Monday
August 16, 2004
arts.michigandaily.com
artseditor@michigandaily.com

gE TiSicgli ti

11

To HELL AND BACK
LONG-AWAITED PC GORE-FEST 'DOOM 3' TAKES GAMERS BY STORM

By Jason Roberts
Daily Arts Writer
VIDEOGAME REVIEW ****-I
With id Software leading the way
- a developer made famous for push-
ing the technological envelope with
genre-shattering titles such as the orig-
inal "Doom" and "Quake," - "Doom
3" has been one of the most anticipat-
ed sequels since its 1 1
inception way back Doom 3
in the year 2000. PC
The game's story Activision
line is a familiar one;
in fact, "Doom 3" is not a sequel at
all, but a retelling of the 1993 clas-
sic. While the protagonist remains the
same nameless, voiceless space marine
he was in the last iteration, this time
around the story plays out in a much
more cinematic way, deepening the
game play beyond the standard "shoot
everything that moves" mentality of
the original. Short cut scenes and con-
versations - albeit one-sided - with
personnel on the Mars research center
interrupt the first-person action.
The story line runs quite parallel
to the plot of the original "Half-Life."
Here, however, it simply serves as a
catalyst to the terrifying game play that
 begins as soon as an "accident" tears
open the gates of Hell, and the once-
friendly residents of the space station
transform into minions of Satan.
The engine developed to run the
game is nothing less than ground-
breaking in terms of what it can do
and what they have done with it. The

surface, rip at ventilation grates and
slash at startled players as they walk
by darkened recesses. Everything in
the game - provided the computer's
system is powerful enough - moves
with a fluid pace.
It's inevitable that, being a horror-
themed game, "Doom 3" tries to force
cheap scares by suddenly spawning
adversaries into a room a player has
already cleared or putting enemies in
unusual locations with the sole pur-
pose of startling the gamer, but id has
been honest about crafting far more
genuine scares. Some of the most
chilling moments involve bloodless
encounters: voices calling out in the
darkness, the shadows of an unseen
creature slipping just out of the beam
of the flashlight, the groaning of the
duct work above giving way under the
weight of something stalking in the
darkness, the maniacal laughter as a
computer terminal is suddenly thrown
across a room. It's this deeply psy-
chological fear of the unknown that
creates a truly horrifying atmosphere
and makes "Doom 3" more than just
a series of disposable tricks flimsily
stringed together as scare tactics. With
the addition of Dolby 5.1 surround
sound or just a good pair of head-
phones, the sound becomes as inte-
gral - if not more integral - to the
game's overall atmosphere than even
the graphics and story line.
Though its game play harkens back
to the days of pre-Pentiums, "Doom 3"
looks, sounds and plays like abeautiful
and horrifying trip to Hell and back.

Are those some kind of um ... mouth ... spiders or something?

lighting system is one of the most
breathtaking aspects of the game,
casting dramatic life-like shadows
and highlights on everything in the
player's line of vision. Because most
of the game takes place in the dimly-
lit, claustrophobic halls of the research
station, the gamer is equipped with a
flashlight that can be held in place of

a weapon. Tense moments arise when
the beam from the flashlight falls
across the silhouette of a demon in the
distance, and as the player exchanges
his light for a weapon, they are sud-
denly plunged into complete darkness,
the glowing eyes of the creature mov-
ing in and the muzzle blasts serving as
the only illumination.

In addition to the hyper-realis-
tic graphics and lighting, charac-
ter animations are also exceedingly
improved over many similar games
in the genre. For example, one of the
enemy creatures - an agile reincar-
nation of the fireball-throwing Imp
from the original game - uses its
sharp claws to crawl along the ceiling

Shyne phones it in from prison on new BuriedAlive

By Hussain Rahimn
Daily Arts Writer-

When the hell did Shyne become
important? Sometime between releas-
ing an underwhelming debut, shoot-
ing people in the
face for Puffy Shyne
and getting a new
contract, Jamal Godfather
Barrow has gath- Bured Aive
ered a ridiculous Gangland Record Corp.
amount of hype on
the streets of New York. It also doesn't
hurt that he's been talking shit about
every major player in hip-hop who isn't
behind bars. All of this is buildup for
his sophomore album for Island records,
Godfather Buried Alive.
Recorded mostly during the end of
his trial in 2001, Godfather is relentless-
ly grim and obsessed with the injustices
of the American penal system. Techni-
cally, the focus doesn't make it too dif-
f re Ifrom fld y otherhip-h6p records,

sounds like she has the worst cold in
hip-hop history) and gangsta bravado
that is anything but interesting.
Despite a sub-par lyrical effort on
Shyne's part, the real disappointment
is the Casio keyboard-quality of pro-
duction. It sounds as if this album was
made with all the available recording
equipment found in a correctional facil-
ity. Tinny drums, flat horns and boring
string lines add monotony to his already
laid-back, throaty flow. Not to mention
that one of the tracks, "For the Record,"
is actually Shyne rhyming over a prison
phone.
On one hand, a stunt like that could
be something powerful; the underdog
artist unfazed by his handicaps, deter-
mined to win by any means. (It worked
for Kanye and his wired jaw.) However,
it ends up as an inaudible tirade against
50 Cent that makes you wonder how
many minutes of phone time a prisoner
gets. Too much of the album is wasted
on his references to50 and various other
"niggas who wanna be (him)."
- Granted, Godfather Buried Alie

serves as good promotion for a rapper
whose last album came out four years
ago and can only do interviews from
jail - but how good can the umpteenth
50 Cent diss track be? Aiming to rep-
licate the paranoid and world-weary
classic "Me Against the World," that
2Pac released in prison, Shyne sounds
desperate and under-produced. Perhaps
the remaining five years on his sentence
can give him time to wage a proper
comeback.
K).0
PR B

but one would expect more from an art-
ist who was actually on the way to jail,
rather than one who's just spouting the
typical hip-hop penitentiary fantasies.
The first track "Quasi O.G." starts
the record off right. Reminiscent of
"Bonnie and Shyne," it breaks down
the hypocrisies of drug war with a beat
imported straight from a Kingston slum.
But much to the dismay of listeners, the
track ends, and what is left is a tedious
album with all the prerequisite Ashanti
-vocalg, Foxy Brown guest trtacksl (WhoI