Within thirty-seconds of DOOM starting you know exactly the kind of gaming experience you are going to have. DOOM picks up without any sort of forced storytelling segments of any kind. No commander explaining to you (i.e. the audience) what the hell is going on, no cinematic into with a dragged out text scroll, and no bog standard tutorial in sight. Nope, DOOM simply throws you into the fray and treats you like an adult, which makes sense as those excited about this game probably grew up with the originals. Doom was the big daddy of the modern FPS genre, and this DOOM reboot/sequel looks to go back to basics opting for a visceral experience full of blood, guts and speed, over a linear experience. Where Doom 3 went with the jump-scare route and could be considered the inspiration for all the scare based games we see on Steam, this new DOOM chooses blasting baddies in gruesome ways over cheap scares.
But all this classic blasting isn’t to say that DOOM doesn’t have a story underneath everything, it simply chooses to let the player, the DOOM Marine, simply be a part of it instead of at its core. This is clear when while still in the first room of the game as a UAC station survivor tries to explain to you what is going on and recruit you to fight. It’s something that has been done a thousand times before, even in Doom 3, but here the DOOM Marine simply smashes the view-screen and goes about his business. You are here to kill demons, and boy howdy do you ever do just that. What ends up being a style more closely tied to the original Doom, it’s a wonder just how fresh it feels in 2016.
Instead of running down corridor after corridor, or being forced down a linear path full of invisible walls, DOOM opts for large open areas that you can traverse at will and in fun ways. This open nature isn’t quite as free as the original game, but it offers up a lot of unique opportunities in terms of modern gameplay. Your goal may be marked on your map, but how you get there and by what means falls to you. Maybe you’ll take the high ground and use the ledge grab ability, maybe you’ll find a secret path, or maybe you’ll jump all over the place like you’re playing Quake 3 Team Arena. Whatever you choose you are going to have a lot of fun getting to where you need to go at your own pace.
While the meat of DOOM is shooting the minions of hell in the face, the game offers up so fun ways of doing it. New is the “Glory Kill” mechanic that makes an enemy glow blue after you have done enough damage to it. If you are near an enemy when they are glowing you can tap a key and automatically perform said “Glory Kill”. These are extremely brutal and satisfying and vary in shape and form. The kills will differ depending on the enemy and whether you initiate it from the font, back, side, and even when landing on them from above. It’s a mechanic that many feared would get tiring, but this never happens. It’s always a lot of fun to perform and see these “Glory Kills” and they also come with benefits.
Performing a “Glory Kill” will reward you with life and ammo, so performing these is a vital part of the game. I think because of this reason is why the mechanic never gets old. Instead of being something cool that you can do, it’s something cool that also serves an important purpose. But before these kills you are going to be shooting all the baddies that you have come to known and love from the Doom series. The new designs of the enemies all work well and are fun to blast with DOOM’s array of weapons. If you are like me you are going to be using the Super Shotgun as your primary like the classic games, but each weapon serves defined role. There is a laser that can serve as a sniper rife, the classic chain-gun, limited use chainsaw for brutal kills, a plasma rife, and the legendary BGF 9000.
Each weapon feels good and the sound design helps add some much-needed weight to the weapons. New here is the ability to earn weapon tokens that allow you to modify each weapon with a number of attachments. Each weapon has two brackets that change things quite a bit and each bracket can be upgraded several times making the alt-fire of every gun more and more powerful until you can unlock a super ability once maxed out. These modifications give the player the ability to tweak their arsenal how they see fit, lending for a unique style of play from player to player. While playing you can swap mods on the fly so you won’t have to worry about some station or menu to worry about. This also makes exploring a lot of fun as you’ll be wanting to upgrade often.
J. Luis
@_ShadowGallery
doom