DOOM (2016) - Review
Originally published May 2017A year since its release, I've finally decided to give the reboot/sequel to Doom a try. I have played a fair amount of the original and its direct sequel, Doom II. I have also played a little of the black sheep entry, Doom 3. Still, with the announcement and arrival of a new Doom game, I was not extremely excited to try it. Then, when Doom was released last year, critics and fans were celebrating its glorious return and hyping it up as an instant classic. I had no doubt in my mind that I would enjoy Doom when I eventually played it myself. I just wondered if it would live up to the hype.
In my typical style, I waited for it to drop in price before purchasing it. Once I owned it, I then waited even longer to gather the motivation to play it. The size of the install directory was a huge turnoff as it only seemed to get bigger as more and more patches for the multiplayer came out. I was not anxious to lose more than seventy gigabytes of space to a single game when I had so many others in my backlog. Then I happened to listen to the Doom soundtrack by Mick Gordon and realized that I HAD to play it. Now that I have finished the game, I'm happy to report that I shouldn't have waited so long.
Image: Id/Bethesda
Starting with Doom, I've decided to change up the full-length reviews a little bit and carry over the traits of my older review methods before getting to the real meat of the game; there's a lot of meat to Doom, as you might expect.
The Short of It
How Much Did I Play?
The entirety of the single-player campaign on the default difficulty
No competitive multiplayer
3 player-made "Snap-Map" maps
Platform & Version: PC version as of May 2017
Pros
Movement is smooth and glides like the twitch-shooters of old
Satisfying action
Music keeps the excitement up
Great characterization of a silent protagonist
Environments are well designed and demand that you search them from top to bottom
Secrets are everywhere, but necessary, just like old Doom
Performance is consistently above 60 fps
Good progression of skills and abilities; the game remains balanced to the end
Cons
Massive install size (over 75 GB)
Gliding movement can lead to many accidental pit-fall deaths
Boss fights are cool, but not very clear about what you need to do sometimes
Checkpoints are frequent, but you can still lose a fair amount of extraneous progress between them
The Rest of It
Story
The story of Doom is nothing new or mind-blowing, in the figurative sense—even though you are literally blowing away the minds of anyone who makes the mistake of stepping in front of your guns. This could be considered a sequel to the first two Doom games, or it could be just considered a fresh new start altogether. It doesn't make much of a difference either way; the story is pretty much the same.
Scientists in a colony on Mars in the distant future have opened a portal to Hell and their facility has become overrun with demons and many of its citizens have become possessed by said demons. Now, why would anyone open a gate to Hell if they discovered such a place existed? It's a good question and Doom certainly explains the reasons and the events that lead up to the inevitable disaster. However, it does it in such a blunt fashion that it is almost funny. The reasons center around the siphoning of Hell's energy and the ambitions of a few key individuals who may or may not have been influenced by the demons who sought freedom from Hell. There are no significant twists or turns in the plot, and there don't need to be. It's an action game that's all about just killing demons.
Image: Id/Bethesda
The bluntness to its approach is perhaps the best thing about Doom's story and nothing is more blunt in its approach to storytelling than the protagonist. You play as Doom-guy (aka the Doom Slayer, as the soundtrack mentions), a seething powerhouse of testosterone, silent rage, and ruthless, violent efficiency. His origins are discussed in further detail later in the game to the tune of demonic audio logs that play up the character as something so powerful and deadly that the demons fear him. Doom seems to understand that trying to tell some intricate story of betrayal and disaster is somewhat moot when they can just focus on making the player feel like the ultimate demon-killing badass. Much of the "story" discusses how Doom-guy got to Mars (again?) in the first place and the implications of that. Again, it's not important to the action, you can ignore the story entirely. All you need to know is that Doom-guy is a big deal in this universe, and, as Doom-guy, you need to kill every demon you come across.
Image: Id/Bethesda | The scariest thing a demon will ever see
I know it's been mentioned in other reviews of the game over time, but I do think it's still worth mentioning that the focus the writers put on the protagonist was the best decision for the story. It allowed them to come up with some simple but creative methods of characterization for a silent character you control most of the time. Demons and humans alike talk about him like they do about Rambo in First Blood as this unstoppable force of destruction you don't want to piss off. Clearly, he is already at an irritated level because he pretty much punches and kicks every piece of technology that gets in his way. In a moment that still makes me laugh each time I see it, the lead scientist tells Doom-guy to gently remove the energy cell from a control panel to stop feeding power to the Hell portal; doing anything else may cause a violent explosion. What does Doom-guy do? He kicks the thing in and smashes the energy cell. Everything Doom-guy does, from the interactions during dialogue to the visceral methods he employs in murdering demons, leads me to believe he is just permanently pissed off at having to clean up someone's mess (again). In some ways, his attitude and persona encouraged me to be just as fast and ruthless as I could to finish his mission.
Gameplay
If you know Doom, at all, you know that story is not its forte. It's the gameplay, and it's fantastic. The godfather of shooters is back in a big way with this entry and managed to sway the doubts that many had about its development. Doom 4 was in development for such a long time and had gone through many transition periods that it's a wonder it came out at all, let alone that it was this good. Once it dropped the sequel number and decided to pay homage to the older Doom games without letting archaic game design interfere with the end product, it must have gained a much clearer vision because it's damn near flawless at accomplishing its goal.
Image: Id/Bethesda
For one thing, the speed of the original Doom returns. While popular first-person shooters slowed down to the speed of normal humans running, and have only recently started to increase the speed in games like Titanfall and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Doom puts your run speed at a constant gliding sprint. It is doing exactly what the long-running Serious Sam and Painkiller series have been trying to do for years: revitalize the twitch speed of old shooters. Games like these demand that your aiming be fast and accurate while you are constantly holding down a movement button. If you weren't on the move 100% of the time, as you unloaded your guns into your enemies, you weren't going to last long.
The same is certainly true here. While Doom-guy may be the scariest thing a demon will ever encounter, it only takes a few fireballs to drain his armor and health. That being said, I felt that the difficulty of the overall game was really well-balanced. I know die-hard Doomfans think the only way to play it is on the hardest difficulty, but I think the default level was more than sufficient for me to have fun. I did not die often in my time with Doom and it was rarely at the hand of a demon. This was partially because the upgrades and weapons helped make me a lethal powerhouse. It was also because the speed at which I moved gave me the edge. It allowed me to not only dodge shots but flank enemies and leap across chasms to spread death all over the room in a matter of seconds. The knowledge of how quickly you die if you stand still and the fact that you can still efficiently eliminate every enemy in a small area only further motivates the player to swiftly deliver judgment.
The speed of the combat is also improved by the map layouts and clever approach to level design the developers took. A level will often consist of numerous routes intersecting with one another, frequently littered with secret paths to rooms filled with ammo and armor or a collectible. In the middle of all these connecting paths, however, are the big arena rooms. These rooms are often littered with ammo and health to improve your chances of survival for the impending gauntlet of enemies. Typically, there is a demon portal organ thing that needs to be destroyed. Doing so marks the beginning of your trial in the room, so it's wise to take your time to prepare before the slaughter begins.
Image: Id/Bethesda
Unlike literal arena rooms that you see in most games, however, Doom's arenas are not just big open rooms. They're massive rooms with intersecting paths, ledges, and perches. Much of what makes the movement and combat so satisfying is how quickly Doom-guy can scale a wall or ledge because it adds some real verticality to the action. You aren't just stuck running in circles, strafing around demons. You can scale walls, leap across gaps, and climb up ledges to chase down any retreating imps or run to a safe spot to regroup. The satisfaction of leaping through the air and shooting a rocket down a demon's throat is elevated when you are able to do so, switch to another gun, and unload it in another demon's face before you even hit the ground. It's exhilarating and exciting to whip through these arenas using as many guns as possible to exterminate the demon threat.
It can still get pretty hairy though if you're not careful. While the arenas often have some health, ammo, and even the occasional power-up, the combat gauntlets get pretty lengthy by the end and you may end up exhausting all those resources before you're done. Taken straight out of the Warhammer 40,000: Spacemarine playbook, Doom gives players the edge with another mechanic. It helps the player's survival chances as well as motivates them to play this game as aggressively as possible with the glory-kill feature. If you manage to hit a demon hard enough that its health reaches a critical level, it goes into a stunned state and flashes. During this time, you can melee the beast and perform a brutal execution move. Doing so isn't just stylish, it's necessary because killing demons this way provides health. In the nail-biting moments of Doom, I often found myself scraping health together by constantly glory-killing any imps I could find as I ran circles around the rest.
Image: Id/Bethesda
It's not like I was just running around empty-handed either. I was making full use of the weapon wardrobe that Doom provides. By the end of the game, you have over 10 weapons available, including a chainsaw for when ammo is low. While the original Doom boasted a similar variety of weapons, it lacked the upgrade system to really give these weapons some personality. In fact, by the time I found the mini-gun in this game—one of the more powerful weapons from the original game—I didn't really need it because I had upgraded all my other weapons in a way that made them far more efficient and fun to use.
These weapon upgrades allow you to apply alternate firing methods to your guns. They add more than just an alternate fire, though. For many of the weapons, this increases the weapon's lethal efficiency. For example, the starting shotgun is effective against the first few types of enemies but starts to lose its edge by the time you're fighting the big dudes. Add on the ability to shoot an explosive, grenade-like shot and suddenly it's a weapon worth using all the way to the end of the game. Almost all of the guns have upgrades like this that allow you to unlock alternate firing methods or just further improve their damage and efficiency. Assuming you found all the secrets, you'll have enough points to upgrade your entire arsenal. The more interesting part of the weapon upgrades is that when you reach a certain level with the gun, it turns the final upgrade point into a challenge for you to complete. In order to reach the final level of the gun's alternate fire, you're going to have to do something special. In the instance of the shotgun's grenade shot, it hit 20 imps with a direct blast of the alt-fire.
Image: Id/Bethesda
Challenges like those for the weapons exist for most of the levels as well. Each level has its own set of specific challenges, which can vary from just finding some secrets to killing certain enemies in particular ways. Completing these challenges awards you weapon skill points for your upgrades. Getting creative and efficient with your kills to improve your guns is just as important as looking for secrets. Secret passages and rooms have been a part of Doom since the beginning, and they've been made even more necessary with this one. Sometimes the secrets are simply a room filled with ammo and armor. Sometimes it has little collectible figures. Sometimes it has upgrade points for your character or weapons. Sometimes they're even old retro-looking rooms just meant to inspire nostalgia. Regardless of what the secrets may hold, it is still in your best interest to search for them because it helps add to your weapon upgrade path.
The hunting for secrets is actually what ends up taking so much time. I went back to some levels and cleaned out their secrets so I could really enjoy the combat and finish the levels at the speed I would expect. Many of the stages themselves can be completed in 10 minutes or less if you know where you're going and you don't need to spend much time looking for supplies. That being said, the stages are also quite massive, providing a variety of environments. Likewise, the enemy and weapon variety is well-paced to make sure things never seem stale. Because Doom mostly follows a rinse-and-repeat formula of having you fight in arenas and murder demons in the occasional hallway, I never got tired of the format the whole way through the campaign. It was cool and exciting to see what new creature they'd throw at you. By the end, when every single enemy type is unleashed in intense gauntlet battles, it's just as exciting because you have all your weapons and they're upgraded the way you want them.
Image: Id/Bethesda
Presentation
I was impressed by Doom's presentation. It's a great-looking game in both the artistic sense and the technical sense. On the technical side, it manages to dump a ton of detail in all of the environments and creatures. What's more impressive, is that it manages to do all this with more than a dozen enemies shooting at you on-screen, while you jump all over the place at high speed, and it never dropped below 60 frames a second. Even with the settings turned all the way up, Doom didn't miss a beat. It's definitely one of those technical achievements that end up being a requirement more than anything else, considering the speed at which this game is supposed to operate, but it's still an appreciated touch.
As for the artistic side, I love the redesigns of the old demons, as well as the new ones they threw in there, like the Hell Knight. Each of the demons, old and new, were crafted with a high attention to detail and a real dose of modern creativity. When a new one was introduced, I wanted to marvel at their detail and design to see the ideas that went into crafting them. Though, I wanted to fight and hunt them down just a little bit more.
Image: Id/Bethesda
In the sound department, I already mentioned the soundtrack as being a huge proponent of me playing Doom at all, but I'll expand a little more. Upon hearing the music for the recent release of Prey, I was curious to hear what other work Mick Gordon had done. This led me to Doom's soundtrack, which got me playing the game in the first place. The more I listened to it, the more I wanted to play Doom because it was just a series of workout songs that just amped me up. If there were a recipe for the Doom soundtrack it would be a hearty helping of Combichrist and Fear Factory, with a spoonful of modern Djent metal, like Vidjarta, and a pinch of 90's Nine Inch Nails, placed in a pressure cooker set to constantly build with heat and pressure until it's ready to explode. If you knew all those bands without having to look them up, then maybe you're the one who stole my iPod out of my car. In which case, please give back.
Jokes aside (seriously, give it back), you get the point. The influences at play here are almost tailor-made for my musical interests. The only thing I can mark against the soundtrack is that it sounds like Gordon is using a drum track for the songs, so the beats don't hit with the same impact or sound as good as they could have with an actual drummer. Still, considering the fact that metal is barely ever as prominent in video games, and considering the completely different soundtrack Gordon provided for Prey, I am now very interested in what this guy can do and how far his musical range will take him.
Image: Id/Bethesda
TL;DR (Conclusion)
Doom is a fantastic game. It manages to pay homage to its roots without compromising the important lessons of modern game design. It goes against the popular, modern style for first-person shooters and does so with overwhelming speed and force. Doom is a brutal adrenaline rush of exciting combat and clever design with an intense soundtrack to motivate your murder. I barely touched the multiplayer aspects of the game, but I don't feel like I missed out on anything at all because the campaign was so good. If you have any reverence for the original games, or you are just looking for a new first-person shooter to make you feel like a badass, look no further.
Image: Id/Bethesda
Do you agree or disagree? Tell me what you think in the comments!
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