My YouTube feed is filled with nothing but overwhelmingly positive reviews. All I did was watch the trailer a while back, then a review with gameplay from some influencer that got early access.
I’m a huge doom fan dork, since the 90s. I’m old. But the trailer and gameplay had me thinking… meh.
I’ll wait for a sale. But I’m curious if anyone else feels the same. Anyone normal play it? Specifically fans of 2016. Are these influencers getting paid to hype the game?
Anyone normal who bought day one, tell me I’m wrong and the hype is warranted. Just curious.
I feel the same. The atmosphere is decidedly less doom-like in my view and I’m a little skeptical of these new gameplay mechanics. Riding flying dragons? I’m also not a fan of the way Marty Stratton handled the situation with Mick Gordon, which has damped my goodwill for the studio. I bought Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal on launch. I will not buy this game until it is bargain bin prices.
Are you kidding? This has been a growing issue since the 00s. Even back when Total Biscuit was still alive (rip), he was fighting it with tooth and nail. Microsoft and some other companies have AGGRESSIVELY attacked consumers and now, it’s entirely broken in almost every industry.
Finding real reviews on things is INSANELY difficult to find, not only because influencers are all heavily biased and censored or even blacklisted when they aren’t positive, but most normal people couldn’t give a decent review if they tried. Hype is everywhere, and colors everything.
TB called it years ago: the trick is to find a journalist that you know what they like, dislike, and are honest and with integrity, able to be brutal and fair, but have ethics and a strong sense of responsibility to the future of gaming. This requires a uniquely difficult and rare combination of intelligence, novel ideas, and sound judgement, along with consistency. And production, a refreshing articulation, and some brevity doesn’t hurt.
Find that source and support them, and help them grow. Get to know their tastes, and they should serve us all well.
But, until that person who can unite gamers appears again, and holds those important and knowledgeable discussions… Influencers will be just that: influencers - not journalists. And be unreliable shills.
Honestly I’ve thought about doing it more than once, but fear and risk of the wrath of sensitive gamers and corporate hr entities angry for me shitting on their games and decisions and suing me is a real thing. I could be a gaming journalist, one that gives my all and tries to serve the good of gamers and the future of society to the best of my ability. But I also seriously doubt anybody would want to listen to me.
But, until that person who can unite gamers appears again, and holds those important and knowledgeable discussions… Influencers will be just that: influencers - not journalists. And be unreliable shills.
Given past events, the more likely outcome is yet another gamergate, where actual criticism of the lack of honesty in games reporting gets drowned in a sea of misogyny, personal attacks and hate based on disinformation
2016 had the perfect balance between story and gameplay to me, in that the player character expressed flagrant disregard for any narrative elements. This was doom 1 af.
Just keep moving and turn the bad guys into chunks. Need nothing more.
I fucking hated the loop in eternal. I get that the developers wanted you to play in a specific way, they partially achieved this through arbitrary mechanics like ammo scarcity. I can appreciate that it’s a good game, but I didn’t get on with it.
The art style went full Hollywood horror, and the exposition was kinda dialed up to eleven by contrast to its direct predecessor. Very much disliked that you couldn’t crouch (definitely more of a me issue, though I think sliding is a missed opportunity in Eternal’s movement repertoire).
2016’s PvP was imperfect but still fun and much appreciated. Snapmap was super underrated and has many sick community made levels.
The later games are a phenomenal technical showcase; the absolute posterchild for the Vulkan gfx API, but it’s not very ‘doom’ in spirit to me any more
the player character expressed flagrant disregard for any narrative elements
They don’t. Doomguy does like two things in the very beginning, but it’s not like they don’t care, but rather about what Hayden has to say and his justifications for everything that has happened, that’s the part which he doesn’t want.
You meet Hayden later in his office, with a few minutes unskippable “cutscene,” but it’s not like Doomguy ignores him or jumps out of a window in the middle of it.
If you want lore, put it in the environment. Let people hunt and find it (makes it more rewarding for those people too). But the core gameplay loop of doom needs to not have hours of exposition dump. The whole point of Doom guy is literally rip and tear. Not to give a shit about why he’s ripping and tearing. He’s a Marine. Simple motivations.
The Doom Marine was originally a human from Earth who served in the Marines and was dishonorably discharged due to assaulting his commanding officer after refusing to fire upon a crowd of unarmed civilians and was later transferred to the UAC Phobos base as security. The Marine soon found himself trying to prevent the demons of Hell from invading Earth. After having fought demonic hordes through Phobos, Deimos and Hell, he returned home to find Earth now overrun by demons. Among the billions of people killed were his family, including his pet rabbit Daisy, giving him further reason to pursue hunting the demons. He continued fighting the horde on Earth, before taking the fight to Hell once more.
There isn’t a “reason” outside of pure rage that makes Doom guy. Doom guy would not give 2 fucking shits about “why”, just murder and rage.
To tie this back to another topic, Mick Gordon fucking captured it perfectly in the music. No sense for the “norms” of music. Just pure rage in music form. It’s cathartic. It was a perfect fit. And they fucked it up.
It’s so sad to see. I’ve spent way more time listening to the soundtrack than playing, I’ve listened to it working out, I’ve listened to it at work, I listen to it when commuting - his work is just amazing. All that lost because a higher-up fucked up and didn’t care enough to mend the relationship. Whilst straight up lying about the events of what really happened on reddit, of all places.
Wow man that marty guy what an extremely unprofessional dickbag. Im off to find a way to purchase something Mick has released and hopefully to leave an encouraging comment. Will report back.
Something like this does not bode well for bethesdas reputation. This other company, ID software? Purchased by zenimax or whatever, are they considered contractors for bethesda? They seem to be behaving like shell companies
Id used to be like the realest of the real hardcore pc gaming companies. It’s where John carmack claims his fame and id made doom and quake in the 90s, and where half life got its engine from and why games like counter strike and valorant exist, and why insane movement games like Titanfall exist.
I’m not talking about who they are now, mostly because I don’t really know, but, historically, they have a FUCK TON of positive karma built up, but since the 2000s, have generally been an engine studio, with their games all generally being tech demos for said engine, id-tech.
Fun fact: “id” (pronounced like the last part of “kid”) is a psychology term, referring to one of three parts of your psyche (the other two are ego and super-ego) that wants to gorge, fuck, steal, and eat, right now. Which is, I suspect, why they make games that are pretty violent, and satisfying to that part of our minds, generally… Probably.
Holy shit that was a ride to read. Thank you for posting this. I remember the post from Marty shitting on Mick but had no idea he had responded nor the depth of fuckery that occured. It’s a damn shame Mick was treat that way
Honestly, Gordon has a huuuge fan following now, and it’s sad to see how he was VERY close to like gaben levels of influence, and one shitty suit threw that all away. Gordon is still awesome, but Doom and him were a match made in heaven that’s sad to see go away. I’d venture to argue that everything that made the doom reboot special was from him: the sound design, the music, the vibe. Most people do not appreciate audio in the way I do, but almost everybody hears it and experiences it, even if they don’t consciously know. Meaning, everybody knew it was special, but most people don’t realize the depths of which it is the audio doing it. We were all robbed the day this all went down with Mick Gordon, and I will never forgive Bethesda for it, and until they fix it, will never, ever spend a cent or say a good thing about them. It is that big of a deal. Doom and Bethesda are dead to me. My condolences to the other talent that work there.
I’m currently playing the game, got like a handful of levels left. It’s a good game, but with the way the Doom games have evolved and changed over the time, I don’t think you can really say “if you like that Doom, you’ll like this Doom.”
I definitely enjoy the gameplay of Eternal more, but Dark Ages is really good.
The feel of running around is great. You sound massive, your jumps create shockwaves and kill enemies. If you’ve played Boltgun, it’s like that.
The shield is feels great. The charge is awesome, just like the Meathook was in Eternal to get right next to your enemy, and fodder demons just explode on impact.
Parries feel good, but are extremely easy. The timing is super forgiving and the range is massive.
I think a big thing, that not many people are talking about, are the difficulty sliders. You can change so many things, but ID just ignores 90% of them with their presets. You can change so much stuff, and make it feel like a completely different game. Crank up the game speed and just zoom around. Increase your and the enemies damage, so it’s all about dodging, or you get one-shot. Make the projectiles slow, but a lot more deadly.
There’s still some ammo management, but it’s not like Eternal, not even like 2016. Your melee attack, that you can use for the execute drops ammo, just like the Chainsaw, but you’re using it regularly anyway. Some guns also have upgrades that shooting demons with it also drops ammo for the weapon.
The game is a lot more story heavy, but just like in Eternal you can just skip it and not read the Codex entries.
The mech stuff is alright, but pretty basic, but also really short segments. The dragon is cool in theory, but I really hate these parts, and they just drag on for far too long. Flying around just isn’t fun.
Weapons are pretty good, and I have some favorites. The normal Combat Shotgun with upgrades is great this time and not just outshined by the Super Shotgun immediately. That Ball-on-a-Chain gun is also really nice, with some cool upgrades. Because you don’t really have any ammo issues if you use the melee regularly, I’ve just used one gun for long stretches of time, because there’s just no reason real reason to switch, and you can just use what you want.
The devs always said in Dark Ages you’re like a tank, but with default settings on Nightmare difficulty, you’re made out of paper. Projectiles are extremely dangerous, and enemies like to spawn behind you and shoot you in the back. The game is actually not great on telling you where you’re getting attacked from, and there’s just always tons of enemies around and some deaths can be kinda frustrating.
Then there are also some minor UI/UX issues. You get small icons in the middle for your melee charges, but they don’t show the progress like in Eternal with the Blood Punch. There’s no dedicated Map button, just open your Dossier, which remembers your last screen, which is annoying, because you want that map 99% of the time. Sprinting has this terrible vignette effect around your screen, and you want to sprint all the time, but you can only disable all screen effects, which includes some stuff I’d like to see.
For some dumb reason, the Fast Travel option, at the end of a level has been removed, so if you miss a secret, you’ll have to play the level again. There’s also tons of points-of-no-return, so you’ll have to stare at the map constantly, to make sure you haven’t missed anything, which makes the lack of a map button so terrible.
After I’m done with my Nightmare run, I want to do another one, where I play around with the sliders a bit. I want to turn up the game speed, but will probably lower the damage and projectile speed to compensate.
Yes, but it would still be nice to have in the middle.
I went back to check in Eternal, and I was wrong about that game showing the progress on the icons in the middle of the screen. Just like Dark Ages it just shows charges that are ready to use, and the progress in the full HUD on the edges of the screen. Seems like I just need to get good and look at the full HUD, like I did in Eternal.
Yes, it’s very fun. I’m not sure why you’re so pessimistic on it, it’s another good DOOM game and vast majority of reviewers never get paid to hype something up. I’m not too far in it yet but first impressions is that it’s closer to Doom 2016 than Eternal, there isn’t much platforming or acrobatics.
The only thing I’m not sold on is the story. They added a lot of story and cutscenes. I have no idea what’s going on honestly. Feels a lot like they added too much Warhammer 40k to the Doom franchise.
Thanks. Glad to hear this. I’ll definitely be buying it, just depends how long I can wait.
not sold on is the story
This was how I felt about eternal. The lore was overdone, didn’t have the doom “feel”. 2016 had simpler lore, very well done, that kept with what I felt the doom theme feels like.
That being said if the gameplay is fun, that’s what’s important.
Not talking about any reviewer in particular, but in general, even if they don’t get payed, they get the game for free and usually have affiliate links to buy the game, so there’s at least a couple of incentives to do a better review.
Again, not accusing anyone, but the potential for bias/conflict of interest is something to keep in mind when watching those types of reviews.
Edit used disclaimer incorrectly, should have said something like:
Noteworthy point: I’ve beaten every modern doom on nightmare.
This doom game is such a departure from the doom series that it is just a bad game.
The game can be beaten with a single gun and parry. Every single time I ‘struggled’ it was because I was playing the game to have fun (silly me) and wasn’t spamming shield. Every single encounter ended almost immediately once parry spam was activated.
The final boss literally did not touch me. This game was a really really bad joke.
Edit: I am genuinely convinced there is a fleet of shills portraying this game as good and a lot of old people influencing it. Like, they downgraded the game to a fucking boomer shooter. This game gave me destiny vibes, in that it was a very pretty cake only to find that it was filled with shit.
Edit 2: I forgot the most important part; there isn’t a single difficulty related achievement. I know, because I beat the game on nightmare.
Your opinion is going to depend on what you’re looking for in a doom game. It isn’t quite like DOOM 2016. It’s less like DOOM eternal. No dashes, less aerial combat, and less of the rock paper scissors gameplay.
It’s geared more towards “stand and fight” gameplay. It’s still run and gun, but more about parrying and staying in the enemy’s face. The shield has interesting play associated with that.
If the atmosphere is what you’re looking for, it actually is closer to Eternal. You’re present for the fall of a planet, so the atmosphere is functionally the same.
If you are for the lore, it is lore rich and rather engaging.
All that said, if you can wait for a sale, go for it. It feels like a DOOM game, but it’s not what everybody expects in a DOOM game.
It feels like a DOOM movie. I was genuinely excited for the cutscenes because I thought something actually cool would happen, only to get sucked into to yet another railroad dragon section, even worse railroad mech section, or mission filled with ‘kill enemies to break shields’.
Idk, the ‘stand and fight’ gameplay stopped being fun when I realized that 80% of the guns were just functionally worthless and parry spam + impaler would solve all, not some, all of my problems. For 20 hours. Of basically the same mission objectives over and over and over.
I’m just gonna go back to playing Eternal if I want DOOM. ID fucked up DOOM 3, again (IMO).
Edit: I’ve beaten every DOOM on nightmare. If Eternal had ammo economy issues (which is a hill I will die on, even the newbies I got into Eternal didn’t struggle with ammo) then Dark Ages has an overabundance problem. Why would I ever switch weapons when I have the ammo economy of Eternal on crack and switching weapons puts my shield down? Why play a DOOM game if not for all the different weapons to kill demons with?
80% of the guns were just functionally worthless and parry spam + impaler would solve all, not some, all of my problems
That’s kinda all guns. Seems like ID wanted to please all those people who said they hate the “forced” weapon switching in Eternal and just made everything strong against anything.
This is my biggest complaint now that I’m farther along. There genuinely isn’t much reason to switch weapons, especially with ammo so easy to get just by spamming melee. Since you can just stand in front of everybody and parry, range doesn’t matter at all.
I’m having a blast with it. It’s a break from the design ethos that was Doom Eternal. So if you’re looking for more Eternal you’ll be disappointed. This one wants you to play significantly more aggressively.
Looks like complete ass, deflect the green is the stupidest idea in gaming in a long time and those dragon segments are just an insult. Also, I’m happy Bethesda saved time and CPU cycles not baking lighting, but it got offloaded to gamers’ computers for dubious benefit. I have eyes, I see how 2016 and Eternal look, please tell me how much of a graphic improvement the endless glitching fields of darkness are. I wouldn’t buy a game for more than 15€ if it’s top notch (patient gamer here), but I don’t see myself playing this ever, it just evokes a sadness. The story of Eternal (the only game of the recent trilogy I actually liked) was a huge Marvel-caliber turd and I skipped every cutscene, so I’m not expecting anything in that department.
I’m a huge fan of Doom Eternal. It really proved what movement shooters are capable of.
Haven’t played Dark Ages yet, and I’m not super eager to play it.
I expected Dark Ages to be a middle ground of 2016 and Eternal, but it seems like they’re straying away from movement shooters with the ”stand and fight” tagline. That’s disappointing, because I feel like there’s so much more to explore with movement shooters. Just look at Ultrakill for example.
I will wait it out a bit. It still seems like a fun game. Next on my play list is Expedition 33.
Idk about that, I heard a fair number of folks who were less enthused with Eternal vs 2016. The general sentiment among those folks was that Eternal skewed too far into “combat puzzle” territory, where encounters felt like they had prescribed “solutions” that you needed to perform to succeed reliably. This iteration being less about resource management and high speed encounter flow seems to be a reaction to those critiques.
Doom 2016 wasn’t exactly generous with ammo limits in the early game, but Eternal was a chore. Here’s 20 enemies, 6 of them are cacodemons that will only die if you lob a shotgun grenade at their mouth. You have 12 shotgun and 50 plasma bullets, the latter enough to kill 1 caco.
The general sentiment among those folks was that Eternal skewed too far into “combat puzzle” territory, where encounters felt like they had prescribed “solutions” that you needed to perform to succeed reliably.
Nailed it, that was exactly my problem with Eternal.
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I feel the same. The atmosphere is decidedly less doom-like in my view and I’m a little skeptical of these new gameplay mechanics. Riding flying dragons? I’m also not a fan of the way Marty Stratton handled the situation with Mick Gordon, which has damped my goodwill for the studio. I bought Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal on launch. I will not buy this game until it is bargain bin prices.
If anything has Denuvo, I’ll skip it
Are you kidding? This has been a growing issue since the 00s. Even back when Total Biscuit was still alive (rip), he was fighting it with tooth and nail. Microsoft and some other companies have AGGRESSIVELY attacked consumers and now, it’s entirely broken in almost every industry.
Finding real reviews on things is INSANELY difficult to find, not only because influencers are all heavily biased and censored or even blacklisted when they aren’t positive, but most normal people couldn’t give a decent review if they tried. Hype is everywhere, and colors everything.
TB called it years ago: the trick is to find a journalist that you know what they like, dislike, and are honest and with integrity, able to be brutal and fair, but have ethics and a strong sense of responsibility to the future of gaming. This requires a uniquely difficult and rare combination of intelligence, novel ideas, and sound judgement, along with consistency. And production, a refreshing articulation, and some brevity doesn’t hurt.
Find that source and support them, and help them grow. Get to know their tastes, and they should serve us all well.
But, until that person who can unite gamers appears again, and holds those important and knowledgeable discussions… Influencers will be just that: influencers - not journalists. And be unreliable shills.
Honestly I’ve thought about doing it more than once, but fear and risk of the wrath of sensitive gamers and corporate hr entities angry for me shitting on their games and decisions and suing me is a real thing. I could be a gaming journalist, one that gives my all and tries to serve the good of gamers and the future of society to the best of my ability. But I also seriously doubt anybody would want to listen to me.
Given past events, the more likely outcome is yet another gamergate, where actual criticism of the lack of honesty in games reporting gets drowned in a sea of misogyny, personal attacks and hate based on disinformation
2016 had the perfect balance between story and gameplay to me, in that the player character expressed flagrant disregard for any narrative elements. This was doom 1 af.
Just keep moving and turn the bad guys into chunks. Need nothing more.
I fucking hated the loop in eternal. I get that the developers wanted you to play in a specific way, they partially achieved this through arbitrary mechanics like ammo scarcity. I can appreciate that it’s a good game, but I didn’t get on with it.
The art style went full Hollywood horror, and the exposition was kinda dialed up to eleven by contrast to its direct predecessor. Very much disliked that you couldn’t crouch (definitely more of a me issue, though I think sliding is a missed opportunity in Eternal’s movement repertoire).
2016’s PvP was imperfect but still fun and much appreciated. Snapmap was super underrated and has many sick community made levels.
The later games are a phenomenal technical showcase; the absolute posterchild for the Vulkan gfx API, but it’s not very ‘doom’ in spirit to me any more
They don’t. Doomguy does like two things in the very beginning, but it’s not like they don’t care, but rather about what Hayden has to say and his justifications for everything that has happened, that’s the part which he doesn’t want.
You meet Hayden later in his office, with a few minutes unskippable “cutscene,” but it’s not like Doomguy ignores him or jumps out of a window in the middle of it.
fair enough, it’s still in stark contrast to all of eternal’s exposition, which was pretty hard to watch (the Colosseum scenes especially).
That’s not to say the story isn’t good or interesting,
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This is exactly how I view Doom as well.
If you want lore, put it in the environment. Let people hunt and find it (makes it more rewarding for those people too). But the core gameplay loop of doom needs to not have hours of exposition dump. The whole point of Doom guy is literally rip and tear. Not to give a shit about why he’s ripping and tearing. He’s a Marine. Simple motivations.
Source:https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/Doom_Slayer
There isn’t a “reason” outside of pure rage that makes Doom guy. Doom guy would not give 2 fucking shits about “why”, just murder and rage.
To tie this back to another topic, Mick Gordon fucking captured it perfectly in the music. No sense for the “norms” of music. Just pure rage in music form. It’s cathartic. It was a perfect fit. And they fucked it up.
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It’s so sad to see. I’ve spent way more time listening to the soundtrack than playing, I’ve listened to it working out, I’ve listened to it at work, I listen to it when commuting - his work is just amazing. All that lost because a higher-up fucked up and didn’t care enough to mend the relationship. Whilst straight up lying about the events of what really happened on reddit, of all places.
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I almost feel like deeming Hulshult a scab/fink for doing the DLC soundtrack.
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His GDC presentation on how his work happened is an excellent watch
Doom: Behind the Music, GDC 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4FNBMZsqrY
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Can you elaborate? I wasn’t aware of this.
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Wow man that marty guy what an extremely unprofessional dickbag. Im off to find a way to purchase something Mick has released and hopefully to leave an encouraging comment. Will report back.
Something like this does not bode well for bethesdas reputation. This other company, ID software? Purchased by zenimax or whatever, are they considered contractors for bethesda? They seem to be behaving like shell companies
Id used to be like the realest of the real hardcore pc gaming companies. It’s where John carmack claims his fame and id made doom and quake in the 90s, and where half life got its engine from and why games like counter strike and valorant exist, and why insane movement games like Titanfall exist.
I’m not talking about who they are now, mostly because I don’t really know, but, historically, they have a FUCK TON of positive karma built up, but since the 2000s, have generally been an engine studio, with their games all generally being tech demos for said engine, id-tech.
Fun fact: “id” (pronounced like the last part of “kid”) is a psychology term, referring to one of three parts of your psyche (the other two are ego and super-ego) that wants to gorge, fuck, steal, and eat, right now. Which is, I suspect, why they make games that are pretty violent, and satisfying to that part of our minds, generally… Probably.
Ha okay the name almost seemed like a random ai generated name or something im not up on my doom lore apparently
Holy shit that was a ride to read. Thank you for posting this. I remember the post from Marty shitting on Mick but had no idea he had responded nor the depth of fuckery that occured. It’s a damn shame Mick was treat that way
Honestly, Gordon has a huuuge fan following now, and it’s sad to see how he was VERY close to like gaben levels of influence, and one shitty suit threw that all away. Gordon is still awesome, but Doom and him were a match made in heaven that’s sad to see go away. I’d venture to argue that everything that made the doom reboot special was from him: the sound design, the music, the vibe. Most people do not appreciate audio in the way I do, but almost everybody hears it and experiences it, even if they don’t consciously know. Meaning, everybody knew it was special, but most people don’t realize the depths of which it is the audio doing it. We were all robbed the day this all went down with Mick Gordon, and I will never forgive Bethesda for it, and until they fix it, will never, ever spend a cent or say a good thing about them. It is that big of a deal. Doom and Bethesda are dead to me. My condolences to the other talent that work there.
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conpletely agree. That’s a hell of a lengthy post with facts and proof to back it up
Wow, holy shit. Fuuuuck Marty Stratton. Straight up childish and vindictive behavior.
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I’m currently playing the game, got like a handful of levels left. It’s a good game, but with the way the Doom games have evolved and changed over the time, I don’t think you can really say “if you like that Doom, you’ll like this Doom.”
I definitely enjoy the gameplay of Eternal more, but Dark Ages is really good.
The feel of running around is great. You sound massive, your jumps create shockwaves and kill enemies. If you’ve played Boltgun, it’s like that.
The shield is feels great. The charge is awesome, just like the Meathook was in Eternal to get right next to your enemy, and fodder demons just explode on impact.
Parries feel good, but are extremely easy. The timing is super forgiving and the range is massive.
I think a big thing, that not many people are talking about, are the difficulty sliders. You can change so many things, but ID just ignores 90% of them with their presets. You can change so much stuff, and make it feel like a completely different game. Crank up the game speed and just zoom around. Increase your and the enemies damage, so it’s all about dodging, or you get one-shot. Make the projectiles slow, but a lot more deadly.
There’s still some ammo management, but it’s not like Eternal, not even like 2016. Your melee attack, that you can use for the execute drops ammo, just like the Chainsaw, but you’re using it regularly anyway. Some guns also have upgrades that shooting demons with it also drops ammo for the weapon.
The game is a lot more story heavy, but just like in Eternal you can just skip it and not read the Codex entries.
The mech stuff is alright, but pretty basic, but also really short segments. The dragon is cool in theory, but I really hate these parts, and they just drag on for far too long. Flying around just isn’t fun.
Weapons are pretty good, and I have some favorites. The normal Combat Shotgun with upgrades is great this time and not just outshined by the Super Shotgun immediately. That Ball-on-a-Chain gun is also really nice, with some cool upgrades. Because you don’t really have any ammo issues if you use the melee regularly, I’ve just used one gun for long stretches of time, because there’s just no reason real reason to switch, and you can just use what you want.
The devs always said in Dark Ages you’re like a tank, but with default settings on Nightmare difficulty, you’re made out of paper. Projectiles are extremely dangerous, and enemies like to spawn behind you and shoot you in the back. The game is actually not great on telling you where you’re getting attacked from, and there’s just always tons of enemies around and some deaths can be kinda frustrating.
Then there are also some minor UI/UX issues. You get small icons in the middle for your melee charges, but they don’t show the progress like in Eternal with the Blood Punch. There’s no dedicated Map button, just open your Dossier, which remembers your last screen, which is annoying, because you want that map 99% of the time. Sprinting has this terrible vignette effect around your screen, and you want to sprint all the time, but you can only disable all screen effects, which includes some stuff I’d like to see.
For some dumb reason, the Fast Travel option, at the end of a level has been removed, so if you miss a secret, you’ll have to play the level again. There’s also tons of points-of-no-return, so you’ll have to stare at the map constantly, to make sure you haven’t missed anything, which makes the lack of a map button so terrible.
After I’m done with my Nightmare run, I want to do another one, where I play around with the sliders a bit. I want to turn up the game speed, but will probably lower the damage and projectile speed to compensate.
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Fwiw it shows the charge % to the next pip down next to the ammo counter
Yes, but it would still be nice to have in the middle.
I went back to check in Eternal, and I was wrong about that game showing the progress on the icons in the middle of the screen. Just like Dark Ages it just shows charges that are ready to use, and the progress in the full HUD on the edges of the screen. Seems like I just need to get good and look at the full HUD, like I did in Eternal.
I honestly think its really damn good. I love using the shield. It just feels amazing.
Yes, it’s very fun. I’m not sure why you’re so pessimistic on it, it’s another good DOOM game and vast majority of reviewers never get paid to hype something up. I’m not too far in it yet but first impressions is that it’s closer to Doom 2016 than Eternal, there isn’t much platforming or acrobatics.
The only thing I’m not sold on is the story. They added a lot of story and cutscenes. I have no idea what’s going on honestly. Feels a lot like they added too much Warhammer 40k to the Doom franchise.
Thanks. Glad to hear this. I’ll definitely be buying it, just depends how long I can wait.
This was how I felt about eternal. The lore was overdone, didn’t have the doom “feel”. 2016 had simpler lore, very well done, that kept with what I felt the doom theme feels like.
That being said if the gameplay is fun, that’s what’s important.
Not talking about any reviewer in particular, but in general, even if they don’t get payed, they get the game for free and usually have affiliate links to buy the game, so there’s at least a couple of incentives to do a better review.
Again, not accusing anyone, but the potential for bias/conflict of interest is something to keep in mind when watching those types of reviews.
Edit used disclaimer incorrectly, should have said something like:
Noteworthy point: I’ve beaten every modern doom on nightmare.
This doom game is such a departure from the doom series that it is just a bad game.
The game can be beaten with a single gun and parry. Every single time I ‘struggled’ it was because I was playing the game to have fun (silly me) and wasn’t spamming shield. Every single encounter ended almost immediately once parry spam was activated.
The final boss literally did not touch me. This game was a really really bad joke.
Edit: I am genuinely convinced there is a fleet of shills portraying this game as good and a lot of old people influencing it. Like, they downgraded the game to a fucking boomer shooter. This game gave me destiny vibes, in that it was a very pretty cake only to find that it was filled with shit.
Edit 2: I forgot the most important part; there isn’t a single difficulty related achievement. I know, because I beat the game on nightmare.
The gameplay looks fine. It looks like a Doom game. But I won’t buy a game with DRM, so I won’t be buying it until that gets removed (at earliest).
Yeah I would have bought it at launch if it weren’t bundled with denuovo, which is now locking out users on linux
Your opinion is going to depend on what you’re looking for in a doom game. It isn’t quite like DOOM 2016. It’s less like DOOM eternal. No dashes, less aerial combat, and less of the rock paper scissors gameplay.
It’s geared more towards “stand and fight” gameplay. It’s still run and gun, but more about parrying and staying in the enemy’s face. The shield has interesting play associated with that.
If the atmosphere is what you’re looking for, it actually is closer to Eternal. You’re present for the fall of a planet, so the atmosphere is functionally the same.
If you are for the lore, it is lore rich and rather engaging.
All that said, if you can wait for a sale, go for it. It feels like a DOOM game, but it’s not what everybody expects in a DOOM game.
It feels like a DOOM movie. I was genuinely excited for the cutscenes because I thought something actually cool would happen, only to get sucked into to yet another railroad dragon section, even worse railroad mech section, or mission filled with ‘kill enemies to break shields’.
Idk, the ‘stand and fight’ gameplay stopped being fun when I realized that 80% of the guns were just functionally worthless and parry spam + impaler would solve all, not some, all of my problems. For 20 hours. Of basically the same mission objectives over and over and over.
I’m just gonna go back to playing Eternal if I want DOOM. ID fucked up DOOM 3, again (IMO).
Edit: I’ve beaten every DOOM on nightmare. If Eternal had ammo economy issues (which is a hill I will die on, even the newbies I got into Eternal didn’t struggle with ammo) then Dark Ages has an overabundance problem. Why would I ever switch weapons when I have the ammo economy of Eternal on crack and switching weapons puts my shield down? Why play a DOOM game if not for all the different weapons to kill demons with?
That’s kinda all guns. Seems like ID wanted to please all those people who said they hate the “forced” weapon switching in Eternal and just made everything strong against anything.
The only reason I say 80% is because you can still have fun using the super shotgun to kasplode demons even if it is the most pathetic super shotgun.
This is my biggest complaint now that I’m farther along. There genuinely isn’t much reason to switch weapons, especially with ammo so easy to get just by spamming melee. Since you can just stand in front of everybody and parry, range doesn’t matter at all.
I’m having a blast with it. It’s a break from the design ethos that was Doom Eternal. So if you’re looking for more Eternal you’ll be disappointed. This one wants you to play significantly more aggressively.
Looks like complete ass, deflect the green is the stupidest idea in gaming in a long time and those dragon segments are just an insult. Also, I’m happy Bethesda saved time and CPU cycles not baking lighting, but it got offloaded to gamers’ computers for dubious benefit. I have eyes, I see how 2016 and Eternal look, please tell me how much of a graphic improvement the endless glitching fields of darkness are. I wouldn’t buy a game for more than 15€ if it’s top notch (patient gamer here), but I don’t see myself playing this ever, it just evokes a sadness. The story of Eternal (the only game of the recent trilogy I actually liked) was a huge Marvel-caliber turd and I skipped every cutscene, so I’m not expecting anything in that department.
I’m a huge fan of Doom Eternal. It really proved what movement shooters are capable of.
Haven’t played Dark Ages yet, and I’m not super eager to play it.
I expected Dark Ages to be a middle ground of 2016 and Eternal, but it seems like they’re straying away from movement shooters with the ”stand and fight” tagline. That’s disappointing, because I feel like there’s so much more to explore with movement shooters. Just look at Ultrakill for example.
I will wait it out a bit. It still seems like a fun game. Next on my play list is Expedition 33.
Tbh it’s more like quake 1 than Doom
Which isn’t a bad thing, but I think everyone would have been perfectly happy with just Doom: Eternal 2
Idk about that, I heard a fair number of folks who were less enthused with Eternal vs 2016. The general sentiment among those folks was that Eternal skewed too far into “combat puzzle” territory, where encounters felt like they had prescribed “solutions” that you needed to perform to succeed reliably. This iteration being less about resource management and high speed encounter flow seems to be a reaction to those critiques.
Doom 2016 wasn’t exactly generous with ammo limits in the early game, but Eternal was a chore. Here’s 20 enemies, 6 of them are cacodemons that will only die if you lob a shotgun grenade at their mouth. You have 12 shotgun and 50 plasma bullets, the latter enough to kill 1 caco.
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Nailed it, that was exactly my problem with Eternal.