Doom Eternal
Hell hath no fury like The Slayer with a BFG
The highly anticipated sequel to iD’s 2016 rework of popular franchise Doom, hit stores on March 20.
Long standing fans of both the series and FPS’ will be giggling with glee as they rip and tear their way through the hordes of hell’s ugliest creations, with a series of exponentially powerful weapons, mods and abilities.
It’s hard to talk about Doom Eternal without first mentioning, or paying homage rather, to Doom 16’. iD’s original rework of the much loved franchise was met with great applause from both critics and players alike. What made Doom so special was it’s no nonsense approach to making nothing more than a slick, polished shooter. There was painstaking detail to every combat action, whether chainsawing a demon in half or vaulting seamlessly between suspended platforms as you rain rockets on a demonic swarm below. It was fast paced, frenetic while still being stylish as hell.
The whole game is a performance, art in motion if you will, the gory caverns of hell being the canvas,, buckets of blood being your paint (and a BFG as your brush!), what brought it all together was Mick Gordon’s synthesised progressive metal, roaring in full effect with violence and hate in it’s throat as you battle relentlessly, ebbing away almost resentfully as you tear the head from the last surviving Lost Soul.
In many ways Doom Eternal stays true to it’s predecessor, but at times it tips the balance of frenetic, seat of your pants action to outright frantic self defecation.
Doom Eternal introduces a number of new gameplay mechanics, namely the Flame Belch and Icebomb, creating a somewhat strategic approach to combat. In order to successfully navigate some of Eternal’s harder encounters players must keep a watchful eye on their resources, specifically ammunition, health and armor, all of which can be depleted very quickly, even on normal difficulty. The flame belch is used to engulf enemies, who if subsequently damaged or killed, drop armor which can be picked up, similarly the icebomb can be used to freeze enemies in place, offering much need respite but also precious health drops. When this mechanic works, it feels fantastic, constantly fluctuating between feeling like an unstoppable killing machine when your reserves are well stocked to running like a headless chicken away from the encroaching hellswarm, desperately watching your health bar throb, praying you can roast a lost soul for some much needed armour.
However, when it doesn’t work, it can feel incredibly frustrating and detract somewhat from the natural flow of combat, at times you can find yourself so overwhelmed by enemies that you lose health and armour faster than you can pick it up and some of Eternal’s new environments can be rather claustrophobic at times, allowing the player scarce space to navigate around the more aggressive enemies who populate them, at other times you can find yourself against a lone opponent, with no resources to take them on, in these instances resorting to running aimlessly around the map until a Lost Soul (essentially walking ammo, health and armour pick ups) spawns so you can resume the fight.
Another notable addition to combat is the inclusion of “weaknesses” or “vulnerabilities”, some of the more powerful enemies you face will succumb easily either to specific weapon types or to taking damage in specific areas. The Arachnotron for example has a powerful, long range cannon, which if not dealt with swiftly, will spell certain, Doom? (Sorry) A well aimed sniper shot or grenade from the shotguns secondary fire will take this out rendering it almost useless. There are several enemies like this with similar weak spots and vulnerabilities, cycling through your weapons and mods to deal with them (you will often encounter more than one if not all of them in one skirmish) is an enjoyable challenge and incredibly satisfying when done successfully.
In Doom 16’ boss fights were a very welcome return to vintage first person shooters, having fought tooth and nail through hell’s armies you were rewarded with an even bigger challenge , in both size and weaponry, but the feeling of felling one of these uniquely foul beasts was unprecedented and inevitably remained as some of the games most memorable moments.
Boss fights in Eternal don’t quite have the same grandeur (bar the finale), new, more powerful enemies are introduced as you progress through the game, fitted with health bars that would suggest they are in fact the unique boss fight you had been waiting for, however after defeating them you quickly encounter them again in later levels, often woven in to larger scale skirmishes, diminishing their uniqueness somewhat.
Eternal also introduced a new traversal mechanic, players can now dash multiple times in mid air, as well as cling to and climb walls, swing from bars and even use the revamped Super Shotgun’s “Meat Hook” to rapidly pull yourself to unwitting demons.
This aspect is actually a really positive introduction for the most part, it adds new possibilities to combat, brings new levels of verticality to maps, which makes exploration more of a challenge in itself and ultimately more rewarding when you find one of Eternals rather ubiquitous secrets. It begins to fall down somewhat when you get to sections of the game where the challenge is entirely platform based, you’ll find yourself having to time jumps and dashes through rings of fire, rotating chains, of fire, falling platform, in to fiery lava, you get the point.
The most remarkable improvement from Doom 16’ is the level design and perhaps more significantly the variety of environments. Your tireless pursuit of demonic demise will see you traverse multi-story car parks and Skyscrapers on Earth, the innermost realms of hell and the birth place of the protagonist we recognise, Sentinel Prime, home of the Argent D’nur, a warrior race who recognised The Slayers blood lust and imbued him with the mythical power he now possess. The addition of a somewhat tangible story line combined with a litany of codex entires detailing The Slayers past trials and tribulations only fuels your murderous fire.
However, the biggest flaw by far is the introduction of 1Ups, these floating Slayer Helmets can be spotted fairly frequently across the various levels of Eternal and are rarely challenging to collect, they usually require travelling back on yourself to a previously unnoticed, higher platform. Once acquired players can be brought to 0 health without further consequence, you immediately respawn with a generous amount of resources to continue fighting, this feels like an unnecessary safety net to what is a hard, challenging, but ultimately rewarding game.
Creative director Hugo Martin likens it to a reward in an old-school Nintendo game, where extra lives are often presented to players as a way to encourage them to look off the beaten path.
“You have earned yourself a ‘get out of jail free card.’ I think that’s really satisfying. You’re able to get thrown right back into the action. Of course, it’s still a death. Doom is just a celebration of videogames. I am so proud that we can have a giant, hovering, green helmet that says ‘1-up’ on it going up on a gore pillar, and it doesn’t seem odd. It just fits in the game”
The sentiment of Doom being a celebration of video games, is admirable to say the least and in the most part true, but the partying becomes too much when it’s at a detriment to the overall experience.
It would be unfair to say that Doom Eternal is anything short of an excellent FPS, the gameplay, environments, story and soundtrack have all seen clear improvements from it’s predecessor, however, when you watch the credits roll it’s hard not to think it may have been 1 step forward and 2 steps back.
Final Verdict - 8/10
Quote source: PCGamesN