Videogame Overall very good, minus some technical issues and overly long campaign
I don't normally play FPS games. Since, well, I usually suck at them.
However, when I watched Markiplier's Let's Play of this new Doom, I became curious enough to actually go ahead and buy it. And to my surprise, I actually had a pretty good time; mostly thanks to the fact that the enemies use semi-slow projectiles instead of instant hit bullets, meaning that you can just dodge them most of the time.
The game is, at its core, as basic as it gets: shoot down demons and avoid getting hit, with a simplistic Excuse Plot that ties everything up, rarely going outside of us having to reach some place and interact with something. You'll spend the majority of this game either gunning down enemies walking down corridors, or coming across rooms that act as mini-arenas, where you get locked inside until every enemy is dead.
For what it is, it works pretty well, with the game constantly keeping you on your toes and regularly introducing new and varied types of enemies and weapons. The Excuse Plot is interesting enough to want to know what happens next, and I found myself admiring the scenery a lot of the time, especially the hellscapes; an amazing amount of creativity went into their design. There's also plenty of secrets, collectibles and optional challenges to find, giving you all the more reasons to explore - especially because a good portion of these collectibles allow you to upgrade your equipment or increase your health or ammo caps. Lots of good stuff here.
However, I do have to note that by the time of about level 9 or 10, the game starts hitting Ending Fatigue; it's where the plot starts feeling unnecessarily padded out, and the game starts throwing way too many enemies at you at once. By this point, I figured out that in most cases, all you have to do to win without getting hit is to run in a circle and shoot at enemies; because of this, a higher enemy count rarely results in a higher difficulty, only in it taking more time to take all of them down, which slowly starts getting annoying. I honestly think the game would have been better if it was shorter, and ended on level 10.
There's also the fact that the game seems to have some issues loading things. Whenever there's any loading involved, it takes an eternity to finish, and even after you finally start a level, you can expect the game to freeze up at least once as it tries to get its footing. However, the game does run well for the rest of the level once the initial hiccups are over.
Overall, I'd say the game is a solid 8/10 and definitely worth recommending, since despite the technical issues and the unnecessary third act, it's still a good piece of enjoyable gameplay and admirable design.
Videogame Rip and Tear
The game starts you killing pretty much right off the bat and it doesn't stop.
It's a nice throwback, with large expansive maps, key hunting, high mobility, no regenerating health and no reloads. All in all it's kind of Star Wars VII, with all the same notes of Mars and Hell, demons and guns returning with shiny new graphics, and a plot that takes place with minimal bearing on all the killing.
I rather liked the game. Most people do, and I'm just pissing in the stream. But I wanted to like the game, even before hearing the reviews. For old-school Doom fans, it's a faithful retread of the original and definitely does better than Doom 3.
As an introduction to new players and especially people who don't like classic first-person shooters, it might be weird to have shift not be sprint but to walk. Or not having reloads. But it's a competent shooter and id really knows there stuff. Bethesda did good work in publishing it and it seems to have minimal issues.
But what really added to the experience for me, and even if I didn't grow up with classic shooters, being born in the mid-90's and thus consuming games of the 00's and 10's, it felt natural with the modern sensibilities, and the old-school stuff wasn't alienating. The secrets and easter eggs were nice since I knew about the source material enough, and the menu is quite expansive, having the option to disable a lot of things, like objective markers and interaction prompts. All the bonus challenges also add to the replay value. That's more nostalgia bait and it was nice to be able to organically explore rather than following a floating marker, though it was also nice to be able to turn it on if I got lost. They also released an update to put the gun model in the center of the screen to please the hardcore old-school fans who don't like change and can't accept anything different, but I haven't bothered. People seem to dislike the glory kills, and the fact you can pull it off on any enemy is kind of the main issue but personally it adds to the effect, with that lovely visceral punch and how fast it is (which can be upgraded with in game items). The story is token, but the fluff text and world-building actually is quite well done and the small details really add depth.
Multiplayer everyone hated but I thought it was pretty fun and fast, and I do surprisingly well, though hack modules and random unlocks is kind of an ass. But the visuals and soundtrack as well as sound effects all work beautifully and the player has a lot of freedom in disabling some aspects, such as the glory kill or interaction highlight and prompt, which is nice.
Overall it's pretty fuckin' good with minor nitpicks here and there (the biggest being load times). If you like FPS games or DOOM, it's definitely worth it by the campaign alone, and the multiplayer and Snap Map, while kinda meh, are just icing on the bloody hell cake. I can't wait for any sequels.
Videogame Screw the story, screw the multiplayer, screw snapmap, and screw Hell.
DOOM is a very simple game. You wake up, see some monsters, kill the monsters, put on your armor, hear some exposition, ignore the exposition, and you're ready to kill every demon you see. The combat is pulse-poundingly intense and breaks pretty much every FPS convention that Call of Duty and its ilk have set over the past decade. This game isn't exactly excellent in every category, but it's an excellent game nonetheless.