Game – DOOM
Release Date – May 13th
Platform – Xbox One(Review), Playstation 4, PC
Developer/Publisher –id Software/Bethesda Softworks
Price – $59.99
Originally announced as DOOM 4 in 2004 going to just DOOM in 2014 it finally arrived in everyone’s hands.
Being an icon game that helped create and popularize first person shooters, can it exceed among others shooters? We are going to find out!
DOOM was developed by ID Software and published by Bethesda Softworks. This title is not a direct sequel to DOOM 3 but rather a reboot to the franchise. Think like it’s DOOM 1 again.
STORY (Minor Spoilers)
The story you will experience is not the best we can expect, in fact it’s quite generic serving the purpose to link the various areas of the map to the type of enemies you encounter. Our character is a nameless soldier (Doomguy) who wakes up in an investigation center of UAC in Mars.
The greed of humanity trying to extract energy from the underworld made that these installations were invaded by vicious demons. No surprise here, it is up to our character to restore the balance by killing all demons you see either in Mars or Hell. The campaign lasts between 10 to 13 hours without counting the enumours secrets hidden throughout the levels.
Graphics
The graphics for a 60 FPS game is superb, with maps well structured, models and textures with a nice touch of lightning and particles effects.
Sometimes, when you arrive a new scenario in the campaign you will be amazed by its visuals! It’s also evidently the demon’s design, each one of them, has their own awesome and scary animations. The OST is essentially made by Heavy-Metal music (the good old DOOM) going back to its roots and adapt each song to the modern era.
Even if you don’t like Heavy-Metal music when you’re playing the campaign, killing horde of demons and the moment the music kicks in you will feel like a badass!
Gameplay
This is a fast game, where you barely have time to plan the next move and the only way to survive is to keep your aggressiveness to 100% when facing Demons. Spare no lives!
You will start with a simple “weak” pistol of unlimited ammo, where you will be introduced to Glory Kills – when weak they turn blueish and yellowish and then you start the Glory Kill killing the demon for good.
Glory Kills is a must mechanism (though you can totally go through campaign without ever performing them) because in the heat of the battle you can receive ammo, energy, and armor thus saving you from the inevitable death. It’s also an amazing animation and a great feeling when you Glory Kill a demon. Each demon has 4 different animations to Glory Kill, be sure to discover all of them.
The old health/armor system is back meaning your health won’t regenerate like most shooters out there, instead you have to seek throughout the map/levels energy packs to regain your full health.
Using the chainsaw on demons they will drop a lot of ammo, energy and armor packs so be sure to use this powerful weapon in your favor.
There are a lot of secrets and challenges to find out, allowing increasing our character’s chars to receive more ammo, armor and health.
The weapons you own can be upgraded using little robots hidden in the campaign allowing you to purchase a mod altering the way you use the gun.
Multiplayer and SnapMap
If you’re a Halo fan, you will love the multiplayer of DOOM! If you mainly play Battlefield and Call of Duty, you probably won’t like it since it’s a fast paced, has a lot of learning curve and your health doesn’t regenerate. There are 6 modes (Team Deathmatch, Domination, and Clan Arena) in which 3 are brand new:
- Soul Harvest – a kill-and-collect game mode similar to Kill Confirmed in Call of Duty. Players will need to collect the souls of killed enemies to earn points, while teammates collect allies’ souls to deny enemies from gaining points.
- Freeze Tag – Instead of dying, players are frozen in place and can only be thawed out by allies standing nearby. Frozen players will slide around the map if shot at, so allies can knock them into a hazard to shatter them and cause a respawn, or enemies can knock them away from players trying to thaw them out.
- Warpath – a King of the Hill game mode involves a single capture point moving around the map with a set pathway to capture it.
It’s worth noting the multiplayer is well balanced, where you feel you died from skilled players and not some unfortunate event.
The level progression is simple. Once you hit level 50 you’ll receive your first Echelon. Your level then resets to 1 and you become Echelon 1, Level 1. But even though your level resets to 1, you won’t lose all that gear you’ve unlocked.
SnapMap is new to DOOM, it allows the players to create their own maps, and as well play other people’s creations, increasing the longevity of the game. There is a good tutorial ID Software made if you want to create your own levels but beware, you’re limited to what the studio has provided and it’s not a tool to mod like you used to. (But something tells us they have developing it as we speak).
Verdict
I have played a ton of DOOM since it launched and completed the campaign in just 12~hours in the difficulty “Hurt me Plenty”. This is hands down the best DOOM ID Software has made. The gore, music, visuals, and more are all spot on. It’s totally worth the $60 you spend.
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