Genre: First-person Shooter
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Nerve Software / id Software
Release Date: October 5, 2005

Well, if anything else, it's the little black box that could. Before Doom 3 hit the PC, John Carmack gave some pretty lofty specs at the time for what was necessary to run Doom 3, all of which were out of the Xbox's ballpark. Still, Vicarious Visions was able to port it to the Xbox with largely the same feel and look, and even stepped down somewhat, it was one of the best looking console games out. Nerve Software has now been tasked with porting the recent expansion pack, Resurrection of Evil, to the Xbox as a stand-alone title, and the results are even better this time around.

As many gamers know by now, the premise of Doom 3 (not unlike, well, every title in the series) is that an installation on the surface of Mars was overrun by demonic creatures, and there was only one man to make it out alive. The UAC quietly swept the whole incident under the rug and let things simmer for a few years before, in traditional evil corporation fashion, sending another team to investigate and reopen the facility. The player is a member of one of the search teams, who finds a buried chamber and a mysterious artifact. When the player grabs the artifact, a blast of energy is released, seals are broken, and, well, all hell breaks loose.

All things being equal, Resurrection of Evil isn't much different than its predecessor. The gameplay is still largely that of progressing through varying levels of darkness, blasting a slew of enemies while collecting various levels of security clearance to unlock new areas. The blasting part is still performed using the whiz-bang mix of shotguns, machine guns, pulse rifles, rocket launchers, and BFGs that make Doom what it is, but two noteworthy additions are the double-barreled shotgun and the grabber. The double-barreled shotgun better be self-explanatory at this point in your gaming careers (If not, go play Doom II, you unwashed heathens), and is easily the most powerful short-range weapon in the game.

The grabber is something along the lines of Half-Life 2's gravity gun in that you can interact with objects in the game to use them as weapons, from enemy projectiles such as the imp's fireball to enemies themselves, such as the flying skulls. Another noteworthy addition to the Xbox version of RoE? Leave the duct tape at home, as the flashlight has been consolidated with the pistol, making you at least somewhat armed as you're peering through dark corridors. Ah yes, and that pesky little hell-unleashing artifact. To further aid you in sending the demons back to their own special places in hell, the player can utilize the power of the artifact in such ways as slowing down time or going berserk and getting hand-to-hand against the demons with massive force.

A little more, and a little less by the same token, has been given to Resurrection of Evil this time around. On the plus side, the previous version's competitive multiplayer via Xbox Live consisted of merely four-player deathmatch, while RoE now sports up to eight players in either deathmatch, tournament, or last man standing modes. On the negative side, the co-operative mode from the previous version is nowhere to be seen, which is a crying shame.

Honestly, it was almost expected for Resurrection of Evil to stutter and lurch as the Xbox tried to keep up with the graphics displayed on it. Rather, it seems like the title runs at a marker of at least 30 frames per second at all times. It's a given that the graphics aren't running at their optimal potential as seen on the PC version of the title, and many textures had to be down-sampled, but things such as the dynamic lighting and high quality models are all intact. More importantly, the feel of the game remains intact, and players of both versions of the game will more or less get the same experience as the other, regardless of the overall graphics comparisons.

Granted, if you didn't like Doom 3, there's not much to Resurrection of Evil that is going to change your mind. For the rest of the gaming populace, and especially those without a computer capable of running the PC version, RoE is another romp through the old stomping grounds, only now with a couple of new weapons, some new enemies, and a brand new campaign mode. The co-op mode will be missed, but at the very least, the competitive multiplayer is worth a second glance. Look for more information on the Xbox version of Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil as it hits its ship date.