(Part 1 review, idk if backlogg'd will seperate part 1 and 2 when it comes out)
All the good stuff in Doom Eternal is back, kicking you straight into 3 levels of endgame doom eternal. Mandatory sections of this game feel like base game slayer gates, and its fuckin tight.
However, every new enemy they added to the DLC is unbelievably annoying. I don't think I ever enjoyed seeing any of them show up. Turrets are an honest waste of time, spirits are a cool idea but the embodiment of DE forcing you to fight things a particular way that's kinda a drag (also fighting two of them is hard pullingly annoying), and whatever the last thing was also Just Annoying I Dont Have A cool Phrase For That One
All of this cumilated to an unbeleivably frustrating final boss, but maybe thats just my salt speaking as I got fucking pissed at not one but two double spirit phases.
On another note, I know people dont play doom for the story but the story of doom 2016 was honestly pretty interesting and it's really disappointing that basically everything from that game was tossed aside and everything that happened in that game was actually done by super angels. everything. was always god plans. thank you drake.

Doom Eternal, much like its 2016 predecessor, was a complete package and one of the best first-person shooters campaigns ever made. But id Software has found the urge to expand upon Eternal, a feeling it did not have with 2016’s reboot, with The Ancient Gods Part 1. This debut episode continues where Eternal left off and instead of feeling like a half-baked WAD, it ends up being one hell of a satisfying, challenging expansion.

Read the full review here:
https://www.gamerevolution.com/review/663326-doom-eternal-the-ancient-gods-part-1-dlc-review-ps4-xbox-one-pc

Absolutely hilarious that Samuel Hayden decides the best way to try to kill Doomguy after going through a William Birkin mutation is by hitting him with Touhou attacks.

Originally played this when it released, but I thought I was Big Dick McGamer and chose Ultraviolence after not playing the game that has you using your controllers and keyboard like you're playing Through the Fire and Flames and rightfully got my shit canned so bad I said "that's enough of that for today!" and never returned. Now I'm back and beat the game's ass so I think I'm doing pretty good.

The coolest part of TAG is how confident the devs are in your skills and the arsenal they've prepped that they just dump the most insane nonsense at you. It's the FPS version of DMCV dumping a Fury into a swarm or Bayonetta hitting you with Gracious and Glory and then telling you to do something about it. It rules. Yeah there's still the silly tutorials telling you how to deal with something but that's like 2% of the chapter. Also, Andrew Hulshult's tracks are really good too. Glad he didn't just try imitating Mick Gordon even if some things can't really be avoided seeing as this is the modern sound of Doom now. Especially after how brutal the falling out (LMFAOOO) he had with Bethesda and id would have been in really bad taste otherwise.

Excited to start Part Two and witness the conclusion to this absolute nonsense crackhead story.

Part 1 is fucking dreadful and Part 2 is the best part of the entire Doom Eternal game. What a bipolar experience.

Part 1 Review (1.5 Stars) -

The Ancient Gods part one story is great. Confusing and a bit meandering, it's still as engaging as anything in Doom Eternal. But my god the gameplay is actually awful. While Doom (2016) encouraged the player to rip and tear through enemies in whatever way they found most fun, Doom Eternal applies many more constraints. It asks the player to use certain weapons at certain times for any effect, not just for the best outcomes. But still, Doom Eternal allows the player enough agency to make their way through the levels and through the content in ways the players finds enjoyable.

The Ancient Gods Part 1 however just fucking hates the player. It's what I call anti-player design. The kinda thing you see in games like Dark Souls or I Wanna Be the Boshy. Gameplay design that's meant to frustrate and aggravate the player, not just challenge. The Ancient Gods Part 1 introduces a fleet of new enemies that can only be killed with explicit bullet types, Spirits, Turrets and Blood Makyrs. While this is fine, the base game does this with Doom Hunters and CyberMancubuses etc, it's the way the DLC uses them in battle that's beyond frustrating.

The way these get distributed in battle forces you to hold onto several ammo types for long periods of time, not allowing you to actually use your full complement of weapons. I understand why you would think to do this initially as a way to manufacture some new difficulty, but what it becomes is just plain unfun. You can't use all of your weapons in a fight because you're always hyper aware of the fact that you can't afford to run out of a certain ammo type lest you render an enemy (like a Spirit) completely unkillable. When the game throws at you several Shield Soldiers or Doom Hunters you become afraid of actually using your plasma rifle for fear that a Spirit will show up (which can only be killed by the plasma rifle's microwave beam). And lo-and-behold these fears are well founded because the game does this explicitly. Making you wail away at a Doom Hunter with a shotgun and rocket launcher because they're the only ammo types you can afford to expend. Even though they're inefficient.

This is all even more frustrating since Doom Eternal gimps weapons like the BFG/Unmakyr, Chainsaw and melee attacks. Meaning you have even less tools to dispatch enemies with. A game like Doom is all about the fast paced weapon switching but instead TAG Part 1 made me feel like I had less tools than ever to deal with enemies. And at worst it made me feel like encounters were supposed to be patently unfair. I actually hit a wall several times where I damn near just quit playing. But I purchased the Year One Pass and was determined not to let my money go to waste so I persevered.

The Blood Makyrs and Turrets are especially unfun enemies in Doom. While most enemies still rely and encourage a fast paced rate of play bopping around arenas through portals and rocket jumps, the Blood Makyrs and Turrets are sickeningly slow. They're only targetable by single headshots from the balista or heavy cannon. And they're generally shielded. Meaning you have to just wait for them to become targetable to kill them. Unlike the Makyr Drones which can be killed any time. The Blood Makyrs are the worst because they force you to stare at them underscope for 30-45 seconds dodging their slow attacks until their shield goes down and they become hittable. If the player was given any agency to rid this shield first maybe the combat would be more engaging. Instead I'm forced to just watch them and strafe for what feels like an eternity in an otherwise rapid fire game like Doom.

The platforming in TAG 1 is actually busted. Just flat doesn't work sometimes. Puzzle designs can be poor and they restrict player movement more than ever. Demanding the player take explicitly designed routes even when more efficient ones can be taken. Ledge grab detection seems awful? I don't know why it would be any different than the base game, yet here we are. What was already a weakpoint in the base game is sinful in TAG 1. They feel arduous and they take inordinate amounts of time when all I really wanna be doing is blowing shit up. I lost wild amounts of health to falling into the abyss during some shittily marked jumping puzzle.

Also why the fuck is there a dive suit? In Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal there are several instances where Doom Guy goes swimming to get around places but he somehow has seemingly forgot how to swim in TAG 1. Even worse there's at least one swimming occasion in TAG 1 that doesn't require the Dive suit anyway for some reason?

The story is still pretty good, taking you to new locations. It's still fun. But FUCK the final boss fight of TAG 1. I suppose you could respond to this entire review with 'git gud.' Maybe that's fair. But the difficulty spike I experienced in TAG 1 and the TAG 1 final fight versus Seraphim/Samur was outrageous. I beat Doom (2016) on Nightmare with some adversity but none that every actually frustrated me (except Cyberdemon). I beat Doom Eternal on Hurt Me, Plenty with only occasional trouble. I got all the way through TAG 1 with a lot of frustration on Hurt Me, Plenty but I had to turn down the difficulty to the lowest difficulty level on the final boss fight. Even then I died many, many times. I found out what Sentinel Armor was (something I never had to deal with before because I never died this much/played on this difficulty).

The final boss fight using so many Spirit enemies forcing me to use plasma ammo while making me fight those floating electro eyes and the tough enemies like Pain Elementals just meant I was frequently out of ammo. And standing still long enough to actually kill a Spirit was wildly difficult given the waves of enemies attacking you during that process. The final boss teleporting about the room also made plasma rifles the most useful weapon to fight him with but you couldn't actually use it because you needed it for other enemy types to do any damage. Some of these pains would be eliminated by Doom (2016)'s mechanics where I could've used the chainsaw and melee attacks and BFG more effectively. Or if TAG 1 hadn't gotten rid of the Crucible Sword.

TAG 1 was awful. Felt almost like a different game. Story was great, gameplay was shite and the level design/enemy design was awful. Also was disappointed that twice in three missions you were sent to the carrier ship with that intern but there wasn't a single thing to interact with on it. I didn't really understand the point. Why not just send directly to the next mission? All it did was add loading screens.

(Review of just part 1)

More Doom Eternal which is a great thing.

The encounter design is great, and arguably better than the base game due to it being balanced around having your whole loadout from the start. It definitely is balanced assuming you've mastered the game loop though, as it's a lot more difficult than the base game. A couple new enemies are thrown into the mix which serve to make old enemies more interesting as well as spice up the combat in their own way.

The sections between big combat rooms feel a lot better here too due to more intermittent enemies and more engaging platforming puzzles.

Really my only complaint is that there's no new weapons and that a couple of the arenas feel a bit too cramped. Looking forward to part 2.

The ancient gods parte uno me gusta porque es más doom eternal. Mantiene el núcleo jugable prácticamente intacto, ya que si algo es perfecto para que lo vas a tocar ¿verdad? Pese a todo, esperaba un poco más de novedades en este DLC. Tres enemigos nuevos, junto a sus respectivos tres niveles es prácticamente lo único nuevo que trae consigo. Me parece algo escueto, además de que el concepto tras esos nuevos enemigos me parece regulero. Sobre todo el espíritu, nacido con la idea de darle uso al disparo secundario más infrautilizado del juego base. Reconozco que está bien intentar buscarle un uso viable a las partes menos poderosas del juego, pero creo que el rayo microondas tiene problemas desde su nacimiento. No puedes pretender que esté quieto varios segundos en un juego como eternal. Por eso creo que el espíritu debía de haber venido con un cambio directo a ese accesorio del cañón de plasma. Se hace muy frustrante matar al demonio controlado por el espíritu en un lugar equivocado, ya que posiblemente no lo puedas rematar por la naturaleza lenta del arma. Sobre todo en dificultades altas se incrementa esa frustración que se podía haber solventado de otra manera.

Quitando eso, creo que el resto de Ancient Gods es bastante bueno. Hay una buena progresión en cuanto a la dificultad respecto al juego base , y el diseño de niveles sigue destacando como de costumbre. No solo el diseño puramente jugable, si no de nuevo, el diseño artístico de escenarios sigue siendo sublime. Es simplemente precioso.

Por otro lado es difícil hablar de Ancient Gods sin entrar en el mal trato que recibió Mick Gordon por parte de Bethesda, que tras no recibir parte de la compensación económica por su trabajo, fue difamado y acabó abandonado ID software. Es genuinamente una lástima y le deseó suerte en sus próximos trabajos. Sin embargo, creo que han encontrado a la persona perfecta para hacer este trabajo en la ausencia de Mick. Andrew Hulshult entrega una banda sonora absolutamente sublime, caracterizada por ese heavy metal industrial que casa perfectamente con Doom, y en especial este DLC. Es alguien con experiencia en este género de videojuegos y se nota.

En definitiva, Doom eternal : the ancient gods parte uno me ha gustado. Echo de menos más novedades y las que hay no me emocionan precisamente. Pero sigue siendo más doom al final del día. Me alegro de haberlo rejugado con un ordenador capaz de cargar la cantidad de demonios del juego de forma fluida, ha mejorado un poco mi impresión de este título.