Who'd have thought that in 2016 you could play a first person shooter with no cover system, no looking down sights, no reloading, wave spawning enemies, and a silent protagonist, and still have a game that's quarks and dated features are what makes it so much fun. Doom is more proof that you don't need to be bound by current trends and standards in order to make a fun and exhilarating experience, and it actually does this by taking a step back and building off of
Doom '93's core mechanics. The nimble speed, the elegant movement patterns, the up close and personal combat and the cluttered chaos that are the waves of demons that fill each room eager for you to paint it with their blood! Doom 2016 focuses on killing, and killing is what Doom does best.... And perhaps it's one of the few things it does best....
The single-player mode is the main selling point here I'll just say it. At 13 missions long it'll prolly take you about 13 hours to plough through on standard difficult and honestly; that's more than you could ask of most shooters these days. The story takes a backseat for the most part, The game starts with you being resurrected by some robotic AI because a crazy lady went and opened up the portal to hell again and you have to stop it! How you ask? BY KILLING S***!!! The plot here is about as deep as that of a porno, it just hangs around long enough to give you any reason what so ever to move from room to room killing everything in sight. It's almost funny, because the game celebrates Doom guy's detachment from the plot by making him comically defiant and restless during cut scenes. It was actually a charming way to paint over an admittingly absent sense of narrative.
80% percent of the time in the single-player is devoted to you moving from room to room clearing out waves of enemies, throughout the course of the campaign's first half the game introduces new weapons and enemies at a nice pace and allows you to customise your weapons with hidden upgrades to keep combat feeling fresh and engaging. In the second half however, the game sort of runs out of new ideas and instead focuses on making waves more brisk and challenging. If it wasn't for the thrilling boss fights I'd say that the second half is fairly weak since you're just doing the same things over and over and it begins to feel a tad redundant. But rarely am I just flat out not having fun since the constant gauntlet of speed and action keeps your mind focused on what's happening most of the time. One more thing to note here are the glory kills! When you weaken an enemy to a certain extent you get to initiate a "glory kill" where you finish your enemy off with a gruesome melee attack. These glory kills feel awesome to perform (and are kinda essential for picking up health and ammo). However I should say that the animation for these kills has gotten me stuck in walls unable to move, and has accidentally hurled me off of ledges on RARE occasions.
When you're not defeating waves of enemies in rooms you'll either be platforming, or searching every corner of every room for hidden secrets. The platforming is a bit of a drag in this game especially since Doom guy's controls are so spastic (mission 5 suuuuucked!), it's certainly no
Titanfall 2 with it's wall running and grappling ropes but the introduction of enemies during these platfroming sections can make it a solid challenge (a really frustrating one at that). The way Doom hides it's secrets within the environment gives it a distinctive
Metroid Prime feel and hearkens back to the original Doom which had it's fair share of hidden paths. You'll see undiscovered areas on your map and wonder: "how the actual f*** do I get there???". And the manner of these secrets being neat rune challenges or actually unlocking old school - fully playable - maps from Doom '93 is just fan service at it's prettiest!
When it comes to presentation the one thing you gotta mention is the game's brilliantly composed industrial metal soundtrack which enhances the game's sense of adrenaline, and the cries and shrieks emanating from hell's possessed demons are also particularly impressive. Visually there's not much to report here, just a lot of generic "hell" and "space station" environments... And lots and lots of orange.... However I will give a shout out to all of the satanic occult imagery and pentagrams smeared all over the floors in blood in certain locations. And there's something really funny about walking into one of the secret classic map rooms taken from the original Doom.
There's two other significant modes in this game being multiplayer and Snapmap. I feel like I'm obligated to talk about the multiplayer but I don't really want to... It's noticeably slower than the main game, and the game-play feels like more of a Call of Duty game with a Doom skin over it. It's a fully customisable mode and it has this demonic possession system that let's you kill other players as a demon for a short period of time. Which sounds interesting... But it's unbalanced, as the demons are OP as heck and the runes that give you this ability spawn a little too frequently. Also have fun finding players in any modes other than team death match lol! Last but not least is the game's Snapmap mode which let's you create and share your own Doom levels. Now I was actually surprised at how deep this mode really is! You have a wealth of rooms, enemies, items to choose from. You can link certain events to trigger under specific circumstances, and you can even manufacture your own wave events. Seriously I'm surprised that more people aren't talking about this mode since it's basically the
Super Mario Maker equivalent for Doom haha!
Wow, there was a lot to cover in this review because this is a very beefy game. A 13 hour single-player mode, a selection of classic Doom 93' maps, a sloppy but mildly fun multi-player mode, and a stage creator that allows you to pretty much create your own Doom game. This is a value pack baby! And the game's slick, vicious and in your face gameplay will keep you coming back for a long time, if not for all of the secrets masterfully hidden within each mission. I did find the game's wave based formula got tiresome and repetitive throughout the second half of the campaign, and the game's fustrating platforming sections and disappointing multiplayer also factors in here, but I'd just be goofing if I said that Doom 2016 is anything but a good game. This one's for you first person shooter fans out there! ;D
i still prefer Eternal tho
In reality both are amazing games and I can see literally any pov for preferring one to the other. Unless it's just complaining about issues that can be debunked easily in Eternal's case, which come up a lot.