Review: Doom Resurrection
by Staff Writer
August 11, 2009
Overview
Doom Resurrection is a first person shooter built exclusively for the iPhone. A unique, iPhone only, story is included that goes side by side with Doom 3. The Union Aerospace Corporation has a research facility on Mars. The UAC is experimenting with all kinds of advanced technologies including biological research. One day the scientists made an error, and have lost control of their experiments that are now running lose in the facility. Marine forces have been deployed, and you’re one of them. You’re the last marine from your team, and you have to get out of the facility and kill all of the zombies & monsters on your path.
Features
There are eight levels to play through, and in each level you’re given a grade, A-F, based on accuracy, headshots, items found, time taken, health bonus, and secrets revealed. Also included are four difficulty levels: Recruit, Marine, Veteran, and Nightmare. There is also a free play mode that allows you to play any level you’ve beaten again to better your score and play harder difficulties. The typical doom weapons are strewn throughout the levels with the standouts: shotgun, plasma rifle, chainsaw, and BFG.
You don’t move the character, all his movements are automatic, so you only control firing. The firing control is simple, and yet detailed. You use the accelerometer to control aiming, and there are buttons in all four corners to control everything else. Fire is in the bottom right, reload is in the top right, switch weapon in the top left, and dodge/duck is in the bottom left.
The Good
The visuals are definitely great allowing you to see an up close and personal look at the grotesque creatures you have to blast away. The animations work well with the dead bodies incinerating right before your eyes. One problem with the visuals is that there is the same stock blood spurt from every shot, and I would like to see more variation from Doom.
The controls work well, and the interface is nicely designed to blast away some monsters. The accelerometer aiming works great, and you can calibrate it any time from the pause menu. The four corner buttons are extremely responsive, and really helpful for killing. There is also a great save system that picks up at your last checkpoint.
There is a lot to do in this game, and if you like it you will be spending a bunch of time with it. The gameplay is very hit or miss, and sadly it missed with me, but it may be great for some people. If you just want to blast some monsters, and that's it, this is definitely worth considering.
The Bad
There is no movement in this game. The player moves on a fixed path, and you only control shooting. There may be a good reason behind this decision; maybe movement would have been too cumbersome, but the problem isn’t that you don’t do the moving. The problem is that it takes a lot from the gameplay of a first person shooter. The game is left as a tap to shoot game, and that’s it. It becomes extremely repetitive as a few different monsters pop up, and you aim and fire, with the occasional dodge. Movement isn’t necessary for a great game, but in Doom’s case it takes away one of the main components of the gameplay. You don't get to run for you life, and fire while retreating, and really feel connected with the player you're controlling.
To complete the game it feels like a chore rather than having fun along the way. The sounds are pretty mediocre at best with a very feint thumping background noise. Then all your left with is the stock firing sound plus the same groans and screams from the monsters. This can get really annoying, and repetitive very quickly. With such a deluxe game, and the high price I would expect some detailed and varying sounds.
