Against my better judgement I picked up DOOM (ALL CAPS) for the personal computer. This was probably not a smart choice as I have not paid rent yet this month but nobody is calling in and yelling at me so all in all I suppose I don't regret the decision.

Anyway, DOOM (case sensitive) is a game wherein you shoot demons, demon-possessed peoples and move very fast while doing so, and it is very very very good.

Aside from knowing that this DOOM spent a seemingly, weirdly quiet and long development period I hadn't the highest of hopes for this particular jaunt through hell and mars and probably more hell, if anything I was expecting an enjoyable romp with some good portions of blood, and demons to explode/eviscerate/discuss economic policy with for maybe about 4-5 hours. I didn't exactly hate the MP beta that came out a couple of weeks ago, but at the same time it didn't seem like anything worth boarding the hype train over. Honestly, the GB quick look was the biggest factor in me making my purchase but even then my purchase was done with a certain amount of "oh god did I just blow 40'ish dollars (greenmangaming.com folks) on a new game?!?!" kind of backpedaling.

Luckily, DOOM (Richards!!!!!!!!) is probably the best feeling, most fun I have had in an FPS since FEAR. The movement is great and fast as hell, the "glory kills" the stun/melee combo you may have seen that causes enemies to explode into little blue health icons (icons, not orbs, the UI design in this game is freaking MAGICAL) are addicting and great and oh man I ripped a guy in half with a chainsaw did you see that?) The upgrade systems, of which there are 4: Praetor armor abilities, Gun upgrades/mods, Argent Energy Fragments (which allow you to increase ammo, health or armor one blip at a time) and Runes (traits unlocked through some fun AND optional weapon challenges) give you lots of control over your hours of RIP AND TEAR and fun and guts.

There's a lot of other bits here as well that I won't elaborate on but the story is lite but just present enough to keep you moving forward, the weapons all feel great (and I have only gotten 4-5 so far, I understand there are a few more) and all have 2 different alt-fire modes to unlock. The games is drop-dead gorgeous on my PC (I5-2500k, 8GB ram, GTX 960 2GB) and runs between 40-50-60 fps depending on the environment. The MP is lite, dumb and uses the COD-style loadouts/level up progression with some armor variants and more slots/abilities to unlock. But damn it, if I don't have the urge to keep coming back, at least to Team Deathmatch. It's fast and runs at a good clip, the Demon spawning keeps it interesting and I think the match length and matchmaking work pretty well (again, at least in Team Deathmatch) If you have the game and tried the MP during the beta and was turned off, maybe give this another shot, I think a lot more polish has been applied in the last couple of months, though the season pass ($39.99 for new MP maps only) is an insanely bad deal.

Lastly, I haven't had a chance to play around with Snapmap (the level creation kit/browser) that comes with the game but if it gives me the ability to keep on ruining the various days/lives/eternities for the denizens of Hell, well then I can't help but look forward to it.DOOM (seriously give me a subtitle or something Id, this is a dumb name) is pretty damn fun, unless it totally goes to shit for my remaining time with it (I think I'm about 3 hours in, no clue how long the campaign is) then I think it's safe to say that this is one of the finest FPS's that I've played in a long time. Better than Wolfenstein: The New Order which was a damn fine game in of itself

I'll post more impressions with Snapmap, and the MP a bit later on.