The Return of Doom
I’m usually the type of gamer that likes to get on Call of Duty Black Ops to get some action in with my online peeps but not today. Today was just different. I wanted to try a new game, DOOM (2016). This game had a little bit of buzz around and it had been years since I had played the title. The last installment that I could remember was one of those 2D/3D PC games that my older brother used to play. The nostalgia factor was definitely there from the beginning. But instead of purchasing it, I decided to pick it up at a Redbox next to the sketchy 7-Eleven down the street from my house.
I get home and pop the disc in. I let the Xbox One download the game while I watched a syndicated episode of The Office, season 9 (Robert California is the best character ever written into a TV show). After a short while the Xbox tells me it’s done. I hit start. I lose my mind.
From the beginning you notice the amazing graphics and detail of DOOM (2016). If I were to ever go to Mars, this is exactly what I would imagine it looks like. The red rocks, sand storms in the distance, futuristic space stations and demons. The damage from your weapons against demon flesh is so realistic. Limbs fly off, chunks of flesh fly away against pistol fire and well placed shotgun shells cut foes in half. The adrenaline of the perfect mix of action and gore makes your heart races the entire time. This is not for the faint of heart. The names given to the levels of difficulty are the first clue of that.
This game throws you into the shit like an under-qualified college graduate that lied on their resume at a fortune 500 company. As soon as you wake from your sarcophagus or coffin thing, demons are breathing down your neck. You’re naked and alone and demons are trying to kill you. After my first wave of demons, I paused the game. I kindly asked my wife to find my bible, get me a 10 piece, Thai Chili chicken wing platter with fries and put the kids to bed because this was going to be a long night of demon slaying and swearing. I poured a glass of my favorite bourbon, drank it down, gathered my thoughts and dove back into the mayhem.
One thing you will notice immediately is that this game does not encourage the use of an aiming system. You definitely could aim if you so choose but the action will slow your movement down so much that it’s almost guaranteed to get you killed. DOOM (2016) is your typical run and gun style of game and it feels amazing.
It gives you that old feeling of running around a level causing nothing but destruction and anarchy like in the old days. Many demons are agile so I found myself chasing some of them down. The glory kill system is a nice touch where in it allows you to perform a melee combo attack on the target that rewards you with ammo and health.
The maps are well designed and they hold many secrets and Easter eggs that give a nod to DOOM (2016) predecessors. The story does not get very deep but it doesn’t need to. The game is what it is. You are a space marine and your sole job is to fuck shit up and not ask questions. In fact your character spends most of the game listening to other people talk to them explaining how they fucked up and opened the gates of hell into Mars. Trust me these people messed up big time. The boss battles are intense and the bosses themselves are well designed.
They are huge and powerful and every attack that they throw feels like it’s meant to kill with one shot. With all of amazing game-play in single player mode, you would think that this would translate well into multi-player, right? Hell no, multi-player leaves a lot to be desired. Immediately you notice that it feels like a cheap knock off of the amazing Black Ops III. From the thruster jumps to the winners circle after a match, this thing feels like a complete knock off. It’s like they completely forgot about the fact that they needed a multi-player game mode and asked Trey-arch to send them the horrible very first draft of what Call of Duty Black Ops would become.
I thought that they fact that I could customize the armor of my “DOOM guy” would save it but even that was mediocre and unsatisfying. I have played a lot of multi-player first-person shooters in my day but I would argue that playing GoldenEye on one screen split into 4 sections would be better than playing this. Thank God, they put the snap map feature in there. This way you can create your own DOOM levels and have others test them out.
DOOM (2016) has one of the best first person shooters out right now. It’s the Dark-souls of first-person shooters. We needed this to shake things up a bit and it did just that. The graphics, the fast paced carnage and design are top-notch. This overall is an excellent and challenging game to play. It’s just hard enough that you won’t get frustrated and throw your controller, making every conquest satisfying, justifying the literal hell that you went through to accomplish your goal.
Aside from the multi-player, everything else was great. They probably could have done without the multi-player in my opinion but in the age of Xbox Live and PlayStation network, I guess they had no choice and I can understand that but…yeah. Fuck the multi-player. Play campaign, create maps with friends, make it to hell and back. Pick this one up.