In Resurrection of Evil, designer Nerve Software takes the ball that id dropped and feebly kicks it around in the dark for—well, let’s say six hours. Another romp through the cramped corridors of the infamous Mars research facility will certainly please fans of the first game, but won’t convert those left cold by Doom 3.

RoE begins where the first game left off, on Mars, where some new hell spawn have been unleashed. It will come as a surprise to nobody that the game offers the same annoying gameplay mechanics as its predecessor: Poke around in the dark with your flashlight until you see a demon, then shoot it. Nerve slightly reworked the Doom 3 formula to address a few grievances folks had—monsters now don’t spawn directly behind you in every single room or jump out at you from behind closed doors.

The real challenge presented by the monsters of RoE is that there are more of them—a lot more. To help you in these situations RoE features an artifact that slows down time, a la Max Payne’s bullet-time. It’s a totally unoriginal addition, but it does add a twist to the standard shoot-‘em-up gameplay, and it becomes especially important later on in the game when you’ll face old-school Doom-size hordes of enemies thirsting for your blood.

As you progress and defeat the unimaginative boss monsters, the artifact not only allows you to slow down time, but also grants you the ability to kill anything with one punch and to become invincible. The artifact’s powers are an interesting addition to the game, but they don’t improve or alter the game’s core gameplay, which by now feels woefully dated.

There’s also a new weapon—the Grabber, aka the gravity gun. Unfortunately it feels more like a wet-noodle ray than anything else, and we set it aside after the first few minutes of use. Multiplayer now includes CTF, and up to eight players can join a server, though there’s really no reason to play it—not with dozens of other, better CTF games currently available.

While RoE satisfies the minimum requirements for an expansion, the game fails to add anything new or innovative to the Doom 3 experience. It’s just more of the same, with “new” features we’ve already seen in other popular FPS games. Whoop-de-freaking-do.
—Josh Norem

+ INNOVATION: Good graphics (when you can see them).

- IMITATION: Tedious gameplay; "new" features are actually old; short and pricey.

Month Reviewed: July 2005
Verdict: 5
URL: www.doom3.com
ESRB rating: M