This review contains spoilers
Overall, a worthy successor to the 90's originals and a soft reboot of the franchise that would go on to spawn Doom Eternal, a highly-praised game that I have yet to play. I got this on launch day back in 2016 thinking it'd be the best game ever, as I was in a heavy classic Doom phase at the time, and I got mostly what I wanted out of it, albeit the bosses were a bit weak and the setpiece-focused combat was not my favorite. So, how do I feel about it in 2023?
I remain mostly the same on all of my opinions about this game. Starts off strong, leaves a good impression, peaks around the VEGA mission and trails off from there with a weak ending and final boss. But, the hell levels in the OG Doom were never that good, at least they're more than playable here. I dunno, I just wish there was a bit more nonlinearity and exploration to this game in its latter half that the techbase levels had. In particular, climbing the Argent Tower was a highlight for me, that whole mission was great. It seems they just focused their energy on making some missions really good and then some just doing the bare minimum to fulfill what they thought gamers would want.
Understandably so, as well (after Doom 3's rickety reception). Overall, I don't feel too strongly about this game but I do think it is good and while I would much rather play custom Doom WADs from the modding community of the 90s games, this is a good option for those looking to get their feet wet in more "boomer shooter" type FPS games, with a AAA budget and not really demanding specs. 4/5, probably closer to a 3.5 but the missions that REALLY work in this game just REALLY work for me, so I'd feel bad giving it that outright. Beaten on 4/8/23 on one of the easier difficulties to save myself some time, and it still took a while due to gaming burnout.
BEATEN
I remain mostly the same on all of my opinions about this game. Starts off strong, leaves a good impression, peaks around the VEGA mission and trails off from there with a weak ending and final boss. But, the hell levels in the OG Doom were never that good, at least they're more than playable here. I dunno, I just wish there was a bit more nonlinearity and exploration to this game in its latter half that the techbase levels had. In particular, climbing the Argent Tower was a highlight for me, that whole mission was great. It seems they just focused their energy on making some missions really good and then some just doing the bare minimum to fulfill what they thought gamers would want.
Understandably so, as well (after Doom 3's rickety reception). Overall, I don't feel too strongly about this game but I do think it is good and while I would much rather play custom Doom WADs from the modding community of the 90s games, this is a good option for those looking to get their feet wet in more "boomer shooter" type FPS games, with a AAA budget and not really demanding specs. 4/5, probably closer to a 3.5 but the missions that REALLY work in this game just REALLY work for me, so I'd feel bad giving it that outright. Beaten on 4/8/23 on one of the easier difficulties to save myself some time, and it still took a while due to gaming burnout.
BEATEN