Just as good as the first one!

Doom Eternal is a sequel to Doom 2016 and follows from the events of the Mars demon invasion to an invasion of earth and Doom guy is back to stop them. Unlike most of my reviews this is not a full review of the game and it’s more of a review of just the campaign. I didn't get a chance to play the multi-player, forge mode or any other game mode this time around so I can't speak for those. I also did not play the different difficulties this time around because i have such a huge backlog of games to play currently and not enough time but i will definitely come back and update this review when i do.

Gameplay: Just like all other entries Doom Eternal is a first-person shooter action-adventure game with some horror elements. You play as the Doom Slayer and use a wide variety of over-the-top guns and weapons to kill Demons and stop their invasion of earth. The gameplay is very similar to the first one with some key differences. In the first game you had ammo drops from enemies and crates with ammo and an infinite pistol with a gun bash melee. The chainsaw weapon was used as an instant kill with the required fuel. This time you can use the chainsaw freely but have to wait for a cool down or find gas and some enemies are ‘chainsawable’ and others you need a full tank to kill them. Instead of getting an ammo drop you or crates you get ammo from the chainsaw and flame thrower. The gun butt and infinite pistol has been replaced with a punch mechanic that when powered up can one hit most enemies or do serious damage. These changes are cool, but they don't really improve the game to me personally because I found myself having ammo problems way more often in this game especially at the beginning which made this game a lot harder in the first half and not as bad in the second half which feels a bit unbalanced. Most of the weapons worked the same way and although most of them are different they all sort of play the same role but with different mods and upgrades. There is a shit load of new enemies in this game and plenty of enemies return but with some buffs and nerfs to their kits. For example, the mancubus enemies are crazy stronger this time around but the pinky armored charger isn't as bad as the previous game. Aside from the difficulty changes and the way the player picks up ammo, most of the combat is the same with a little more refinement. You still have praetor suit upgrades, runes, and weapon mods but with different ways of getting them along with different collectibles. The challenge levels are gone this time around (thank God) and replaced with something called secret encounters where you are required to kill a certain number of enemies in a time limit. I still kinda hate these as most of them are just a test of skill but if you don't have enough ammo or fail and lose ammo you don't get the ammo back and some of them you are definitely required to have the BFG or Unmaykr in order to finish them in time which is a bit ridiculous to me. I was able to beat them all on my first run through but some of them I was stuck on for a long time. Speaking of the Unmaykr They also added in Slayer gates and completing them all unlocks the Unmaykr and those challenge levels I actually found pretty fun to do so getting the Unmaykr is definitely a long haul I recommend using YouTube for, but the payoff is awesome and it’s really an amazing gun. The movement in this game has also been vastly improved. They added a dash, climbing and poll swinging along with swimming and because of this we got A LOT of platforming segments to this game, most of which weren't terrible but some of them came off as just annoying and a bit weird for a Doom game. I feel like most people play Doom to kill Demons and not platform but at the same time I like it because it added in this weird Mario style level design with floating platforms, random fireball canons and random rotating fire sticks. A lot of this feels out of place because the previous game didn't really have anything like this and feels like it was trying to remake Doom to be realistic where this game is trying to make Doom feel more like a video game. It's definitely inconsistent and at the time I almost wondered if these games were even connected especially with how the story started but I also liked it and found it to have a fun nostalgic feeling to it. Glitch wise this game wasn't too bad but I did run into a few crashes early on and at one point I had to restart a level a few times because the game wouldn't continue at certain points, which sucked ass. Hopefully they fix that because that mixed with the difficulty and lack of ammo at the beginning of the game really had me not having a great time and I only really started enjoying it when I got further in. Also i found the boss fights were a lot easier this time around which i guess is a good thing?.. and the sword weapon is a lot of fun to use but i feel like you don't get to truly have fun with it until the final boss of the game.

Graphics, music and voice acting: Like the last game the graphics are fantastic and very similar to the previous entry but this time the games art style, level design and scenery blew my f***ing mind!! Absolutely fantastic level design!! Haven't seen cool scenery like this in a game in a long time. I often found myself looking out at the horizon just amazed with the creative talent behind this game’s design. The music is another area that is somehow even more amazing than the first game. I think the song "the only thing they fear is you" will probably go down in gaming history as one of the best video game soundtrack pieces ever made or at least it should, I only wish it was used more in the game then it was. The voice acting in this game is pretty good, all the characters sound pretty decent. The only thing I wasn’t a huge fan of was when they made Doom guy talk in this game. I get it was to explain his back story and I'm one of those people who doesn't like silent protagonist but for Doom it makes sense he doesn't speak and idk it just threw me off when he did.

Story/ minor to no spoilers: like I mentioned this game takes place sometime after the events of Doom 2016 where doom guy is sent away and now he's back on this cool interdimensional ancient space ship castle thing you use as a hub area to unlock stuff between each mission. Doom guy basically goes around killing hell priests on earth to stop the hell invasion. There is a lot of lore build up in this game where the last one didn't really have crazy amounts of story. I won't get into too many details because I actually found the story a bit interesting but still nothing groundbreaking. Unless you are a Doom connoisseur you will probably be lost as to what was going on in this game and since I never played the originals, I was a bit lost with Doom 2016 and this game but after some YouTube it made more sense. The annoying thing about this game is that it seems to imply the old Doom games are canon to this one somehow even though a lot of this game is a repeat of what happened in Doom 2. I always assumed this was a reboot since 2016, but it seems this company is pulling the same shit they did with Wolfenstein here. In the Wolfenstein reboots the old games are also kinda canon but also not and it looks like Doom is no different. Looks like I'll probably go back and play the originals at some point, but you definitely don't have to play any of the other games to play this one, maybe 2016 first and I absolutely recommend that one.

Overall, the story, gameplay, soundtrack and level design of this game is pretty solid. I kinda hope they reinvent the ammo drop system again because the beginning of the game was brutal but aside from the difficulty increase it caused, I really enjoyed most of this game just like the first. I can't tell if this game or the 2016 one is harder. I guess they both are hard in their own way and I probably have elements I prefer in both of them but I can say they both have excellent quality.
8.5/10

Fun new features and gameplay

Digdug 2 is a top down action adventure arcade game published in 1985. I played both the arcade and NES versions of this game.

Basically much like the first one you want to kill all enemies which are either the dragons or the red monkey enemies like last time and much like before they behave the same way. This time the game takes place on island mazes and you can use a jack hammer to break the island in pieces and sink it into the ocean and kill the enemies or use the classic pump harpoon gun thing and blow up the enemies and just like the last game the enemies sometimes try to escape and jump into the water so that's another thing to watch out for. Now personally I actually really like DigDug 2. I put a lot of time into it and had a lot of fun progressing pretty far into the levels. I know for a lot of people the first ones better and I do agree. Theres just something really special about the original but I also highly recommend 2 because it is a blaste!

9/10

Probably my all-time favorite classic arcade game

Dig Dug was one of those arcade games I can’t resist playing if I am at an arcade. Like most of these classic arcade games I first played it on a plug and play in the early 2000s and immediately got hooked. For those of you who have never played basically this is kinda like a side scrolling maze arcade game where you play as a protagonist with a harpoon gun who digs tunnels into the ground and creates mazes. A fun and unique concept where the player creates the map essentially to eliminate the enemies. The enemies consist of Dragons and these monkey looking things called Pookas. The harpoon gun thing inflates the enemies into ballons, and they burst and the only other way to kill enemies is by strategically crushing them with rocks by dinging under them at the right time. The objective is to kill all of the enemies and the enemies usually become solid in tunnels but can also turn into ghosts and fly though the ground. The last few enemies usually try to escape the stage and whether they do or not the next stage is loaded. That’s basically the gameplay loop for DigDug its simple but feels very unique for its time compared to a lot of the other arcade games that existed. I believe this game is actually beatable and not infinite stages, but I’ve never seen most people get past the first 20 or so stages and I’m pretty sure there are a couple hundred so like most games from that time it gets really hard but out of a lot of the older arcades I actually can usually sweep through a decent number of stages. The music and FX of Dig Dug were always some of my favorite and graphically its nothing too incredible with the screen mostly just being dirt but its still a great classic game that’s pretty balanced and is all about strategically moving around the map and not getting yourself corned. I love old arcade games, but this is one I think I recommend the most because of its fun and unique nature.
10/10