You likely know the story already, but here it is: There's a bunch of demons threatening humanity. You're Doomguy, who hates demons more than anything. Here's a bunch of guns, grenades and a chainsaw to do the job.
That's genuinely all you need to know to enjoy Doom.
The game is absolutely a power fantasy, and it's a well-engineered one at that. It doesn't feel cringe to me, which is genuinely baffling. There's no godawful oneliners! The game isn't trying to hide behind some veil of seriousness. There's so much technobabble bullshit and I love it.
When I think of the Doom games, I think of them as the epitome of the violent video games people have long been up in hysterics about. I think of demons exploding into tiny little pieces, satanic imagery and metal music. And that's exactly what I got.
DOOM 2016 is so much fun to play. It unrelentingly and uncompromisingly attempts to be as cool as possible at every turn. You see that and think to yourself:
"Of course it does! It's a Doom game!"
The glory kill mechanic is genius. You are at a disadvantage if you don't run right up to wounded enemies and rip their limbs off in brutal fashion, thus keeping you fighting. The super shotgun, a VERY powerful weapon, also incentivizes the player to get as close as possible to the demons. It's one of my favourites, which isn't exactly a unique opinion to have. My favourite weapon is probably the Gauss Cannon, though. It's fun to use the piercing mod and laser all the weak spots.
I haven't even gotten into Mick Gordon's soundtrack, which is incredible. It's a very interesting blend between instrumental metal and electronic music. I've listened to the album for years now and it's still one of my favourites. The songs fit the gameplay extremely well.
The funny thing about Doom's overt badassery, and gratuitous violence is that it's all turned up to 1000 so it becomes a silly slapstick extravaganza. It's unapologetically a video game, and that makes it endearingly goofy at times.
DOOM (2016)'s black comedy includes but is not limited to:
- The energy source most of humanity relies on is harvested from hell and it was literally discovered in a region called "Promethei Terra"
- Whenever a battle starts the automatic warning system says "Warning: Demonic presence at unsafe levels" as if there even exists a safe level.
- Doomguy's helmet spins cartoonishy in some death animations
- Samuel Hayden (the awesome 3 meter tall robot) reacts to the Slayer's zero (0) fucks given in hilariously exhasperated fashion
- Doomguy just slamming the head of a dead UAC scientist into the iris scanner.
- The UAC is a comically obvious cult. (The spokesperson unironically says "Harnessing Hell for a better tomorrow" and "The road to hell is paved with argent energy". I lost my shit when the spokesperson started demonically chanting in a corporate accent. I wish I had a clip of it I could show you.)
This may not sound very funny, but it kind of is when playing the game itself. You'd be forgiven if you entered the Doom franchise thinking that it couldn't possibly be that violent, but it is. It's so violent that it feels less violent than games in other franchises that focus on realism, because the ridiculous nature of DOOM's demon slaughterfest crosses the line of realism into its own world.
I was drawn into playing Doom by Doomguy's characterization. He's completely silent in this game, yet he has quite a lot of personality. He doesn't feel like he's a boring Action GuyTM which surprised me.
He's so over the top cool that it wraps around to being funny. He is constantly angry. He's no-nonsense to a fault. In the description of many power ups, there's descriptions of how they will kill any human who uses it. Meanwhile he's munched them up already like it's breakfast. At the start of the game he wakes up in a stone sarcophagus like he's some kind of artifact. Which he is, to be fair. Also, I'm a sucker for good armour designs, and I really like the Praetor Suit.
His goal of protecting all of humanity from the hordes of hell is noble, yet he's pretty asocial and also disregards the consequences of his actions, unless those consequences are less demons in the world.The UAC, the obligatory evil sci-fi corporation, has utilized energy from hell to solve humanity's energy crisis. Without it, the demons won't invade humankind, but the vast majority of humanity would die in the resulting energy crisis. Doomguy seemingly does not care.
His silence could be explained by truly ridiculous amounts of PTSD. It would make sense given how he's spent lifetimes fighting demons and had his life, pet rabbit (yes really) and all else that mattered to him ripped away. Either way, it makes it much easier for the player to embody him, and it prevents the game from lazily making him spew exposition dumps or bad quips.
I wouldn't say I'm good at the game, but I expected to be absolutely abysmal at it, which I'm not, so I guess that having a PC that can get above 30 FPS helps a lot. Who would've thunk. I improved my aim and tactics quite a bit as the game progressed so I feel like I'm in a pretty good spot, at least for someone with very little experience.
Hurt Me Plenty was the right difficulty setting for my first playthrough, but as I neared the end I sensed that my next playthrough should be on Ultra-Violence. I'll definitely replay this one.
After a few hours of playing I quickly caved and also bought DOOM: Eternal. It was only 10 euros instead of 37. Still, spontaneously buying games like that is very out of character for me, honestly.
From what I can tell, the main critiques people have for Doom Eternal are the platforming aspects and having to change your weapon all the time depending on which enemy you are fighting.
I actually like the platforming and I often climb stuff to better navigate the levels and gain the upper hand. I also change weapons all the time because there is no way I am wasting my good ammo on imps. They get the shotgun. About half of my weapons are used for enemies I find managable, while the others are of the "please die already" variety.
I find the game to be extremely fun. All the enemies work, and very few actually annoy me. The imps are annoying by design, but the revenants? Why do they take so long to die? Unless I use the Gauss Cannon on them they take a million years to die and I don't have time for that with all the other demons on my ass. It gets to a point where it's actually annoying. Otherwise, I have no complaints.
I am so excited to play DOOM: Eternal
Final thoughts:
I NEED THE CRUCIBLE SAMUEL!
