Bethesda’s DOOM franchise has been around for a while now, from its humble beginnings in basic 3D corridors with .gif enemies, to its most recent edition with ray tracing and high-poly enemies and environments. It is certainly one of Bethesda’s best-known titles, and for good reason; it is incredible. DOOM 3 was released back in August of 2004, and nearly 17 years later, it’s been re-released in VR form with the assistance of the developer, Archiact.

DOOM 3: VR is a direct port of the heavily acclaimed 2004 release of DOOM 3, except that it requires a PSVR headset, and either a DUALSHOCK 4 wireless controller or the PS VR aim controller. I played using the DUALSHOCK 4 controller, and I have to say that it didn’t feel as good as it could have.

For all intents and purposes, you play the game like any other console first-person shooter, using the controller to move around, turn corners and interact with various objects. The biggest difference between the original and this VR release though is that your controller becomes more of a cursor when using it to shoot enemies or press buttons, and you’ll find yourself lifting and twisting the controller into position to line up that perfect shot.

As would be expected, the VR headset allows you to look around at your environment, and if you can remember to move your body, you’ll be able to hide behind walls, peeking around the corners to avoid incoming fire while delivering your own. Because of the style of the game and the way you still use a controller, I will admit that I quite often forgot I could do this and generally found myself playing it exactly the same way as I would if I was in front of a screen, only moving my head when I need to look up or down after trying to use the controls to do that as well.

The environmental and character graphics have taken a bit of a hit with this port, but the trade-off is higher detailed weapons, as they’ll generally be right in front of your face, but I would strongly discourage moving the controller too close to the headset in an attempt to look down the sights, as some of the weapon skins are taller than others, and you’ll generally be looking through the buttstock as you try to fire.

I instead found that holding the controls at roughly chest height gave me more than enough accuracy for the majority of weapons, and since most of them had laser sights anyway, there was nearly no need to actually sight along your firearm.

It seems the default movement settings for DOOM 3: VR included snap turning, which only comes into play when turning around corners. What this does, is have the edges of the screen kind of flash to black as you turn and will rotate in increments of about 15 degrees. This step-turn system really took its toll on me, and I was barely able to play the game for more than half an hour before I started to feel the effects of motion sickness, which I normally don’t feel.

It wasn’t until after I did a little research and found out that I could turn this off that I was able to play the game for longer periods, though with how often you’ll be turning around corners and snapping 180 degrees, DOOM 3: VR is still a very uncomfortable experience.

I feel that by not using the older move controllers, DOOM 3: VR isn’t as immersive as it could have been. Even the cutscenes have been left stagnant by displaying as a short video rather than putting the player in place of the Doomguy. While it is very cool to be able to look around the levels by simply moving your head, and the little bit of realism you get from moving a controller to aim your weapon, I wouldn’t really consider this a true VR title as you don’t really feel like you’re in the game. It’s not a bad port by any means, and if you’re a fan of the franchise and can survive intense gameplay on a VR device, then this would certainly help tickle your fancy.

Written by: Mathew Lindner