DOOM (2016)

Worth it. Unless this totally drops the ball in the back half (and there hasn't been any indication that it does) this is a straight up New Classic. Outrageously fun.

OK, it seems to get even better in the back half. The hell levels are madness.

Sorry for the one man show here, but as far as single player FPS action is concerned, this is legitimately a new pinnacle. It really is that good.

like i said on the other thread, i fuckin love this game. it's weird to praise a giant media company for adequately leveraging their most valuable IP but man there's a creative vision at work here that is much more distinct and aesthetically pleasing than typical modern big-$$$ plodding shooters.

the level where you have to disable (read: smash) the "argent filters" is a masterpiece of 90s-style fps level design, vast interconnected spaces with progress checked by colored keycards but with tons of shortcuts, secrets, optional areas, all the shit that makes it feel like a space to inhabit (vs a corridor to walk down to trigger cutscenes).

yeah, the level design is super-impressive - in a weird way it reminds me of alien isolation in that the levels on Mars do feel kinda like a real space, although in this, unlike in alien, you get to charge around at a breakneck pace blasting the shit out of enemies instead of cowering under tables and weeping in terror

i haven't had this much straightforward fun with a game in a long time. I could do without some of the fps platforming but the rest of it is such adrenalin-drenched insanity that it's easy to forgive.

i'm a little way into hell now and the sheer speed and aggressiveness of the enemy encounters has literally made me laugh with delight in places, usually right before I died.

also: super-shotgun wheeeeeeeee

what platform are people itt playing on? tempted by the PC one but would need some significant hardware upgrades for it to run...

ps4 here - runs at a solid 60fps (or near enough that i can't tell the difference) and looks great

pc here, looks good on my reasonably old radeon 3gb card, runs real smooth save for two rooms that killed my framerate for whatever reason

wow they just keep ratcheting up the intensity with every setpiece in this

love it

yeah, the arenas start getting insane towards the end. complete chaos. it's beautiful.

i'm coming very near to the end i think. will probably go back through to do a little more secret hunting once i wrap it up.

enjoying the nice balance of color in this. some segments going for a more realistic look, others straight up Video Gamey/OG DOOM colorfulness. i like the moments in the hell levels when everything goes really red. small, judiciously applied touch that heightens the bloodthirsty mania.

all in all, i can't imagine a better, more loving re-invention of DOOM in 2016. really want this to sell well. saw the first Big Name Review Site (IGN) gave this a 7.1, which is fucking criminal and hopefully an anomaly. maybe Bethesda made the right move in letting the fans have at it first?

oooh, i've also turned down all the sound levels except music to about 3/4. recommended.

pulled the trigger on this (and many times since). running on a pc at ultra everything. looks great, circa's posts in the orig doom thread re: gun/melee/chainsaw rhythm (melee kills get you health, chainsaw kills get you ammo) otm, a good idea for an actually very undoom but successfully doom-evoking mechanic. (tho it does p much let you pick a favorite gun and never run out of ammo for it, which is a lil contrary to the original's stinginess.) hugely appreciate the terseness of everything (tho have not been reading the lol "codex" -- i will tho don't get me wrong mars is cool) and the way the 2016 doom marine is successfully portrayed as rampaging badass while also remaining totally anonymous and (unlike the original smirking doomguy) gender-neutral.

huge amount of pleasure comes from an unexpected place: jumping. they added just the right dash of mirror's edge. particularly fun: blasting an imp on a ledge as you run towards it, then leaping+pulling yourself up to come face-to-face with it for a second before ripping its head off. this stuff blends rly well with the hurtling retro speed.

what i've seen of the level design isn't worthy of doom 1 or 2 -- it's closer to the more linear quake 2, with serious sam's open spaces (good) and waves-of-enemies arenas (eh). but at this point "fps inspired by quake 2 and serious sam" sounds like christmas to me.

the multiplayer seems like a bad quake live clone (w better grafix obv) and i don't think the game's new mechanics, except for the parkour, are suited to deathmatch. on the throwback pc arena fps front i'm still a defender of the new UT which has been in "pre-alpha" for like two years now and has what seems like a permanently enraged fanbase.

levels already getting better and actually chainsaw fuel is scarce enough that no i do end up switching guns. what a nice surprise this is.

also i was prob wrong about gender-neutral doomguy oh well.

heh

http://i.imgur.com/vz7vXZG.jpg

not to mention bioshock infinite

the level where you have to disable (read: smash) the "argent filters" is a masterpiece of 90s-style fps level design

yeah this was more like it. breathtaking moment in it when you emerge on a balcony and p much the whole exterior part of the level is visible at once. and then you go back into it!

i've been really bad at finding secrets; i'm not even finding all the upgrade corpses/bots. decided to charge through on ultraviolence then go back secret-hunting on nightmare. the only upgrade tree i like is the weapon one and even that is about half stuff i don't care about (tho the other half is admittedly awesome); definitely think the challenge/rune system was exactly one modern feature too many. (well i also turned off the compass.)

just so fun bouncing around ripping off demon skulls.

This is longer than I expected it to be! Figured I had maybe an hour left when I
made my last posts, but a few hours later it's still going. Definitely surpassed the estimated 13 hours. On Ultra Violence.

Repetitiveness/fatigue was starting to set in at about the 10 hour mark, but I was totally marathoning this thing and that was probably inevitable. Getting only an hour or hour and a half here and there through the week has alleviated that.

Boss fights are fun. There's a new character that unfortunately looks like he was dropped in from a different video game altogether, but he was enjoyable to play against nonetheless.

Feel like the game's too generous with the upgrades. I'm practically maxed out on everything (except runes) and I haven't exactly done any deep exploration.

Anyway, still pretty much love this and don't think I've had this much fun with a single player FPS since jamming Quake 2 at maximum volume in my parents' basement. Looking forward to a Nightmare run.

Regarding reviews, yeah, I guess this isn’t “sweepingly cinematic” enough or w/e element Corporate Game Journos immediately barf 9’s and 10’s at. See the reactions to the pretty-but-mediocre-as-an-actual-gameplay-experience Uncharted 4. This looks on track to score mid 80’s on Metacritic which is about as best as you can hope for a game that’s a little niche. Word-of-mouth hype has been a wildfire thankfully. Hoping for strong sales. A DOOM 2 built on a base like this could be REALLY spectacular.

theres a map creator? even on consoles? dayum im prob going to end up getting this

how are the wads

There are a lot of complaints about the limitations of the map creator right now, but it seems like people are finding work-arounds. Also it looks like id will be releasing updates. Haven't really messed with that aspect yet.

Level quality definitely variable in the back half. Some brilliant stuff but also some areas that look like they were rushed out in an afternoon. Needed to pad it out a bit I guess.

Wow, they don't skimp on the last couple of levels. Really cool maps. I'm pretty much at the area (I believe) right before the end boss and I have to go away for the weekend. Nnngh.

I just started messing with the Gauss Cannon's siege mode. Goddamn. Nothing like blowing a Hellknight in half while he's in mid-leap towards you. Thing's crazy.

Bump because I'm hanging out in a cabin with a bunch of good friends and I can't stop thinking about this game.

i want to play this so badly but deep down i know i really just want quake 3 rocket arena back in my life

okay i rly don't want to go to work

I beat this today. Long story how that happened. Best single player FPS of all time.

Bump because I'm hanging out in a cabin with a bunch of good friends and I can't stop thinking about this game.

I beat this today. Long story how that happened.

he had a good employment record. good references. from what i've been told, he seemed like a completely normal individual. but at some point, over the weekend, he must have suffered some kind of complete mental collapse.

http://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/4265a633c675ecab908f11ff3679942f-650-80.jpg

This is fun. Man, do I die a lot.

Other fun bit: when the title card sequence finally hits, and the shotgun racking sound effect is so pronounced.

what the heck is that comic from?

I googled doom video game comic

The comic was not originally very well received, and was quietly forgotten for nearly five years after its release. However, it gained a large amount of attention in 2001 when Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka reviewed the comic on PlanetQuake, and later received exposure again in the 10 Years of Doom special at Doomworld in December of 2003, where it was published online. Original art from the project was put up for auction on eBay in April of 2004. The over-the-top character of the Doom comic has made it rather notorious within the fan community.

They thrown some references to that comic (well, one that I picked up on) in the new one. Rip and tear!

Started a game on Nightmare and died about 8 times before the opening credit. Don't think I can handle it. Plenty of people have beaten this on Ultra Nightmare already (hardest difficulty level and the game ends if you die once) but I think only on PC. Need to watch some of those playthroughs. I'm not sure that's humanly possible on consoles, but someone will likely prove me wrong.

The secrets in this are so well tucked away. In every map there's a switch that unlocks a classic DOOM level in full original graphics/music glory with the new weapons and demons. I've found one.

I haven't found sooo many things and I'm going to do so in the spirit of replaying, but just blasting your way through as intensely as possible is so much fun. If I die, which I do so much, i feel like it's deserved! I had a couple bad falls on the platforming bits after you get the jump boots, but most of the time it's because I think I can run in and blast everything close quarters. WHICH I CAN, DAMN IT.

The melee kill animations are so great, especially the one where you grab the explodey tentacle thing off the guy's chest and shove it down his throat.

I'm still playing this and it's still a blast.

The entirely optional story/lore stuff you find in the codex is actually entertaining and worth your time if yr curious.

Read words later, rip demons apart with my hands now

playing Hurt Me Plenty, about 6 levels through and its hurting, but worth it. does the difficulty scale up a lot in later levels though? a few of these arena fights are getting pretty intense

all it does is scale up in difficulty tbh, although you can do a decent job of staying ahead of the curve by carefully searching out upgrades. i'm getting close to the end now i think and in a weird way it's almost become a puzzle game, trying to work out the optimum time to use weapons and powerups at each stage of the setpieces

yes definitely, first level of hell i hit the Quad way too soon in the final fight and then it run out just as some huge bastards spawned in

getting pinned in by two hell knights is some shit

The melee kill animations are so great, especially the one where you grab the explodey tentacle thing off the guy's chest and shove it down his throat.

as a lifelong screamer of obscenities at "pinky" i appreciate the one where you rip its tusk off and jam it into its eye, but fair play i also appreciate my own looking down in horror when it gores me

Someone made a full on MOBA with Snapmaps. Insane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfNNXQBDCog&feature=share

details:

http://kotaku.com/how-a-guy-nearly-broke-dooms-snapmap-to-make-a-moba-1780165993

this is on sale finally, hmmm

30 bux? Do it. I still fire this up every few weeks.

you talked me into it. I need some time to play now tho'.

def gonna post in here when i get there tho'.

this game is so great. just got to the Mars Hell area and it is very nice. the old DOOM was mostly about aliens-style space bases, the actual Hell stuff was always teased but never really portrayed. DOOM II had a half dozen or so Hell levels towards the end of the game (Map 29 "The Living End") that attempted to do caves full of demons but DOOM 3 was back to being about space bases again.

it is done so well here, jumping from platform to platform shooting at demons that are throwing green fireballs from the other side of a chasm, they have the necessary candle-littered shrines, the pentagrams and evil talismans/glowing skulls. it is cool and evil and def feels like i am in a Mercyful Fate album cover. A+ game where's the sequel?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o48clqgTWc

Map 28 The Spirit World was the Hell level i was thinking of, it has these rivers of lava and floating pedestals and stuff, Barons of Hell and Spiderdemons. it's pretty insane, but you can tell they can only do so much w the tech at the time. with the new DOOM they can really do some cool Frazetta-style fantasy landscape looking stuff.

i was just strafe fighting some cacodemons w a rocket launcher <3 this is classic gameplay. the slow projectiles are something i miss from other shooters, in DOOM you can actually dodge fireballs, it makes it all the cooler. if someone shoots at you in Far Cry or Bioshock you can't dodge that shit.

Map28 vid really taking me back. New doom is too real for me.

i loved DOOM II. my favorite level ever was map 29.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqAWqH4iQQY

it is this series of encounters, all with different art design/textures, this weird spiral that winds it's way up a huge lava pit. there are some really cool areas. the music absolutely rules. new DOOM has good music but DOOM II's is just so damn good.

the room at 1:55 with the strobe light and the giant pentagram over the demon's face is so awesome. i don't think there are many rooms in videogames that can top how metal that room is.

I always imagined the flickering light was natural, from bad wiring or a candle. Feels kinda gauche if the demons are DJs with strobe light setups.

The Doom Eternal footage that's been shown is... something

can't wait to rip and tear

I'm not sure how that unbelievably shit sub-Denis Leary PCU-ass "mortally challenged" joke came from the same team as the amazing keycard/wheely chair bit

reminds me of when I found out that Blizzard used to have the scripting/plot team completely separate from most of the game development. like one team's busy drawing orcs and demons and crap, then someone writes a story and dialogue and cutscenes at a later date and has the gameplay development team make minor tweaks

classic id games (Doom, Quake, etc) never even had the story/script people

Yeah, dumb, careless touch that only served to bring the wrong kind of attention.

Gameplay was even more amped up/ridiculous than I expected. All the extra movement options are gonna be fun. Really dig the new environments they showed off.

Demon that got his head bonked into his body cavity as a glory kill was an unexpected highlight.

I'm somewhat iffy on the giant open area part with the character doing multiple sideways dashes midair and the myriad of jump pads. seemed very Q3A-ish

I more meant I liked the look and variety
of style

Yeah D2016 had just the right balance of normal stages and playground Q3 stages and I hope that’s maintained. When the auto map was brought up it looked nice and complex like some of the better levels in 2016. Part of me worries they’re gonna Duke Nukem this with the OTT-ness. And I’m unsure about this blade and shoulder weapon, could be too many moving parts.

Still... v. excited.

didn't like the look of what they showed - too cartoony - but I did like some of the mechanics, like a grappling hook that pulls you closer to the enemy

the demo footage standard of skilled player + monsters do less than easy mode damage + show the number of monsters that show up in super hard mode is always ott

they did promise twice as many monsters!

Fucking. Yes.

https://youtu.be/39hX27jeN3Q

Cool. I never finished the last one, but I enjoyed playing it. How come this clip, for all its fancy 4k/60fps, makes me kind of motion sick with its jerky movements?

Enemy weak points this time around, so pays to shoot rocket launchers off of the Revenant or arm-guns off of the Mancubus etc., makes a satisfying *clink* sound when it happens and demons adjust attack modes accordingly. AI seems way ruthless, this is supposedly a good bit harder than the last one. Increased mobility with dash and things to swing on. Some platforming which I guess people think sucks in a FPS, but it looks like it’s done well here. Sounds like they took to heart the “repetitive” criticisms of the last one and there’s just a ton more variety here all around. Leaning hard into arcade, game-y mayhem. I want this now.

Xp

Footage is from someone playing on PC and they’re pretty good, so yeah, that’s what it looks like whipping around with a mouse and keyboard.

Oh also you’ve got a shoulder mounted flamethrower now and when you attack guys on fire it shoots out bits of armor. Nice addition to the glory kill = health, chainsaw = ammo, be-aggressive-to-stay-alive loop.

Looks beautiful. Hope that wasn't the "Too Young to Die" setting. Anticipating many deaths due to "jump … land … twitch … fall forward off edge".

https://www.polygon.com/reviews/2020/3/17/21182306/doom-eternal-review-pc-xbox-one-ps4-stadia

HaveHave you ever noticed how cop procedurals will signal that a messy-haired teenager is a real loner type by showing him playing a video game, sitting in a dark bedroom littered with junk food, the walls covered in heavy metal posters?

The game itself (because we always get to see gameplay, even though the show clearly can’t afford good computer animation) appears to be a parody of violent video games, all disembowelment and close-range executions. The teen, played by a 20-something actor, manhandles his poor controller, suggesting the game is either astonishingly complex or the teenager is dumb as a rock.

That’s Doom Eternal. All of it. The Mountain Dew and Cheetos. The Dream Theater albums. The hand-cramping controls. And the overwhelming sense that everybody involved is in on the joke, and having a good time. That lack of shame makes all the difference.

yessss

Yeah, I’m beyond psyched for this. Looks gleefully metal as fuck. Just pre-loaded it and will be firing it up when it releases at midnight.

The last one was, for lack of a better word, hyper realistic. This one looks much more cartoonish and even more ott. I'm curious what people think.

This is totally way more cartoonish. Like that Polygon article mentioned, straight up adolescent metal head’s day dream. Really different feel from the last one, but I dig it. It’s really hard. I played through ‘16 with only a few hiccups on Ultra-Violence, but this one’s kicking my ass on that difficulty only two hours in. Definitely feeling it making me better though. Dark Souls ethos.

If there’s a video game equivalent of ripping a couple of lines of cocaine this is it. After like 30 tries trying to clear an arena and finally doing I’m a shaking ecstatic mess. Intense.

I bought this (2016) back when on Switch, where the gyro aiming was essential to gameplay, imo. I bought it again when it was on deep discount for PS4, and had to set the difficulty level way down to compensate for lack of gyro. I'm sure I'll get used to it, eventually, but it was like playing with two left hands and no thumbs.

It’s kind of insane to me that they’re going to make this work on a Switch. I’m amazed at how good it looks running on this dusty ass PS4.

Apparently this is a little divisive with “gamers” on “the internet”. It’s a different game from 2016 for sure, but I feel like it’s massively deeper, more sophisticated, and more fun all around. The combat has legs. Style wise it’s a matter of taste, Evil Dead vs. Evil Dead 2. I’m an ED2 guy.

A lot more tools this time around. Overwhelming at first, but once it clicks it’s glorious.

definitely more cartoony

the level design seems even more straightforward with pretty good hinting. the only times that it's been tricky to figure out where to go is during the jump puzzles. the swimming puzzles are definitely the weakest point

those slayer gate challenges are absolutely brutal. going to have to go back and complete some of them with better weapons. thought that one of them was nearly done and then it dropped a half dozen hell knights at the same time. soooo much dodging and running, and the timing of when to blast enemies to get more armor is something that takes a while to get a handle on

not sure the multiplayer is for me, but i think if i tried it with a couple friends to better get a feel for it, it might work

Finishing the last levels of 2016's DOOM now. The hell guard / two hell guards section in Level 11 was hard enough on "I'm Too Young..." glad I'm not on Nightmare setting. Also glad there was a checkpoint between the two. Was constantly mistiming shots to stagger them for health / ammo so felt a rush of achievement when over, since I used up the BFG ammo on the single one.

I can't get past the first hell guard - I'm too lame for difficult boss battles so I gave up at that point. People on youtube make it look easy.

The Marauder in Eternal is an absolute motherfucker. I think with practice I'll get the rhythm down, but right now when he shows up it's a total panicked crapshoot. Arch-Vile also crazy dangerous, that's easily a priority #1 demon whenever he spawns.

Like the From Software stuff, I feel like I can only play this game at certain times because it can be incredibly taxing. And adrenaline-y, have trouble sleeping if I play it before bed.

I have dropped the difficulty down from Ultra Violence once or twice in hairy spots. Always ones involving the Marauder iirc. No real penalty for that btw, just a pride hit.

I've attempted a few Slayer Gates but have decided I'm going to make it to the last level or so and then go back for them. Will be a little more manageable with the combat loop more firmly ingrained and a full kit. They are no joke.

I don't know if and when I'd ever play this, but I do appreciate the apparent takeaway of the developers after the first game was "MORE!"

I, too, am still trying to get the Marauder rhythm down. Getting better, and on levels with lots of ammo re-ups you can use the remote detonating rockets to cheat and get him from the side while the shield's up

It took me too long on my first arch-vile encounter to realize the fucker was spawning in limitless enemies and I needed to track him down asap

I've watched a bit of a couple let's plays, and it's almost inconceivable that they can get this running on Switch.

there’s some magical new era tech that I am assuming the console versions use called “dynamic resolution scaling” that I saw in the PC version settings

it’s probably a bit less graphically intense than a lot of other recent games, it’s just got a much more frenetic pace

I want to play this, I'd just rather not spend 100 Canuck bucks on it.

"It took me too long on my first arch-vile encounter to realize the fucker was spawning in limitless enemies and I needed to track him down asap"

trying to FIND these suckers when they spawn in can be another panic. doesn't help that they don't have a particularly distinctive silhouette. i save my crucible charges for these guys exclusively.

https://games.avclub.com/why-does-doom-eternal-play-like-a-mario-game-in-hell-1842497854

https://youtu.be/Oz3IfG38F30

Id’s creative lead talking about inspirations. Endearing.

I really like the direction Eternal took. 2016 was sharp as hell, but it was safe and within AAA aesthetics. Fun to see a big property just going full 80’s adolescent geek. Feel like Bethesda was pretty hands off, just let them run with it. Kind of a rare thing.

The last two levels of this are dope.

Got some Alien/Moebius and Die Hard/Ghostbusters feelings respectively. Game continually pulls from that sorta VHS aisle but doesn’t get too DO YOU SEE with it.

It's more than just aesthetics that have changed, though. I watched a bit of a play through, and not only does it look more (intentionally) cartoonish and dayglo and vibrant, the game play does seem like a totally different animal. More platforming, more actions, more things to keep track of of, plus more ... plot, which seems like a gamble for a game already designed to be exhausting. But one of my least favorite aspects of the first game (which I played a bit of from the start again on PS4 the other day just to remind myself) was just getting around. The frame rate on the Switch, even after it got somewhat patched, really made it hard for me to gauge jumps and stuff, combined with the kind of weightless movement of the doom suit, but jumping on the PS4 still felt weird. Throwing in evading obstacles and swinging on poles and double jumping over chasms and climbing walls, I don't know if I could handle that, in addition to what appears to be an increased emphasis on, well, aiming.

Heh, I just watched that influences video, I was thinking how much tonally different (and perhaps more fun) this new game (again, at least what I've seen of it) would be if instead of another badass Reznoresque score it had a galloping Maiden-like score.

The game is a very different beast. It’s a lot more of everything, in some ways to it’s detriment (do we need all of those upgrade trees?). Significantly more cerebral, you have a ton of tools and you need to use just about all of them to make it through, so you’re constantly juggling and keeping an eye on timers. And it moves even faster than ‘16. Like piloting a fighter jet. Requires a lot more precision too, taking out enemy weak points is pretty much necessary early on. Less so in late game.

I have a feeling this will be a real struggle on Twitch unless they tweak it specifically for that system. Gonna be a tough time running at 30 FPS and using the joy cons.

I guess some people are struggling with the platforming, but it hasn’t been a problem for me. If you fail it just teleports you back to the beginning of the obstacle minus a little bit of health. I appreciate breaking up the arenas, the moments to breathe are welcome. Can be janky sometimes though.

I’m playing through Eternal a second time and it’s like a whole new game. I struggled through a lot of it the first time around because I wasn’t utilizing some tools. Mostly frag grenades (was using freeze ones almost exclusively, need to switch between the two frequently) and the super shotgun mastery with the hook shot that ignites the enemy for instant armor shards. Armor is crucial. And the acrobatics you can pull off with that hook shot is really something I didn’t get to explore the first time around.

Game is WAY complicated and I don’t think most can even get a solid handle on all of it even in one play through, but once you master the arsenal it feels suuuper fucking good.