What I'm Playing: Doom(2016)

So, recently I played through Doom. The newer one not the original. After playing Wolfenstein: The New Order and Wolfenstein The New Colossus, I decided that I should play more of the remakes id’s big franchises and Doom was next up, especially after the announcement of Doom: Eternal at E3. I have to say, I had a lot of fun killing demons.

Story

I guess I should probably give a brief rundown of the story for anybody that doesn’t know it. However, if you haven’t played Doom, you should. The story begins with the player’s character, the Doom Slayer awaking in a base on Mars that has been invaded by demons from Hell. After recovering their suit of armor, they get recruited by Samuel Hayden, a scientist who had his mind implanted in a robot body to extend his life, to work and deactivate the hell portal and keep them from taking over the planet.

Even when not killing demons the Doom Slayer is still smashing stuff up.

There isn’t a lot too much to Doom’s story in terms of large developments and twists and turns but that’s exactly what it needed. The story is minimal and makes sure to stay out of the way of the epic demon slaying. This game had one of the fastest beginning sequences I’ve seen introducing me to the world and getting a gun into my hand. The game even sets the tone on how much story is going to derail your gameplay at the beginning when the Doom Slayer avoids a phone call from robot scientist Samuel Hayden trying to provide exposition on what’s happening. After the intro, I think the game only took control from me in a couple of scenes.

However, even though the story does not take over the game and interrupt the demon slaying, there is a well fleshed out world that can be viewed through all the encyclopedia entries describing characters, locations and enemies. There are interesting tidbits about the locations and the enemy demons that offer details about the base before the demons invaded and how some of the demons came to be through the experiments. I really enjoyed learning more about each of the many enemy demons and how some of them came to be through the hubris of the scientists in their attempts to create an army they could control.

Gameplay

The gameplay is the big component that truly makes Doom feel special. Instead of focusing on slower progress taking shots and enemies from cover, Doom makes the player confront enemies up close and constantly stay in motion. Enemies only drop health when killed and they drop even more health if they are taken down in a Glory Kill. Glory Kills are physical takedown animations that work well to make the player feel more engaged as awesome badass demon killers.

Had to jump through some hoops to take this pic since the Playstation won't screenshot while an animation is playing.

The weapons as well help to made me feel more powerful as a demon slayer. Almost all of them are fun to use except for maybe the pistol and each of them has weapon modifications that can be upgraded. The modifications have special ways that the gun can operate such as homing rockets for the rocket launcher or tactical scope for the assault rifle. The BFG is amazing and the chainsaw is a fun way of being able to recover a ton of ammo while sawing a giant demon in half. Though I did find myself leaning towards using the combat shotgun a lot. It had a tri-shot modification that was very satisfying for killing demons quickly.

Level Design

The levels all were well laid out. I was never confused on where I should be going. There is a lot of smart use of green to always indicate where to go next and the fact that id was able to carry their design rules across both the base and Hell is awesome. The combat areas were also well designed. I never felt like I was boxed in with the demons and I always had someplace to go if I started to get overwhelmed. There was smart use of verticality to give even more space to maneuver.

Audio

The sound work on all the guns and the demons are all great. The music is great in most places in the game that goes great with demon slaying. There was only one point where the music annoyed me in Hell with a screechy section of an otherwise great song that sounded like it was on repeat waiting for a cue that I wasn’t triggering.

Closing

Epic demon slaying is a lot of fun, (go figure) and Doom nails the feeling. It’s worth checking out, especially since it’s possible to get it for only $20 and Doom Eternal looks like it’s going to be even cooler. I don’t have a rating system nailed down yet and I don’t want to just resort to stars, so I’ll settle for now with saying that it’s a lot of fun and it’s completely worth playing.