Doom Eternal (2020)

(difficulty: Hurt Me Plenty)

So conflicted over this.

Some REALLY great bits: the music, the pace. As it being my first DOOM game it was really fun to get started with this one. Hard at first but gets easier as you learn the skills.

But let's talk about the bosses.

I'm not talking about the bosses-turn-mini-boss-turn-mobs (marauder and doom hunters), I'm talking about the Khan Maykr and the Icon of Sin. UNDERWHELMING. Pace-killer. boss fights are so slow and just requires you to do certain hit and runs. also the music??? what happened to the kickass mick gordon metal that made pve so fun. Icon of Sin was a joke. There was no adrenaline rush for that boss. It felt like a chore.

The ending cutscene was also underwhelming, probably because fighting IoS was so dull, when I finished it was like "well that's that".

Also I hated the platforming in this game. I died more time to platforms than to actual pve.

FPS games are not ones I play a lot or even enjoy very often, but with all the hype around this I had to check it out.

I've obviously never played anything in the DOOM series before, but a quick YouTube video will help catch you up to speed and it's easy to figure out from clues in the game anyway. So while I was worried about that being a barrier, it definitely wasn't one. The story and lore surrounding this game are interesting and cool, but pretty straightforward all the same.

The combat is the heart and soul of this game, and it's a blast. You have quite a large arsenal of weapons and abilities at your disposal and frequent encounters with enemies, so you'll get plenty of chances to rip and tear to your heart's content. The combat is challenging--I ended up playing on easy--but extremely rewarding. The boss fights in particular were done really well.

There's also a bit of a platforming element to this game, with lots of secrets and collectibles to discover. I particularly enjoyed this part of the game and wasn't expecting it as part of an FPS hack and slash like this. These secrets also make for good replayability, which is nice since the campaign is short.

As I said earlier, the game offers you a lot in terms of weapons and abilities. I actually found it overwhelming, even though they staggered them in. I think this part of the reason I had to play on easy--being good at the game requires being able to switch between many weapons very quickly. I just couldn't figure out what was good for which situation and stuck to 3 or 4 favorites. It's a lot to handle.

Even though the game was meant to difficult, some fights were just really a slog. Especially near the end, encounters are back-to-back and include so many enemies--including extremely difficult ones--that it becomes exhausting. And of course, with a back-to-back fight, if you die then you have to go back to the first one. It seemed like an unnecessary frustration since the game was already a challenge.

It was still more fun than not so I can't complain too much. I think FPS fans or hack and slash fans would really enjoy this, as would anyone looking for a challenge. As I said, this outside my usual but I found myself really enjoying it.

Doom Eternal - First Impressions

First level - Feeling good, everything seen so far was a significant improvement over my entire experience with 2016. Wasn't particularly amazing but I enjoyed the use of much better enemy design, encounters were solid, and everything felt so balanced on Nightmare to the point where I got in the zone rather quickly. The music so far is real good and is more to my liking, environments look amazing and was looking forward to what came next.

Post-Slayer gate me after second level - MY HANDS WON'T STOP SHAKING. THIS MIGHT BE THE BEST GAME OF THE YEAR RIGHT NOW

Just beat the first of the infamous Marauder enemy, coming up on the halfway point of the game I assume.

I appreciate how this game has a gameplay arc of going from finding a certain enemy really difficult to successfully prioritizing and dispatching it in a big mob with barely any thought. Those big arena battles featuring vertical movement, limited resources, and a need to think quickly and swap between tools become a real thrill, especially a few missions in as dying in them becomes rarer. This Marauder was a fun little sub-boss that really got my number several times at the end of a long, fun and not too hard level. Really made me stop and try everything I could until I found what works, but wow I am terrified to face this thing in a real fight.

Anyway once you get past the difficult opening of this game—which I’ve talked about before and think is kinda rough at getting less-skilled players to the point of having fun—and you get properly equipped with movement-enhancing abilities and knowledge of how to beat each threat, the possibilities of the combat really open up and it becomes a real thrill. Really highlights just how dull the average shooter can be when you compare to zipping around between glory kills and hitting weaknesses of 5 or 6 different enemies in a big multi-level battlefield.

Much like Ori 2, I was pleasantly surprised at how much more I enjoyed Eternal than the previous Doom game. Doom 2016, while a very good arena shooter, didn't feel like anything particularly special to me, a person with no previous experience in arena shooters. I explained previously but apart from its solid fps gameplay, I really hated how the "story" and collectibles hampered the pacing on a game that wants you to always go fast. Maybe this is how it always is with these types of arena shooters but it's definitely something I couldn't get behind. The shooting itself was fine but most of the guns felt practically useless aside from the super shotgun and the laser. I'm sure it's different on Nightmare, but on Ultra Violence there was never any reason to switch off super shotgun once you got it as most enemies were down in two shots or with a quick switch between super shotgun and laser.

Doom Eternal pretty much fixes all issues I had with 2016. I have no previous experience with Doom's story outside of what little I managed to get from 2016, but Eternal's story, lore, and world building felt so much more fascinating because it wasn't just about killing demons and escaping a red planet or something. Now it's about killing demons, saving the earth, and confronting Doomguy's past, which I wasn't even aware of. The whole thing with the Slayers, the Maykrs and all that felt akin to something God of War would do almost. The exploration felt much less intrusive as secrets and collectibles are far easier to find and reach without really hampering the pacing. It helps that the levels have so much more variety and are infinitely more interesting to explore than red mountains and military bases. The part I wasn't expecting a huge improvement on was the shooting. Right off the bat on Ultra Violence, the game immediately makes you realize that playing like you did in 2016 is a huge mistake at high difficulties. Every single one of your mechanics actually matter. Ammo matters, The chainsaw matters. What gun you use matters. Grenades matter. Glory kills actually serve their purpose of health now instead of being just flavor. The plasma shooter doesn't feel like a pea shooter anymore. Using all of the tools at your disposal is how you succeed in Eternal instead of just sticking to two guns. And while all these mechanics dumped on you seem a bit overwhelming, they're not much more than what was introduced in 2016 save for the flamethrower and dashing. The difference being that almost all of them can be ignored in 2016 but definitely not in Eternal. Every mechanic introduced comes with a text tutorial and an opportunity to try it out in a test room in order to quickly become acquainted with Eternal's faster paced and more brutal gameplay loop.

A 4.5 is what I'd truthfully give Doom Eternal and the only reason it shies away from a 5/5 from me is that it loses its steam towards the end. Not that the game is worse at the end, but the campaign is actually pretty lengthy and shooters generally aren't my thing as is. If there's anything negative I'd have to say personally... is to remove the Marauders!!! Never mind that fact that they kick my ass, but for a game whose entire shtick is about fast paced never stop moving action, the Marauder is the complete opposite of that. An enemy that forces you to stay still, at a specific distance, and methodically fight. An enemy whose AI also likes to dash constantly at melee range to slap you with his shotgun. I'm definitely not upset about dying once to almost every Marauder encounter, not at all. Anyway, Eternal is everything I expected when going into 2016 except 2016 failed to deliver, so I'm very happy with this fantastic game. Highly recommend.

:'(

Went to get this after work. Store hadn't ordered it in. Went to another store. They didn't have it either. Didn't want to pay full price through EB or XBL. Had some drinks (the same drinks that effectively made me download Animal Crossing) and ordered a copy online to be picked up instore.

Government declares a shutdown of non-essential services to commence on Tuesday.

Fuck.

No idea when I'll get this but like The Winds of Winter it's on its way.

This game might be my GOTY 2020 if it keeps being this good. I see people complaining about the ammo economy and how there's too much, but I'm really really liking the fact that chainsawing is something you do regularly and that you're constantly juggling stuff, it makes my brain tingle with joy. The kinaesthetics are somehow better than 2016, and by adding in the surplus of new mechanics and interactions with demons my biggest gripe with 2016, the lack of variety, is completely blown away.

I'm most of the way through the Cultist Base, I stopped playing last night because I looked over at the clock and realized it was 2AM. My back was sore, my fingers twitching from weapon-swapping, dashing, glory killing, and shooting, and my grin hasn't been this big since DMC5 last year.

I can see people being overwhelmed by this, but this really feels like a character action game but an FPS, and when I approach it from "these are my tools, I need to learn my tools bit by bit and throw them together over time," everything feels great.