If DOOM 3 was, for many fans of the franchise, a step in the wrong direction—away from action and into horror—then what can we expect of the Resurrection of Evil expansion?

For the first part of the game, I'd say that things went downhill. We had lacklustre weaponry, scarce ammo and the same old enemies, now with some annoying time puzzle mechanic thrown in, thanks to The Artifact. Talk about wading through treacle when all I want to do is rage out against the forces of Hell.

But—and this is a big but—things do significantly improve after we get our hands on the precious Super Shotgun. Where was this glorious weapon during the main campaign?! Finally things feel way more balanced, satisfyingly taking down a pesky imp in a single shot, or taking out two zombies with one pull of the trigger! And The Artefact gets an upgrade after a while, giving us a period of Beserk mode - what better way to deal with a Hell Knight than to pull it limb from limb with our bear hands? (And soon enough, we can do it with temporary invulnerability)

Towards the end, the game does throw ammunition at you and let you go wild in whatever way you want. But it does set up some encounters to force you to prioritise how to use the Artifact's abilities and your various weapons.

The final boss encounter—against the Maledict—is terrible. I'm still not sure how or why I beat it, but I make no apologies for save-scumming my way through such a dreary encounter. All of the bosses were a bit rubbish, but this last one takes the biscuit, without a doubt.

So, there's plenty of highs and lows throughout, but I'd say the highs outweigh the lows. The highs equal what the base game offers, maybe sometimes exceding them? But the lows are far lower, meaning RoE comes out slightly worse than DOOM 3. The game doesn't outstay it's welcome, either, which is good, since it's not so different from the base game that playing them back to back could get a bit stale.