Doom

Another reboot of the Doom series, this game is the fourth main installment in the series and the first main Doom game to be released since 2004's Doom 3. It is also the first game to run on the id Tech 6 engine. The game was released worldwide for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on May 13, 2016 and runs on the id Tech 6 engine. A port for the Nintendo Switch was released on November 10, 2017. Even if it is technically impressive and runs the game surprisingly well, the Nintendo Switch version has a lot of flaws that do make it somewhat inferior to the other versions of the game.

In the year 2149, the United Aerospace Corporation, or the UAC, has put up a research facility on Mars, where they are experimenting with teleportation technology. They soon find that they can open up a portal to Hell, and learn to harvest the energy from the dimension as well as setting out some investigation teams there as well. However, the experiments go horribly wrong, and it leads to an outbreak of demons on the UAC base. Luckily, a man known as the Doom Slayer is released from a sarcophagus found from an exploration in Hell, and it is up to him to lay waste and to stop the demonic invasion.

It is one of the most refreshing modern first-person shooters, completely abandoning the cliches and tropes of other modern shooters like the Call of Duty series and opting for more of a throwback to the original first-person shooter games like the original Doom and Star Wars: Dark Forces with features like no reloads and many secret areas with extra items or fun Easter Eggs. For example, if the player is killed by an explosive barrel on one of the Classic Maps, the Doom Slayer's decapitated head will land in front of you, with the face in the helmet's visor showing the face of the Doomguy from the original Doom games. Another example is that the player can kind the skull of Commander Keen at one point in the game, complete with his helmet, and well as a corpse with an arrow stuck in its right knee, a reference to an NPC comment in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. And another example is when the Doom Slayer is killed by lava, he will slowly sink into the lava and put up a thumbs-up in the process as he goes down, a reference to the ending of Terminator II: Judgement Day. In addition to these there is also some content that was cut from other Doom games that would make an appearance here.

The graphics and great world and character design throughout the entire game are amazing. The design of the UAC base itself is quite nice and has a very clean look to it overall.

For the first time in the Doom series, the creators of the game decided to give the Doomguy, now known as the Doom Slayer, a real personality rather than being a self-insert of the player character. A new character upgrade system is also introduced to enhance the Doom Slayer's abilities. This in itself is already interesting, as this creates a lot more options for the Doom Slayer and makes combat more interesting as a result, as well as enhancing aspects of the experience.

We also have a surprisingly well-done story and also expands the lore of the Doom universe. Despite the story of the game being optional for the player and not required to enjoy the game fully, it does, however, get in the way at times that can be very annoying.

The level design in this game is a great throwback to the design in older shooters and is incredibly fun to play through. All of the maps in addition have a large amount of secrets and collectibles to uncover to increase the replay value. Rune trials have also been introduced and exist within certain levels throughout the entire single-player campaign.

There is a great variety of weaponry throughout the entire game for the player to utilize, with some weapons returning from the previous Doom games to keep some of the experience familiar, as well a few new weapons that freshen up the experience a bit. They are all incredibly varied and fun to use in their own way, and are a lot more unique to use than a lot of other modern FPS weapons. It is recommended that the shotgun should be used often in battles, as it can be extremely useful for clearing out groups of weaker enemies quickly. For longer range fights, the rapid-fire weapons are more effective, especially considering the heavy machine gun can have a scope on it.

This entry in the series brings back the special power-ups that can be found on the game map, a feature that was removed in Doom 3, and only made a partial comeback in that game's Resurrection of Evil expansion in the form of the Artifact. Weapons mods have also been introduced to allow the players to add on to and personalize their weaponry to fit their playstyle. It is also highly recommended that you seek out all the Argent Cells in a level, as they are essential for your survival and will make survival and ammo management much easier.

The amounts of enemies are varied, which expands upon the main gallery of Doom monsters. They are all pretty unique from one another in a lot of ways and they all each create a different combat experience when fought. The Hell Knight has a similar appearance to its version from Doom 3, as well as the symbol for the UAC and the appearance of the shotgun also looking similar to their Doom 3 counterparts.

There are only three bosses in the single player campaign, unfortunately, so there aren't many places to test your in-game skills. In fact, all of the bosses also appear in the second half of the game, and it would have been nice to have more or at least space them out a little bit to make the pacing a little better. While there are not a lot of them and they only appear a few times in the entire campaign, the boss fights are well-designed and are great way to test your skills that you learned throughout the campaign. In fact most of the fights are done in specific arena-like parts of the map, and there isn't much combat outside of these sections outside of a few Possessed enemies to path out where the player has to go on some levels, which can slow the game's pacing down quite a bit. The A.I. in the game is pretty predictable and barely any of the enemies change their tactics to much, even on the Nightmare difficulty.

While there is an incredibly large amount of action in the game, there are some exploration sections to get further through the level that have an over-reliance on platforming sections to continue on some maps, which are incredibly annoying to get through due to the first-person perspective, as it can be hard to gauge your jumps correctly.

The entire soundtrack composed by Mick Gordon has a very heavy metal tone to it most of the time that perfectly matches the intense action that is going on, and is practically a ballad of noise and intensity during fights against large enemy forces.

While it has its flaws, the multiplayer modes themselves are decent and also increases the main game's replay value. There are quite a few weapons that are exclusive to the multiplayer modes and are just as fun to use and are as balanced as the main weapons that carry over from the single-player mode. While it's cool that the multiplayer has its own dedicated weapons, this also means that these weapons are inaccessible to some players in the first place. There are also a few new equipment items that don't appear in the single-player campaign and are worth checking out the multiplayer to see how they work. Most of the multiplayer modes themselves are nothing really out of the ordinary outside of Freeze Tag and Soul Harvest, and there isn't much difference between it and the multiplayer of similar shooters such as Halo outside of the addition of being able to play as a demon. There are also quite a number of elements from the single-player campaign that were not integrated with the multiplayer, and also adds to the feeling of playing something completely different.

Due to the release of Doom Eternal and the fact that this entry in the series is over five years old, finding an online match can be incredibly hard nowadays and it can sometimes take over an hour to find a game at times. This is especially true for the Switch version, which has much less of a player base than other platforms.

Still a very enjoyable game overall.

An important tip is this: no matter what, you should never stop moving in a fight in both the campaign and in the multiplayer, as it will then expose you to enemy fire and is an easy way to get yourself killed.