Doom proves that gameplay can still make a really fun game
Rebooting Doom was no easy task and I had quite a few reasons to think this might not turn out so well. Those fears were unwarranted because this does exactly what a fan of the original Doom would have wanted. It brings back the frantic pace that has been lacking in FPS lately.
At the same time it modernizes the mechanics of the classic games in a way you still have quite a few options even on a controller. The ye old weapon wheel is in effect for choosing most of the weapons you would want access to. Every weapon that was in Doom II is represented here. Yet the best thing is that both the chainsaw and the BFG have their own buttons so you can quickly access them at any time. The chainsaw is quite useful thanks to the new brutal kill mechanic. Hitting an enemy with enough bullets will eventually put him into a stunt state where if you melee kill him you’ll get extra health/ammo. Which is vital for keeping your health up during some of the more hectic fights. I didn’t know I missed it but not having to reload most of the guns is really useful at keeping your focus on the many demons that’ll be trying to kill you.
By the way those demons are apart of the mostly non existent story. You are the Doom Marine and you are good at one thing only. Killing every demonic entity in the shores of hell is your goal. Stopping them from causing armageddon on mars is what you’ll be working toward during the 12 hour adventure. By the way it is very worth reading some of the lore they wrote for some of the collectibles. It is just so dumb that I enjoyed it a lot. I was very surprised by the lengthy campaign which has quite a few secret areas for the player to find. Including recreated Doom levels that look like they came from the DOS version. Enemies and the weapons were not recreated in spite form though. Seems like a expanded version of what they did in Wolfenstein The New Order.
I’m sure one of the negative points I could easily see someone point out about this game. Is that it ends up being just one big arena fight that constantly keeps happening. For example almost every encounter starts you with going into a room and busting a demonic spawner to cause a bunch of demons to want to kill you. The reason why it works is that the combat is just so fun. Because each weapon feels different and the fact they are all useful makes each fight a chaotic mess that ends up in your favor each time. Around the time it began to get boring they introduce a new weapon type to keep you interested in the action. Plus the added mobility of a double jump is always a nice addition. The heavy rock soundtrack fits the theme of the game too.
Overall I’ve been gushing about the single player yet the multiplayer is boring. This is your run of the mill multiplayer with everything you would expect to see. It has a bunch of stuff to unlock while you fight it out in all the usual modes like deathmatch. To bad the speed of each encounter feels so slow compared to what was going on in the campaign. Honestly I put very little time into this portion of the game because it feels so out of place and not really why I enjoyed Doom in the first place. Snapmaps is the other main mode and it seems like it could be really cool in a LittleBigPlanet kind of way. The tools are easy enough that it could be a way for fans to create some cool levels later on.
In conclusion this game has a kick ass campaign that might bring you back to the old days of gaming. I do have to wonder if it has the same effect on a player that never played Doom before. I can’t answer that question but I’ll be curious to see if it seems worse from their perspective. While I think it has been one of the best FPS I’ve played in a while. If this sounds fun to you then check out Doom it’ll be a bloody good time.
