DOOM (2016)

DOOM (2016) doesn't try to mix in the horror genre like Doom 3. There are no pitch black areas or slow build-up. Instead it drops you right into action and delivers a straightforward demon killing experience.

With how little interest the protagonist, "Doom Slayer", shows to any plot the game has, I found it surprising that the game more than once traps you in a room to listen to an NPC to do plot exposition. I found the pauses in action unnecessary; they could've done the talking via radio or something. But once you are free to proceed, all is good again.

The id Tech 6 engine appears to be a noticeable improvement from the previous iteration. Initial load takes a while -- I'm guessing it's the mega textures and shader-building again taking their time (and maybe Denuvo doing its part too). But after that the game runs well and loads levels quickly. I didn't notice white texture pop up either.

A superb first person shooter

Doom plays fast and smooth. Ledge grabbing makes getting around easy and you even get double jump later on. Fighting happens mostly in arena-like spaces that give you room to maneuver. There are transition areas and corridors in between too so the game doesn't get repetitive. And there are many secrets to find if you feel like really exploring the levels.

You can execute stunned enemies in melee. People were initially worried these "glory kills" would break the pacing of the game. The truth turned out to be the opposite. Since glory kills give health, you can stay in the fight instead of fleeing to find a health pack. The glory kill prompt has quite a long range (especially so with an upgrade) and you have to be careful when using it from a different elevation than your target. You sometimes don't quite shift to the correct height and can clip through the ground after the animation finishes. I fell off the world twice over the game due to that. I also never quite figured out if you are invulnerable during the glory kill or not.

Another cool gameplay feature is the chainsaw. It's kind of an instant glory kill tool but requires fuel -- the more the bigger the demon you want to kill. The fuel is scarce but killing with the chainsaw drops a whole bunch of ammo for your guns. It's yet another thing that keeps you fighting instead of running away to scrounge for things.

I think enemies could make a little more noise. Too often a demon managed to sneak behind me completely silent. Neither did I like how accurate and unpredictable imp fireballs were. They can throw them on the go and somehow the projectile ends up on the path I just turned to.

The Cyberdemon and Hell Guards fights are well made. I liked how easy it was to immediately understand how their attacks worked and how to avoid them. The final boss was a disappointment after them, however. The fight felt messy.

Mick Gordon composed an aggressive metal soundtrack for the game. It fits perfectly. The music is at least somewhat dynamic too. I think the tracks consist of different parts they can jump to in response to gameplay. There might be some layering going on too. My favorite track on the soundtrack is probably BFG Division.

Guns sound and feel effective, though admittedly I played only on Normal difficulty (or whatever the game calls it). I don't know if enemies have more health on higher difficulties or do they just deal more damage. But even the heavy assault rifle remained effective till the end.

I switched to a reticle dot right at the start as I didn't want to play with a circle on the screen. After beating the game I learned that the default reticle would've shown secondary fire cooldowns for weapons. I guess that would have been useful.

Most weapons have more than one secondary fire option, and each of those usually has three upgrades. The upgrades are unlocked by completing various challenges. Your progress towards them persists through death and checkpoint reloads like in Wolfenstein: The New Order. You can also replay already completed levels to do things you missed and it counts towards the current playthrough.

There are also runes that give various bonuses while equipped. You can only have three active at once so you can kind of have different "loadouts" to play with. However, the runes can be upgraded via even more challenges and if you're going for 100% completion, you'll end up switching them all the time.

Grinding the many weapon and rune upgrade gets tedious. I considered replaying the campaign on a higher difficulty after finishing it, but then just didn't feel like it after having already done everything even if I really liked the game. It was a good 20+ hours of fun, though.