'Doom' shows iPhone's potential

• By JOSHUA WASCOM
• Special to 2theadvocate.com
• Published: Aug 4, 2009

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Using graphics, sounds, and story from “Doom 3,” “Doom Resurrection” offers players yet another chance to take on the role of a lone space Marine on Mars. Fortunately, what could have been a fairly generic entry in the series is rescued by a close attention to the advantages and limitations of the iPhone as a gaming platform.

The control scheme in “Resurrection” sounds absolutely terrible. First, the game controls your character’s movement. You move on a predetermined path at predetermined speeds. Luckily, a dodge/cover button appears in the lower left of the screen during some battles. Secondly, you aim by tilting the screen in the direction you want the targeting reticule to go, then tapping a button on the lower right to fire.

I was prepared for the whole system to feel awkward and immersion-breaking, but it almost immediately feels natural. The tilt-aiming is a stroke of brilliance. It keeps you from having to tap where you want to shoot, blocking the screen as you do so. It also provides a better sense of physicality than mouse or analog-stick aiming. You begin to feel that this screen position correlates to targeting that area, and so you can make rapid, precise targeting adjustments.

Simultaneous 3-D movement and aiming is still a bit of a problem on the iPhone--you really don’t lose much by not having to worry about the more mundane of the two. It does, unfortunately, remove much of the fear factor normally associated with “Doom.” When your only option is to stand and fight – as opposed to, say, backpedaling in panicked terror – you quickly lose the emotions that would make you want to do anything else.

The rail-based nature of movement also causes a few other problems, particularly when you and your character seem to have different goals in mind. This isn’t a frequent occurrence, but when your character suddenly turns away from a monster that’s closing on you – or worse, runs towards it – it breaks a bit of the immersion.

The static nature of the experience also lowers the game’s replayability, which is something of a problem. The current $10 price already seems a bit high for a two- or three-hour game, especially considering how many great games are already more cheaply available on the iPhone.

Nevertheless, “Doom Resurrection” works. It captures much of the atmosphere of “Doom,” but plays in a different way thanks to the novel control scheme. It’s easy to recommend for any first person shooter fan looking for something a bit different, especially if the price comes down a bit.