Doom

DOOM is fun. DOOM is really fucking fun. Not the kind of fun where you're thinking "Gee whiz, the character development on display here is really intriguing. I think the red crystal symbolizes the lure of modern consumerism. Man, I can't wait to get past this next gun fight so I can decide which melodramatic fate to make Captain Dipshit choose for the people of Douchebag Planet DUI 17." Doom is the kind of fun where its three am and you've got to be somewhere at eight, and you haven't really slept since Sunday, and your hand is cramping from hovering over the shift key, but god fucking damn it you are going to beat this level before you go to bed. But...well...you'll just start the next level and go far enough in to see what it looks like, and you might even trigger the first big wave of enemies, but then you just want to see if there's a new gun hidden around here before you go to bed.........maybe.

Playing this game, I can't help but imagine the designers constantly asking themselves, “What would be the most fun way to handle this?” for every decision, and then doing exactly that. Low on health? Don't run around looking for health packs or hide around the corner, that’s not fun. Grab a demon imp and beat it to death with your bare hands, because that’s fun. Low on ammo? Don't run around looking for ammo packs or go to a menu screen to buy ammo with credits, that's not fun. Whip out your fucking chainsaw and mutilate the biggest baddest mother fucker you can find because that is fucking fun. And for the love of god, why would you ever stop your glorious murder spree to switch out a clip? Fuck that noise. Have some fucking fun.

This attitude permeates every square inch of DOOM. Every kill is satisfying. The major battles are all out wars against the hordes of hell. The boss battles are tense endurance contests. The levels are brilliantly designed and beautifully rendered nightmares of metal, stone and gore. The music and the sound is thundering, chest pounding euphoria. This game fucking rocks.

We're going to pause for one moment and do one thing for the purpose of this review. We're going to take the multiplayer mode and throw it out the window. I played ten minutes of multiplayer and immediately realized it wasn't for me. The multiplayer is everything the campaign is not. Its derivative, its uninspired, and its not insanely fun. Its clear what they were going for with the fast pace and the arena design, but the fact is Halo 5 beat them to the punch on this, did it better, and even then wasn't that successful. Its not in the spirit of this game to waste any of our time on anything that isn't gloriously fun. Back to the good shit.

The DOOM campaign is paced wonderfully. Each level is broken up into a handful of arenas where big battles take place with corridors, small platforming sections, and a trove of secretes spread out between the major throw downs. The arenas are fairly distinguishable as you walk into them, more so in the latter stages of the game, when larger enemies are thrown at you and the spaces become more elaborate. The level design is such a key part of the experience, as the illusion of the world is never really broken despite the fact that you are essentially moving from arena to arena. This works because of the cavalier tone the game establishes early on. The game doesn't give a flying fuck if it reminds you its a game, because the whole goddamned point that you have fun playing it.

The fun of running through the levels on their own is enhanced by a small assortment of bonuses tied to each level. There are typically three challenges (combat or exploration feats such as kill 2 certain enemies in a certain way, find 3 secrets, etc.) five to ten secrets to find, and a bonus for killing a certain amount of enemies in each level. The challenges encourage you to experiment with different attacks and throw in extra flair to some of your kills. Trust me, once you disable a giant Lord of Hell, and jump to a nearby platform just to launch in the air and perform a spectacular swan dive onto its forehead, rip its fucking horns off and use them to slice its own throat, you'll realize the only thing more satisfying than killing a demon is killing a demon with style.

You earn tools to hone in on secrets without needing to go through the chore of scouring the map, but you end up scouring the map anyway because every environment looks so goddamned amazing. There are incredible open chasms and shafts that brought to mind the conveyor ride near the end of Half Life 2, and at the same time there are intricately detailed rooms that show the horrific wake of the massacre during the demonic invasion that bring to mind the atmosphere of The Last of Us. There are intermittent tableaus of bodies ritualistically flayed and dismembered as well as indistinguishable piles of formless gore. In later stages, when you enter the depths of hell, you're treating to monolithic demon skulls with tears of blood gushing from their eyes, titanic fossils of demons large enough to put Mass Effect's reapers to shame, and jagged, harsh wastelands that stretch out into endless voids.

The weapons are supremely satisfying. A combination of stellar sound, art design, animation, and visual fidelity make the weapons feel like powerful instruments of destruction. Each weapon has its own upgrade path, with most of them having two “attachments” you can add on (and swap at will). There are several upgrades for each attachment available for purchase with points you earn as you complete challenges and uncover secrets. The final, most powerful upgrade for each weapon is locked behind a combat challenge of some kind, which again encourages you to experiment with the different offerings, finding increasingly more brutal ways to obliterate the hordes of hell..

I found myself relying on the super shotgun, which let out a substantial burst of damage before needing to be “reloaded,” (more of a brief cooldown given the lack of a traditional reloading mechanic in this game). The top tier upgrade of this weapon allowed for two big bursts before the reload. With those two bursts, I was empowered enough to go toe to toe, face to face with even the mightiest of hell spawn. Other notable upgrades include siege mode for the giant gauss cannon, which essentially turns you into a siege tank from Starcraft, and a rocket barrage for your machine gun, which unloads a deadly stream of rockets into any foe foolish enough to take you head on.

Aside from upgrading weapons, there are upgrades to unlock for your base stats (health, armor, ammo capacity). There are also runes to unlock, which are perks you can equip and swap out through the menu. These are locked behind trials which present a timed challenge for you to overcome. Once unlocked, the runes can be upgrade to become more powerful by equipping them and completing certain tasks while using them (collect x armor, melee x enemies, etc.) The volume of upgrade options seems overwhelming at first, but it is actually a key part of what keeps the game fresh as you move into the latter half of it. You are constantly encouraged to try different combat tactics and consistently rewarded for using them successfully.

The sound design further entrenches you in the bloody mess of destruction you create. The thunderous pounding of your weapons gives way to satisfying splats and screams as your enemies explode into bits. There is a tendency for the screams to sound too close or too loud when just one or two stragglers is running around waiting to be purged, but its a minor issue that might not be unreasonable to expect could be patched out at some point. When the action picks up, heavy guitar riffs cut in, often in time to events occurring on screen. The result is joyous carnage, and a supreme sense of empowerment for the player. You're a bad-ass, legendary, rock star super-soldier, annihilating the forces of hell before you.

Plot is not a main concern of DOOM. The message from the outset is that you're here to have fun slaughtering demons and everything else is ancillary to that. However, there is a bit of lore hidden behind the glorious mayhem, and it is surprisingly interesting. You unlock codex entries as you explore the levels, giving background on the environments, the enemies, and the supporting cast. These bits of text flesh out the main plot and provide a suitably absurd and empowering back story for the Doom Guy. They also show just how much imagination and thought has been poured into the design of the environments and the enemies. Its a perfect touch of world building reminiscent of the original Halo.

DOOM perfectly captures the spirit of its predecessors and modernizes the franchise in an original way. Games like Call of Duty Advanced Warfare and Halo 5 have been taking the formula of the modern shooter and adding more empowerment to it, speeding it up. DOOM takes that concept and turns it to 11. It is an exhilarating blast of adrenaline that will leave you blood soaked and basking in its glory. Its all the more amazing that this game is so phenomenally pitch perfect, given the ridiculously long and troubled trip it took through development. It was almost impossible to imagine this game coming out and not feeling tired and stale, or like a cheap attempt to slap a brand name on well worn tropes of modern first person shooters.

Yet here it is, fervently reminding us of the gloriously chaotic and hauntingly mysterious games of old that grabbed us by balls or tits and bent us into rocket slinging gods of demonic slaughter. Games that shoved a shotgun in our hand, threw as many enemies as they possibly could in the room and brazenly dared us to figure it the fuck out. Games that begged us to strap headphones to our head and blast rib cage rattling riffs of metal while we annihilated grotesque pixelated monstrosities. At the same time it throws two giant fuck you middle fingers at any element of modern game design that's worried about realism or immersion. Instead, it proudly presents superbly polished level, weapon and enemy design and lets us immerse ourselves in the pristine gameplay it offers. Christ, I'm getting amped up just fucking thinking about it. For fuck's sake, stop reading this stupid review and go play some fucking DOOM already.