When we think about games that were released that defined the future of gaming (or at least got there near first) it is impossible to not talk about the impact that the original DOOM game had back in 1993. That game was so legendary that it was a part of almost everyone's life at one point unless they were too young or old. I personally used to dream about Doom I was playing it so much and I would end up sinking hundreds of hours into it. The 2016 reboot was meant to be a return to the classic simplicity, basically remaking the original 23 years later.
Keep in mind that for this review i am referring to the 2016 release not the much more recently released Doom Eternal, which is something I have not yet played.
Right out of the gate they get you running and gunning, with very little of your experience being based on any sort of story. You simply break out of a surgical ward of sorts as you wake up and find yourself chained to an operating table which you break free from and of course immediately find weapons and start gunning. The tutorial is quick enough that the game flows pretty well, and you are immediately shooting to kill as you meet the first trash mobs of the game.
This fast-paced beginning is nice and they quickly introduce a very eerie aspect of the game by having directional growling of demons be present in your headphones or sound system that give you a general idea of where the next thing is going to jump out at you. As you progress further, there is plenty of blood and gore, which is something that we all kind of loved about the original in the 90's. Unfortunately this nostalgic kick-back wears off pretty quickly.
Maybe it is because FPS games are so damn common these days and I expect to catch some flack for this but this version of Doom just felt boring to me. Even with the updated graphics the level design almost seems like it was outsourced. I found myself running around aimlessly because I couldn't really use the map function which seemed so useless most of the time.
Basically every level seems to go something like this: There is something waaaaay over there that you need to activate for some reason. You fight a few enemies on your way to said "something" and then upon activating said "something" it triggers a massive demon invasion on your position which is a room that has now become locked down due to high demonic levels. You can't run, you can't hide! That is until you kill enough of the baddies and then the doors open back up again.
I do appreciate the really cool updated graphics on enemies that we all know and remember from the original and I applaud the art team for doing a fantastic job of that. However, there is one major issue that I have with basically all of the enemies and that is the fact that even on harder difficulty settings it is extremely easy to not die simply by continually moving. This is the reason why they have these periodic "lockdown" sequences where you are now trapped in a small room with dozens of enemies, because if you had free reign to run wherever you felt like it, you would never get hit by anything.
There is very little reason to seek cover because the enemies just run around it since their AI must dictate that they don't actually care if they take damage. On higher difficulty settings the attack methods of the swarm doesn't change, they just take more hits to kill and will do more damage to you when they hit you.
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Hold up... where am i supposed to go?
I do realize that the entire premise behind this game was to "return to FPS basics" and honestly, that sounds to me like a marketing ploy and a reason to not innovate anything in the game at all. By about halfway through the campaign this all becomes extremely repetitive and again, because of that it seems quite boring. The occasional jump scare isn't enough to keep you interested.
It has a lot in common with the original Doom game but in my mind at least, those times have passed and this run and gun game kind of shows it. If you never played original Doom and don't even have the feelings of nostalgia, I would imagine you would get bored even faster than I did in this.
The above trailer sold me on the game, which I only paid around $8 for. That isn't a cinematic either for the most part, that is what the game looks like so I applaud their honesty for showing actual gameplay. As beautiful as that all is it just gets really repetitive, fast.
The weapon upgrades are few and far between and when you do find them they have such limited functionality that you find yourself rarely even using them. The only time I did was when I encounter these slow-moving shield-bearing zombies who absorb everything you throw at them otherwise and then it occurred to me how silly it was to have a zombie-demon of that type. It just seems very unzombie-like.
Even though I paid very little for this game, I think there is very little chance that I will end up completing it because it is simply the same thing over and over again. The map system is terribly difficult to understand, and you basically just fetch questing while pew pewing in increasingly long segments only to end up in the same "uh oh, you are trapped in this room until you kill everyone!" scenarios over....and over....and over...
Combine this with some annoying (and completely unnecessary) platforming portions of the game and I would much rather play a wide variety of other shooters that I have already in my library.
The overall rating of this game are mostly positive online and at least with the professional ones, I can't help but think they were paid to say nice things which has become all too common in the video game review world.
I do NOT think this is a good game but merely a cash grab based on 2-decade-old feelings. They won't be able to do this to us twice.