Why Doom 3 was a success, and Resurrection of Evil a failure

[elfs]

There's a very simple reason, I think, for why Doom 3 was a successful product, and yet the sequel, Resurrection of Evil, was a complete failure. The reason precisely echoes the failure I saw in Bloodrayne 2, and it's a simple failure: Resurrection of Evil has absolutely no sense of humor.

Doom 3 had it. There were moments in the story where the incongruous contrast between the relentlessly cheery propaganda of the UAE playing in the hallways and reception areas gives you a jolt of comedy, a moment of humor. The same is true of the various PDAs you pick up along the way. There is a sense in Doom 3 that there is life on Mars, that the people who live there were trying their best to survive against difficult circumstances. As you read the emails left behind, you read about poker games, and missed families, and someone losing their lucky dice just before a D&D game, and offers to go target shooting out on the surface.

There is absolutely none of that in Resurrection of Evil. The Mars of RoE is relentlessly inhuman. Everything is grim and dark, even before Hell was unleashed. The people you meet along the way have no reason to be there other than that you need them to accomplish the next goal. There is no sense of a living, vibrant world; only a set piece through which your character picks his way, a rat in a maze.

Comments

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I wasn't clear: Fans of Bloodrayne liked the winsome, kittenish, character of Rayne. When she wasn't being a murderous killing machine, she could be cute fun, "good company" as I described her four years ago (http://elfs.livejournal.com/283795.html). The character of Rayne in Bloodrayne 2 was a world-weary burnout who delivered her lines by rote. I didn't have nearly as much fun.

[kistha.livejournal.com]

Ah, where I liked the second one better - mostly since I think for me it's less about sex appeal and more about vampire trope humor. (And the mentor chick in the first one irritated me a great deal.) Not to mention the villains equal time in funny quotes. I made a couple of icons based on some of my favorites here. Being that I was in the Camarilla LARP back in the day - the vampire humor hit the spot.

And to be honest, BloodRayne is my favorite aggression release. If I have a very shitty day, I'm going to go dismember people until I feel better. It's been a very, very long time since I played the original and I don't really remember it, maybe I should pick it up.