Doom Eternal

[one-armed dwarf]

I played 30 minutes of it. It asks you to create a bethesda account before even being able to play which is really annoying but you can get around by setting steam to offline.

 

Anyway it seems good. Kind of more focused on just murder arenas from the look of things. But I'm totally ok with a game like that.

 

You can turn HUD off but it's hard to play. The HUD is a bit much tbh, I need to spend some time figuring out what parts I can turn off.

 

 

Playing on ultra violent

[AndyKurosaki]

Reached level 3 so far. Really enjoying it. It certainly feels tense, when you’re strafing round enemies, deciding which weapon to use, trying to recover health/ammo.

 

Some of the platforming bits have taken a little figuring out for me. But that doesn’t detract from this being fun to play.

[DANGERMAN]

I only played half an hour or so last night. I'm using the Bethesda launcher so that's moot for me, I want the Doot skin, need to work out where that is ?

 

I'm playing it on 2nd highest difficultly, I keep being told the point is to be close to death all the time, and you're certainly are that, it's like COD multiplayer in how quickly you go down. I appreciate you're encouraged to use the chainsaw to get ammo back but I do wish your capacity was a bit larger 

[one-armed dwarf]

If that is the point then I wonder if you can turn off the red screen near death effect. Would be nice.

 

Also the 'low ammo' indicator. There's a little too much HUD. Lots of setting tho so there's bound to be one that makes it all nice looking.

[AndyKurosaki]

The DOOT skin unlocked for me this morning. It wasn’t there yesterday, but once I started it up today, it unlocked amongst the other pre-order stuff, and stuff unlocked for playing Doom 1 and 2. It’s in the Extras menu right when you load the game up.

 

Reached Mission 4. I’m certainly enjoying the combat, it’s getting quite chaotic now, especially with more guns to play with.

 

I’m not massively keen on the platforming sections to be honest. It can be a bit janky at times. You’ll be dash-jumping over chasms, then press R3 to grab onto a ledge. Yet sometimes you’ll grab on without needing to press R3. There’s been a couple of occasions I’ve had to consult a guide, in a real “Ok, where the fuck am I meant to go” moment.

 

Still, it’s fun. I’m liking how some of the music is a callback to the original Doom’s.

[one-armed dwarf]

Maf said doom 2016 was easy. I want to see him play this shit on a hard difficulty.

 

Ok, early days. But I really like this. It feels much better and more clever about its systems than 2016. Lets see how things go.

 

Ok, this game has me seriously considering if 60fps is even fast enough for a game like this. I wish I had a high framerate monitor

[one-armed dwarf]

So I don't know. I wonder how others feel, but I feel like the great bits in this are spoiled by the shit bits. I'm really enjoying the combat but the whole 'you are supposed to be low health' all the time gameplay that dangerman mentions really gets messed up by the red screen effect. You're in hell, everything is red. It's the same issue I had with Control where I can't really see very well what's happening.

 

But the shooting is really good. What they've done here is giving you a sort of rotation based off your different cooldowns. Doom 2016 sort of had it but it's much more emphasised here. Arguably you're being funnelled into using all your different weapons and abilities all the time so it can be a little more linear than 2016. But it feels more balanced and in a good way.

 

The platforming sections, which I just got done doing one. I hate them. They make the game bad, there's no other way to describe it. I'm also sort of skipping cutscenes and almost treating this as a DMC game or something where I try to get to the fights as fast as I can, cause the stuff around the fights is kind of terrible.

 

But the fighting is quite good.

[AndyKurosaki]

Yeah, the platforming bits really can fuck off. I’m glad they’re brief, because they’re awful. So many times, I’ve seen what I’m meant to do. Only for the game to go “Nope”, leading to me falling into a chasm. Sure, you don’t lose much health. But it’s still a total ball-ache. I just did one section, where a single mistake meant doing the entire thing all over again. Took me a good 5 minutes, and by the end of it, my reaction was “Thank fuck that’s over with”.

 

They’re just not fun. At all. Mercifully the actual combat is brilliant. Still, it does mean I’m missing a few secrets each level. But I just can’t be arsed with the platforming.

[one-armed dwarf]

Getting my sea legs now with the combat. Definitely more mobile than 2016

 

 

One thing I find is everything is so resource constrained. Reminds me of playing Scholar in FFXIV, you have to use everything correctly at the right time. I did not use chainsaw here and had low ammo the whole time. 

 

It's sort of prescriptive. Apparently this loosens up later on

[AndyKurosaki]

Nearing the endgame now. For the most part, I’ve enjoyed it. The platform sections remain awful, but thankfully they’re brief for the most part. There’s also underwater sections, though it’s toxic waste rather than water, leading to rapid health drain. Again, these bits are mercifully short.

 

Two of the enemies consistently kick my arse, and rip through my health and armour in seconds. One of them isn’t too bad, until you’re getting ganked by other enemies.

 

The other one, and I won’t spoil what it is, is an absolute cunt. You meet it at the halfway point as a boss. And then towards of the game it crops up as a regular enemy occasionally. And I absolutely, utterly hate it. It has an energy shield that blocks all your attacks. The Codex hints for you to “wait til it flashes green, then attack”. Yeah, two problems with that. 1: it’s attacks send you flying. 2: It constantly summons an attack Wolf, which also sends you flying. And it’s completely immune to the most powerful weapon in your arsenal.

When you’ve got one of those, while being ganked by other enemies, not only will you lose health at an alarming rate, you’ll probably even lose a few Extra Lives in the process.

 

As for fighting one of them on a higher difficulty? Nah. Nope nope nope.

[Maf]

I haven’t played it but I’m a bit dubious about enemies having weak points. It’s like the DMC reboot where you can only hit enemies with certain attacks and limits what you can do. Obviously this is a soft limit because you can still shoot things to death, but it seems like the game is very much saying do this in this specific way.

 

Doom 2016 was a bit easy because you just constantly use whatever you got on anything you want so it was a bit too easy because strategy wasn’t required. In theory it looks like this game has gone to far in the other direction where there is a strategy but the strategy is spelled out for you and if you diversify you make things harder for yourself.

 

Is my hands off examination, I haven’t played it, just what it appears like.

[AndyKurosaki]

It’s not really had much of an impact for me. Sometimes it’s great to attack a weak point to give yourself some breathing space. But when you’re getting swamped by enemies, I’ve not really had the luxury of taking the time to focus on a weakspot. That just ends up in you getting battered.

[one-armed dwarf]

It's less like the DMC reboot and more like how in original DMC you can kill a ghost in one hit if you parry the scissors, or pop fireballs back with your sword.

[DANGERMAN]

I've been holding off posting because I'm really not sure what I think of this. I'm still very early based on what people have posted here, hard to say where I am but I've not got the super shotgun yet. I'm currently stuck on an arena fight, I've come very close to beating it a few times, but there's just a bit too much going on and you go down a bit too quickly. I'm playing on Nightmare, and, while I don't want to, I'm getting tempted to drop the difficulty down, at least for this fight. I suspect things get more manageable as you get more powerful, I can never tell what's charged and what isn't in the heat of battle, I suspect when things are charging quicker or you can hold more stock, this becomes less of a problem.

 

I don't like the keyboard layout either, I keep swapping weapons when I mean to use the grenade, so I've just switched those around, no idea how long that will take me to get used to.

And that's the crux of my problem I think, it's just too busy, too much to think about and manage, I don't think I play games at that frenetically anymore, I've gotten soft and games aren't this arcadey anymore. I might have to knock it down to normal, maybe Nightmare can wait for a 2nd playthrough or if Normal gets too easy 

[one-armed dwarf]

I'm on ultra violent and it's the hardest game I've played since Sekiro tbh.

 

But unlike Sekiro I enjoy this. They kind of trick you a bit here cause it doesn't ease you in like 2016. It basically acts like you literally played 2016 a few weeks ago (which I did, handily enough)

 

Combat is very busy though and for all the comparisons I've seen to dmc I think it's really just more like an MMO. In that clip I took I was playing 'wrong' by not using the chainsaw which the game heavily punishes you for. You have to use almost everything basically

 

Also I'm only on mission 4. I looked at how many levels there are, I think this game might be too long. 

[AndyKurosaki]

I’ve definitely had a few moments where I’ve thought my flamer/grenade/chainsaw is ready, run up to a demon to use it, only for it to be in cool down and unavailable. 
There’s definitely a lot going on, especially when each weapon has two mods, with varying levels of usefulness. The sticky bombs for the shotgun are great for setting up Cacodemons for a glory kill. And the meat hook on the Super Shotgun is so satisfying to use. Especially when it’s fully upgraded, as it sets demons on fire, which gives you much needed armour shards.

 

I’ll probably end up finishing the campaign tomorrow morning, then go looking for secrets I missed. I’m only one key off from getting the secret weapon stored in the hub.

[DisturbedSwan]

Started this yesterday and I really dig it so far. Just finished the 2nd mission.

 

Incredibly familiar to 2016 obviously but I think I prefer it already. The combat is improved with the additions of the dash, flame belch and ability to swing on bars, it just feels like you’re even more agile and powerful.

 

I think the biggest improvement for me has been the level design and environments though. 2016 relied a lot on colour coded keys and doors to stifle your progress and steer you through a level and so far there’s been hardly any of that here and instead you have some great little platforming sections. I’ve absolutely loved going around and finding all the secrets in the levels so far - I even replayed the 1st mission (something I hardly ever do) - which I was never that arsed about in 2016, it just seemed more hassle than it was worth in that game whereas here it’s a joy to try and navigate a tricky path to reach a trinket. It just adds something more to the levels and elevates them above the last game for me. 
 

I’ve only done two missions so far but already the environments have been phenomenal. The opening mission had an almost Gears-esque vibe to it with the Demons terraforming Earth and familiar Earth scenery like subway stations sinking into the burning depths of Hell. The second mission though was something completely different from what I ever expected from a Doom game, it was just such a refreshing change and something that completely blindsided me. Again much improved so far for me from the industrial Mars environs of the previous game, already this seems like it’s going to be much more varied and more of a visual feast.

 

There seems to be more story in this one as well. The first game had a surprisingly good story but it was easily ignorable and simplistic, this seems to have much more to it with full on cutscenes with different shady characters and from what I’ve gathered and seen so far it seems a much more personal journey for the Slayer with echoes of his origins throughout the second mission.
 

My only real criticisms so far are levelled at the different upgrade systems and points you accrue in the game. It just feels like you barely move and you get some kind of upgrade point or weapon point to spend or upgrade something or other, just feels kind of overwhelming at this early stage trying to remember everything you have to upgrade, customise and put points in to. The frenetic nature of the combat along with the new additions to the arsenal like the dash, flame belch etc. Have taken a bit of getting used to as well and, again, can be a bit overwhelming to remember in the heat of battle. 
 

The music is absolutely phenomenal as well. 2016’s soundtrack was legendary, it’s the same composer here and every bit as good. With the headphones on today hearing the heavy metal guitar notes combined with the death metal orchestral overtures whilst cutting through demons was absolute bliss.
 

So yeah, overall, I’m having an absolute blast with it. When the music kicks in and you’re jumping, dashing and weapon switching your way around a combat arena shooting and tearing demons there’s not much better out there, it’s just such a rush.

 

Spoiler

 

[AndyKurosaki]

Well. The second to last level is absolutely awful. Filled with extremely annoying platforming, I had to use a YouTube guide several times to figure out what you’re meant to be doing.

And the boss is just ridiculous. It at least tells you what to do to kill it. But actually managing it, is something else entirely. The constantly respawning enemies are a pain. The floor regularly fills with fire, so you have to keep constantly on the move. The boss has a shield bar, which regenerates if you don’t keep firing.  The arena is littered with platforms, which get in the way of the combat. The boss often uses an attack which sends you flying, and if you fall out of the arena, it will probably have fully recharged it’s shield. And it has multiple health bars, with no checkpoints whatsoever.

I died multiple times on normal. So I went down to Easy. And still died constantly. It eventually gave me Sentinel armour, which massively reduces damage. And with that, I was finally able to beat it.

 

I’ve no intention of ever doing that shit again. 
For all the fun this game has, I prefer Doom 2016. It’s much less frustrating, and there’s no utterly shit platforming in it.

[AndyKurosaki]

And that’s the campaign completed. The last boss was relatively simple, in comparison to the horrible boss that preceded it. Ammo was generous, and though it was a bit chaotic, it was at least fun. Something the aforementioned boss absolutely wasn’t, at all.

[one-armed dwarf]

I did one of these slayer gate things. First second or two has a mission objective on it, if ppl care about story spoilers (lol_

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

This was very relaxing and not stressful at all.

 

So I think I got chapter 6 done now, I'm much more positive on the game as I go on. Once you get fluent with its controls it feels very exciting. I found out you can use the shotgun hookshit in conjunction with slowdown and air control to basically swing yourself around and use every enemy as an anchor to get anywhere you want. On top of all the other movement options you have it makes you feel very powerful,

 

The platforming is still god awful but I notice it comes up less and less in the sections I'm doing now. Hopefully it stays like that.

 

Given how things are going in the wider world I expect this to rank high on my GOTY this year. Only FFVII can stand up to it