inclusion of an involved story line which sees you conversing with various characters and reading up on the strange events that are unfolding via various emails and audio clips that you find dotted around the base.
Sadly the level design is less than imaginative and you’ll find yourself weaving your way through a series of dark corridors in a linear fashion. While the levels look fantastic the game-play is less than impressive. The only thing that makes progression tricky is that your strafe-fire technique constantly leads you into confined spaces and the designers cheat by spawning in enemies behind you. The lack of room to manoeuvre makes this a frustrating experience at times and a careful search around in the darkness is rendered useless because enemies just materialise at various trigger points.
There are slight differences in the creatures you face but the majority charge straight at you without displaying any tactical intelligence. The weapon set is the usual classic line up and, as with the original Doom, the shotgun is an effective tool at close quarters. Weapon changes are forced by a lack of ammunition and the necessity to find the codes which unlock ammo dumps as you progress further into the game becomes a real chore.
While it is a fairly scary experience most of the scares actually come from the sound effects which are truly demonic at times. The sound also provides the player with their best cue about impending attacks so headphones or speakers are essential.
