DOOM Review

Doom is a superb reboot of a series after more than a decade away. The multiplayer isn’t fantastic, but the amazing campaign and interesting diversion SnapMap make Doom more than worth the price of admission.

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Doomed to fail?

Doom is obviously a classic. But with many of the original team having moved on, the entire game started again from scratch, and the whole shooter genre seemingly having moved on, does a new version actually have any chance of success?

Story:

Whatever else, whoever wrote the new Doom is a genius. And brave, to boot. Not only does the game immediately set itself up as a direct sequel to Doom 2, but it elevates the generic, nameless marine into a figure of worship on Mars. It also goes in some brilliantly dumb ways, having no fear to have tongue firmly pressed to cheek for most of the game.

Within seconds of taking control, you’ll see a screen that says ‘Demonic Invasion In Progress’, whilst speakers blare out that the ‘demonic invasion is at unsafe levels’, which means there must surely be safe levels of demonic invasion?! It gets better when you find out that this all happened when a big corporation decided there was money to be made by effectively drilling into hell and extracting energy from it.

That’s right, this is basically a game about fracking. But dumb plot aside, the writers make Doom feel fresh and interesting all over again. I was always genuinely excited to reach a quiet spot where there was more narrative overlaid, just to find out what stupid idea what being explored next. It feels like the perfect way to start rebooting the franchise without any of the military moribund overtones of other shooters.

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Gameplay:

Doom also throws out the book when it comes to gameplay too, and that’s no bad thing. You’ll notice immediately that you move at a classic Doom speed (there’s no need for a sprint!), and you can carry as many weapons as you can. You need to pick up keys, and you can backtrack around the maps. There’s no reloading, no AI to shepherd along or follow. You have a finite amount of health and armour that needs to be replenished when you get hit. There’s power-ups, secrets and all kinds of other little elements that have been slowly removed from shooters over the years since Doom originally came out. But despite the return of all these elements, Id manage to make Doom still feel relevant to 2016.

The shooting is fast and tactical; ammunition is scarce, and you need to balance the way you play. There’s almost a rock, paper, scissors approach. Ammo is scarce, but if you use the chainsaw, pickups fly out of corpses, but fuel for it is very limited. Guns kill from a distance, but you may need to get in close if you do run out of ammo, and you’ll also need to get in close to perform ‘glory kills’, which pop small health pickups from enemies. It’s this risk-reward strategy that always keeps you moving, darting around the corridors and arenas, and make each fight different to the last. But best of all: it feels fresh and relevant compared to the endless shooters that make you duck, weave and cover; you feel powerful and heroic rather than a small cog in a big wheel. And that’s a good thing. Id have proven, in just one game, that you no longer have to follow the crowd.

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There’s also some new gameplay elements, like upgrading your arsenal of weapons and your Praetor Armour suit which feel like a natural evolution to this style of shooter. The maps are big, and encourage backtracking to find secrets (including some really cool sections using graphics from the original), but the pathfinding through the main missions is excellent.

Doom’s 13-level campaign is pretty meaty; whilst there are some speedrunners already completing it in about 4 hours, a first playthrough on the default ‘hurt me plenty’ difficulty will take most people around 10 hours or so, which for a modern shooter is certainly a decently generous chunk of content.

Good

  • Brilliant writing
  • Excellent maps
  • Looks superb

Bad

  • No straight deathmatch
9

Amazing

Story - 9
Graphics - 9.5
Sound - 9.5
Multiplayer - 7.5
Gameplay - 9.5
Value - 9
Editor - Reviewer GamerKnights

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