DOOM Eternal is a good shooter, with some incredible visuals, some solid gameplay, and satisfying sound design. Expanding on its predecessors, you go through the tried and true merry-go-round of shifting through your arsenal to take out waves of incoming demons, while trying to keep your head on. Level design is even more engaging than any DOOM game before it, with segments that feel like they're ripped out of a Zelda dungeon. Enemies are introduced that keep you from just holding left click and running around until they fall over. It's a frenetic, intense time, and I was engaged throughout its runtime.
If I were to think of issues I had with this game, it mostly boils down to some of the combat areas being a little too tight for my liking? On Ultra Violence, enemies litter the screen, and it is incredibly easy to get stuck while dancing around your foes. Some enemy waves feel a little poorly thought out. You really do only have so much chainsaw ammo, and though I think I got through encounters pretty smoothly overall, they just weren't fun to sit through, at times.
Being chased around by two Cyber-Mancubi and a Fireborne Baron at the same time, while trying to find a chance to saw an Imp for bullets and plasma, is one of the many moments that left me scratching my head. It does, at some point, feel like they're just throwing everything at you without a second thought. I think I would've rather the designers extend the number of waves with some of the last encounters, rather than bloat up singular waves. There are plenty of options within these scenarios to cheese it altogether, with both the BFG and the Crucible, but it just feels like lazy design when they are my only choice out of a situation. These are supposed to be Get-out-of-Jail-Free cards, after all.
I only argue this because ammo does feel like a finite resource, but unlike the original games, it doesn't really work, here. At the end of the day, the powerful weapons reserved for heavy hitters eat out ammo from your base weapons, so once you've taken out the big guys, you're going to have to go hunting for ammo, which I felt breaks the flow of combat. If you go about it vice versa, you won't have anyone to slice for ammo. I think even just increasing ammo reserves, or making ammo drop naturally from enemies, would've been enough to remedy this. I was playing on Ultra-Violence, so maybe this game feels a little more balanced on lower difficulties, but its definitely something I caught during my playthrough.
The less said about the story, the better. Of course, these games aren't really about the story, but the team clearly cared about it with this entry, and tried their best to flesh out the world. I think 2016 left a good basis within its critique of corporate greed, but this one gets a little too self-indulgent in the mythos of a great warrior, that will selflessly save humanity. In the original games, the Doom Marine was just a soldier who, unfortunately, got wrapped up in a bad situation, and is trying his best to get out of it. Since 2016, he's been painted more and more as this great hero who is dedicated to his people, yet in the moments where he interacts with others, he seems like the most vacant, cold individual imaginable.
Obviously, someone like him would hollow theirselves out to cope with everything going on, and I guess that's why I don't enjoy these sort of characters. Just own up to the fact that you're having your players play as an asshole, instead of hyping him up. I have no room in my heart for the Slayer. He's just a blood hungry man taking advantage of a bad situation to satisfy his penchant for violence. I wouldn't really be reading into this so much if the game wasn't regularly asking me to, but my whole time through Eternal, I felt like the game wanted me to feel some reverance for him.
There's also moments in here where the game tries to criticize things such as corporations co-opting the language of the marginalized to further their bottom line, and while its obviously a point well-made, I just don't see what's the point of having it in here. Much like the game Bioshock Infinite, it wants to critique our society, despite it not having the tact to do so in any meaningful way. id really should just leave this sort of thing for MachineGames, and put all its energy into making a stupid, pulpy, entertaining tale.
Complaints aside, I did enjoy my time with DOOM Eternal. It's gorgeous, it's engaging, and does iterate on its predecessor in fantastic ways. I just can't look the other way and say I loved everything about it. One last thing I do want to add is, its too long for its own good. 8 to 10 hours would've been perfect, but for me, it started to drag 3/4ths of the way in. I would recommend playing it on Hurt Me Plenty. You will probably end up having a better time with it.
If I were to think of issues I had with this game, it mostly boils down to some of the combat areas being a little too tight for my liking? On Ultra Violence, enemies litter the screen, and it is incredibly easy to get stuck while dancing around your foes. Some enemy waves feel a little poorly thought out. You really do only have so much chainsaw ammo, and though I think I got through encounters pretty smoothly overall, they just weren't fun to sit through, at times.
Being chased around by two Cyber-Mancubi and a Fireborne Baron at the same time, while trying to find a chance to saw an Imp for bullets and plasma, is one of the many moments that left me scratching my head. It does, at some point, feel like they're just throwing everything at you without a second thought. I think I would've rather the designers extend the number of waves with some of the last encounters, rather than bloat up singular waves. There are plenty of options within these scenarios to cheese it altogether, with both the BFG and the Crucible, but it just feels like lazy design when they are my only choice out of a situation. These are supposed to be Get-out-of-Jail-Free cards, after all.
I only argue this because ammo does feel like a finite resource, but unlike the original games, it doesn't really work, here. At the end of the day, the powerful weapons reserved for heavy hitters eat out ammo from your base weapons, so once you've taken out the big guys, you're going to have to go hunting for ammo, which I felt breaks the flow of combat. If you go about it vice versa, you won't have anyone to slice for ammo. I think even just increasing ammo reserves, or making ammo drop naturally from enemies, would've been enough to remedy this. I was playing on Ultra-Violence, so maybe this game feels a little more balanced on lower difficulties, but its definitely something I caught during my playthrough.
The less said about the story, the better. Of course, these games aren't really about the story, but the team clearly cared about it with this entry, and tried their best to flesh out the world. I think 2016 left a good basis within its critique of corporate greed, but this one gets a little too self-indulgent in the mythos of a great warrior, that will selflessly save humanity. In the original games, the Doom Marine was just a soldier who, unfortunately, got wrapped up in a bad situation, and is trying his best to get out of it. Since 2016, he's been painted more and more as this great hero who is dedicated to his people, yet in the moments where he interacts with others, he seems like the most vacant, cold individual imaginable.
Obviously, someone like him would hollow theirselves out to cope with everything going on, and I guess that's why I don't enjoy these sort of characters. Just own up to the fact that you're having your players play as an asshole, instead of hyping him up. I have no room in my heart for the Slayer. He's just a blood hungry man taking advantage of a bad situation to satisfy his penchant for violence. I wouldn't really be reading into this so much if the game wasn't regularly asking me to, but my whole time through Eternal, I felt like the game wanted me to feel some reverance for him.
There's also moments in here where the game tries to criticize things such as corporations co-opting the language of the marginalized to further their bottom line, and while its obviously a point well-made, I just don't see what's the point of having it in here. Much like the game Bioshock Infinite, it wants to critique our society, despite it not having the tact to do so in any meaningful way. id really should just leave this sort of thing for MachineGames, and put all its energy into making a stupid, pulpy, entertaining tale.
Complaints aside, I did enjoy my time with DOOM Eternal. It's gorgeous, it's engaging, and does iterate on its predecessor in fantastic ways. I just can't look the other way and say I loved everything about it. One last thing I do want to add is, its too long for its own good. 8 to 10 hours would've been perfect, but for me, it started to drag 3/4ths of the way in. I would recommend playing it on Hurt Me Plenty. You will probably end up having a better time with it.