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    Doom

    Game » consists of 12 releases. Released May 13, 2016

    In a world with health regeneration and cover-based systems, one of the longest-running first-person shooter series returns to its brutal, fast-paced roots.

    bhlaab's Doom (PC) review

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    • 1 out of 1 Giant Bomb users found it helpful.
    • bhlaab has written a total of 91 reviews. The last one was for Quest 64

    Keep It Simple, Stupid

    While I and about 50 other people would have adored a total throwback, DOOM takes the probably wiser approach and reimagines itself as a sort of AAA-budgeted take on what was once the domain of independent and modestly financed European developers: the "throwback shooter". Which is to say that the focus is not so much on capturing what Doom actually was, but instead how the mainstream tends to remember Doom as. The result is a game that is extremely fun and frantic, but loses the technicality of high-level play that makes Doom such an enduring classic. It also spoils the pot somewhat with a bunch of pointless additions that clutter up the experience for no real benefit.

    First off, the game feels great, with none of the slugginess that tends to accompany console FPSes, and Id has stepped up their game engine-wise since the abysmal idtech5 managed to ruin every game it touched. There's no more excessive pop-in, no stuttering whenever you turn around, and the environmental textures don't look like they were filtered through a butt. There's a level of smoothness here that I haven't really felt in an FPS for years, and I hope other developers are taking note. The game looks nice, although not especially breathtaking, and the creative direction works aesthetically, although I often had a problem with the reddish-brown monsters blending into the reddish-brown environments at quick glance.

    While some levels are very linear, many have an open-ended design reminiscient of classic shooters, which I love. While not as intricate or as creative as John Romero's masterpieces, it is a welcome change of pace in 2016. Also welcome are the many secrets, which are extremely fun to hunt down although most of the things you find in the secret areas are tied to the awful upgrade mechanics (more on that later). One thing I'll say about the level design is that there's often a lot of down-time in a manner surprisingly reminiscient of Doom 3. In between major setpiece battles you'll mostly be "fighting" fleshbag zombies in otherwise empty corridors. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it just feels like a missed opportunity to have more natural encounters with enemies that don't spawn in based on scripted triggers. I mean, this is Doom! Where are all the demons hiding behind corners waiting to ambush you? Where are the moments where you open a door and see a meticulously arranged monster setup jump to life? The parts where you pick up a suspicious key and doors pop open all around you? I don't want to rag on this otherwise successful game just for being different than the original, but all of the monster encounters seem to start in a predictable manner and on the player's terms. There are no major firefights that occur without you first punching open a designated "make the fight start now" chum globule, and it's just disappointingly routine. The notable exceptions are the (unfortunately few) levels that take place in Hell. Those seem to have a much more interesting design and creative setups. Perhaps this is because the level design does not have to be tethered to reality and can be as abstract as necessary.

    There are many aspects of DOOM that would have been better off removed, but seem to be included just for their own sakes. Mantling is disorienting, it turns what should be a simple and quick action into a flow-stopping animation, and it's screwed me over enough times to lose my trust. The double jump is only useful for getting over gaps specifically placed to give it utility. It adds very little to the maneuverability of the player outside of jumping to ledges specifically placed slightly out of range of a normal jump. It's not like Metroid Prime or something where you can return to previously explored areas and finally reach higher ledges. I see no reason for either the double jump or the mantle to exist when they could have just placed the ledges closer together and saved the player the hassle. These aerial mechanics also give way to laborious and tedious jumping puzzles, which are somehow harrowing and boring at the same time. I appreciate the desire to make the levels more interesting than the average FPS, but throwing bottomless pits in the middle of a linear paths and slowing everything down for Uncharted-style climbing sections does not achieve that goal.

    For an example of a 'throwback shooter' getting jumping mechanics right, look at Painkiller. The designers of that game recognized what fans of old-school FPSes would actually want to use jumping for, and that's as a way to propel themselves around environments extremely quickly and with finesse. This is how jumping became one of the defining features of Id's own Quake series, so while I'm not necessarily saying DOOM should have offered the same experience as Painkiller I think it's fair to say that it got closer to what a fan of the series would want with jumping than DOOM did by allowing you to get snagged upon and magnetized onto the geometry.

    Another example of this backwards design is in the Glory Kills. When a demon is at low health, they stagger and can be finished off with a canned animation, at which point you get fed some health. Ignoring the fact that this is a design concept stolen from Duke Nukem Forever of all things, I just don't see the point of their inclusion. Let's say the stagger happens when a monster is at 10% health. Why can't the enemies all have 10% less HP and die immediately? Wouldn't that be faster? Wouldn't it be more satisfying to actually kill the monster yourself instead of watching the game do it? Doesn't having to get into melee range to finish off a monster despite the game being built around using ranged firearms create a bizarre, contradictory dyanmic? It's entirely possible that glory kills were introduced as a way to entice players into playing aggressively instead of hiding behind cover, but the enemiy AI's tenacity does a good job of doing that by itself. Furthermore, the world and its monsters continues to move while you are locked into these animations so, while you are invincible during them, as soon as the animation is finished you've probably got a bunch of demons crawling up your ass and you get punished as a result. So I have no idea what purpose these Glory Kills serve other than to shove marketable animations onto your screen. I've seen many reviews and player impressions saying that these glory kill animations are fast enough that they don't get in the way or slow things down too much and I agree. They still get in the way, and they still slow things down... just not enough to ruin the game.

    The most egregious addition and by far the closest thing this game has to a downfall are the upgrade mechanics. There's a special place in Hell for whoever decided that a fast paced throwback shooter that is difficult enough to demand skillful play needed FIVE separate upgrade mechanics, each with its own unique currency. What's worse is that these upgrades all fall under one of two catergories: so essential that they shouldn't have been optional, or so ancillary and potentially game-breaking that they shouldn't have been included. Each weapon has two optional alt fire modes that must be unlocked and upgraded separately, which is simply convoluted to the point of insanity. Why not just give every gun a single built-in alt fire, as in Unreal? Now, in the middle of brutally fast-paced combat, I have to worry about what gun I'm holding AND what gun my gun is holding AND how many upgrades it has? Equally egregious are the Argent upgrades, which must be found in the environment to upgrade Health, Armor, and Ammo capacity. The problem is that, unless upgraded, the Ammo and Armor capacities are infuriatingly, cripplingly low and should be upgraded to maxiumum immediately (or, better yet, not tied to a stupid upgrade mechanic). On the flip-side, upgrading Health capacity at all, let alone to max, is practically a cheat code and should never be done by a self-respecting player. It's shit like this that makes it a miracle the game is even remotely well balanced, and perhaps trimming these crappy upgrade mechanics would have smoothed over some of the rough edges. What's disappointing is that the upgrades being in place makes it difficult to casually replay the game. Either you go back and play the early levels beasted out (and with all of your weapons) or you start from scratch and feel crippled.

    Oh yeah, the game has a story. It doesn't get inthe way too much, but it does get in the way. I like the bad guy lady, she has a really off-putting face and voice and she also goes away and lets you play the game in peace most of the time. You befriend a menacing robot man who sucks. Revelations about the Doom Marine make me think this game might secretly be a sequel to Doom 64.

    Honestly, my feelings about the game went up and down as I played it, but ultimately came out the end loving it. There are some good maps and some bad maps. The game mostly becomes really really really good by the final third, probably owing to the upgrade trees being deprecated by that point. It makes me feel dirty to say this, but I'm incredibly excited for DLC. I'd love to play more DOOM. In fact I think I might play through it again, immediately after having just beaten it. I'm also interested to see what modders make of... oh, wait, there are no modding tools. There's snapmap, though! I looked at snapmap, I looked at some snapmap creations, and snapmap is a fucking joke.

    Look, the long and short of it is that despite my gripes DOOM is the best first person shooter in years and the best single player campaign Id Software has put out since Quake 1.

    Other reviews for Doom (PC)

      It feels so good to rip and tear again 0

      Still so beautifully dumb...It takes a certain audacity to reboot Doom. It’s freakin’ Doom. Doom was the game that popularized the FPS genre. It is the Mario of the PC. It is maybe the single most controversial game in history. The efforts just to release a Doom sequel in 2005 were mixed at best, and that game had the benefit of having co-creator John Carmack involved. This Doom been in development hell since 2008, has endured the company being sold, and was even scrapped and restart...

      5 out of 5 found this review helpful.

      A Glorious Retro Future Return to Form 0

      One might have thought this iteration of Doom, to be, well... Doomed from the start. Apologies for making you groan, but id Software has seemingly been in its own dark age for over a decade, and everything we knew about Doom before its release would suggest that id would remain there. It's been through several delays, rebuilt from scratch, had poor showings at events, its beta was poorly received and the critic embargo suggested that Bethesda might not believe in it anymore. But this 2016 incarn...

      3 out of 3 found this review helpful.

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