Ripping and Tearing - DOOM 2016 Mini Review

Developer: id Software | Platform: PS4 | Playtime: 10:40*

In what will become an annoyingly reoccurring introduction this year, I originally tried DOOM 2O16 back in March of 2017 but dropped it after 1 level as I wasn’t feeling it. Now, 8 years nearly to the day I decided to go back to it thanks to the upcoming sequel, The Dark Ages. What I got was solid shooting goodness bolstered by solid level design but let down by vague storytelling attempts.

So the game starts with the Doom Slayer awakening on Mars after an untold length of time to see that Demons have invaded a UAC base on Mars so he gets up, grabs some weapons and does what he does. As I mentioned the story isn’t much cop but the game doesn’t really care much about it anyways (Which does make the bits where it does try - final boss and cliffhanger ending ring a little hollow as a result). The rest of the lore and info dumping comes from data pads that can be found around the place, the couple I read were fine and it’s nice that it’s there for people who want them (Turns out there’s fairly extensive DOOM lore which I didn’t know)

The game is split over about 12 levels mixed over Mars and Hell, each of them a fairly big with Levels feel just right with plenty of opportunity for exploring for secrets and kiting during the many fights. I will say the game is perhaps 1 or 2 levels too long with some levels could be shortened or others condensed into single stages. Given that each stage is solely based on combat (naturally), no matter how good the gunplay (of which is very good), the game does feel a little overlong and dare I say repetitive. Thankfully the game counterbalances this with some Good, Arcadey fun – the game tracks your enemy kill count, each level offers a range of challenges to complete in addition to each weapon having a mastery challenges associated with it. My personal favourite thing is the Rune Trials – there’s one or two in each level and they transport you to an arena or other level type, give you one gun and ask you to complete a certain requirement to get an equippable buff. These are really fun and I would have taken two or three of these per level if I could.

The game also offers Multiplayer and Snapmaps – a level creation tool. I only did a little bit of each for the associated trophies but I wager they’d have been quite fun back in the day, especially the Snapmap feature – it didn’t seem very worthwhile diving into it now though. Multiplayer is different in Eternal and doesn’t exist in The Dark Ages so again, just did the bit I needed and moved on.

This would have been a Platinum run as I did get all the collectibles and stuff, unfortunately the one Rune Trial I had missed during my playthrough glitched out upon a chapter replay (a known issue) which meant I had to do a full run again. After the first two runs (One for the main playthrough, one going back for collectibles), I had my fill. I’ll go back to it at some point or another.

If you ever needed a game that did what it said on the tin, it’s DOOM. No frills, just the philosophy of the classic game in nicer graphics and with smoother gameplay. It’s not going to be for everybody but certain people are going to like it very much.