Doom Eternal

[DisturbedSwan]

People do care about spoilers thanks @one-armed dwarf

 

Don't be an ass, just spoiler tag if in any doubt please. For any game you're playing.

[one-armed dwarf]

Yes well I warned you because I am a nice doom slayer ?

[one-armed dwarf]

I think it's a great game which is constantly in an act of self sabotage with itself. I'm not far from the end, I think. But some of this back half makes me think they started with the middle to late game missions first and phoned in the early game. Like their single motivation was this extreme skill arena brawler FPS thing and they forgot how to pace the early game where it feels sort of bad (and unforgiving).

 

I would say that to anyone having a rough time of it at the beginning. But then I really like busy combat systems in games so maybe this is sort of what I'm wired to like anyway. But the game makes some really bad design decisions with some enemies later on where it feels like you're fighting a Dark Souls boss. Doom is a game about movement and momentum, not about pausing to read enemy tells and exploit openings. It's impossible to overstate how shit these bits feel once you've been swinging through the air like a bloodthirsty spiderman, when the intensity just gets suddenly replaced by something which feels like a turn based combat system in comparison. 

 

It's a really messy and annoying game that I love once it allows the good parts to shine. I will probably play more of this on a higher difficulty but I'm going to ignore the bad missions when I do.

[AndyKurosaki]

There’s one enemy in the game, and I’m pretty sure it’s the one that Dwarf is referring to, that is just totally unfair. Stand too close, and you get shotgunned. Too far away, and you get blasted by energy waves and a tiger summon. It tells you to “stay at a reasonable distance”. Ok, where is that exactly? And how, when I’m getting ganked by other enemies.

Every time I saw one of those enemies, I had the same reaction: “Oh for fucks sake”.

They are absolutely tedious to fight. And it sucks even more that the most powerful gun you have, does absolutely no damage to it at all.

[one-armed dwarf]

I slayed too hard.

 

 

Tho it is fitting that I break the game while using this particular weapon.

 

WRT your ammo issues Nag the trick is to use the chainsaw frequently. It can home in from a certain distance so it's also a nice get out of jail free. It has a 15 second cooldown too so it can be used all the time nearly.

[AndyKurosaki]

I had the same problem with the chainsaw. I never managed to get it to 3 bars to be able to kill the larger enemies. There’s just too much going on, so I’d chainsaw a zombie/imp and keep going with the ammo that gave me. Most areas have at least a few shotgun/rocket/plasma pickups, but not a lot. 
 

In the second to last boss fight that really pissed me off, the chainsaw is useless. Because the only respawning enemy that appears throughout the fight can’t be killed with just one bar of the chainsaw. You have to get a headshot to kill them, and regain some ammo. Unfortunately with everything getting thrown at you, that’s easier said than done.

[one-armed dwarf]

Just use the chainsaw to mop up weaker enemies. For the most part you are just supposed to shoot the bigger ones. If you're regularly sawing up the little shits you never seem to have major ammo issues.

 

What I usually do is use the chainsaw to get a breather in a fight, a few seconds to think, or to clear a path if I'm blocked by an imp or whatever

 

I think also avoiding damage is less about dodging the stuff that's moving at you than it is about just constantly moving in a non-straight direction, vertically and horizontally.

[DisturbedSwan]

I started out on Ultra Violence difficulty for the first two missions and didn't find it too hard going to be honest. I did struggle at times and had to replay some combat encounters but I persevered and managed to get through them.

 

From the 3rd mission on I dropped the difficulty to Normal though and it oddly seems harder? Perhaps because I was a little overconfident with it and thought it would be a breeze compared to UV but yeah, it's most definitely not. The game has introduced a couple new enemies like the Mancubus and Revenant now and all of them getting up in my grill on a regular basis are a right pain in the arse. I tend to only use the chainsaw when I run out of ammo with all my other guns, the rest of the time I kind of forget its there, it's only really useful on imps etc. anyway because I never have enough fuel in the fucker.

 

I probably won't get the chance to play it again until the weekend now, and last time I played it oddly made me motion sick and I was a bit dizzy in bed afterwards, so I'm a little hesitant to return to it in a way. 

 

It's bloody good fun though. Feels significantly tougher than the first game already - which I think I played through on Normal and didn't have too many issues with - but I'll persevere with it and 'git gud', I may even wack it up to UV again next time to see if that focuses me better and stops the overconfidence creeping in. It feels a bit too much like Banjo Kazooie at times for a Doom game but I'm still lapping it up at the moment. Still early days though.

[one-armed dwarf]

The difficulty for me peaked around missions 3 and 4, I think. Before I got more comfortable and had more tools. The missions after that are harder but you are also better at the game by then. Mission 6 is incredible fun.

 

I died a lot though, so I had lots of practice I guess. Some fights take me over an hour, which I'm ok with when the action is as good as this. But I am a moron who will play anything like this over and over if there's a good combat puzzle to figure out

[one-armed dwarf]

I'm struggling to get through this and basically turned it off last night and did something else. The only thing this game does well is combat, sadly. In every other aspect DOOM 2016 is a far better game.

 

An entire level swimming through spicy water, fuck off with this. It isn't endearing or interesting that you went so old school that you remade the shit parts of old Doom as well

[DisturbedSwan]

Took me 90 minutes to finish off Mission 3 last night. Holy shit these levels are long, I think that entire last mission must've taken me 3 hours to finish!

 

Started out by bumping it back up to Ultra Violence and had a blast. Now more weapons have unlocked its become more like a combat puzzle, it's just so damn satisfying. Each enemy seems to have a set weakness to a certain weapon so you're having to try to remember which is susceptible to which weapon in the heat of the moment - which can be difficult - along with that there was a tip screen that came out during the many (many) times I died that said chainsaw = ammo, flame belch = armour, glory kill = health and it just kind of clicked in my head that I wasn't doing any of these enough and I need to step it up. Managed to get most of the way through the level persevering with UV but after 7+ tries of the final encounter before you catch the train I turned it down to Normal. If I wasn't so time limited these days I would've stuck with UV as even though I was consistently getting my arse kicked I was having an absolute blast just replaying counters and trying to better my technique, the combat in this game is just so unbelievably good. 

 

This is a very different game to 2016 though. It dawned on me yesterday that this is essentially like DMC for FPS' with the different weapons being similar to the different styles you can use in that game to defeat different enemies. Every enemy in DMC is weak to a certain fighting style and in this every enemy is weak to a certain kind of weapon, it's finding the right weapon at the right time and staying on top of the encroaching enemies and staying alive whilst doing so that's the challenge here. And boy, is it a bloody fun challenge to try to get right, if time wasn't such an issue I could've just replayed that final encounter in Mission 3 to my hearts content last night tweaking my technique trying to get things right, it's just fucking insanely good. 

 

I played with headphones last night too and I definitely think that makes a difference compared to TV speakers. You feel so much more focused and the demons feel so much more on top of you than when you're just playing with TV speakers. 

 

This is definitely harder than 2016. I think this knows what it is so much more than 2016 as well, it has more of an identity (essentially being a Bayonetta/DMC style FPS) where the previous game - as great as it was - never seemed to really know what it was aside from having old-school Doom encounters. It mixed in bits of metroidvania and old school level design philosophies but was oddly paced and a bit of a mixed bag in every area aside from the combat.

 

I'm still liking the platforming a lot too and I've managed to get all the collectibles so far which is super satisfying. I think this has exceeded 2016 already for me.

[one-armed dwarf]

Hmm, I disagree that this has more of an identity. What I loved about DOOM 2016 is it was such a strong thesis statement of how to make something old feel new. How to take the style of old Doom and give it a new attitude that didn't feel retrograde. That intro is a top all time intro for me, a super strong statement of 'doom is back baby'.

 

I do think that DMC FPS is right tho, one tip I'm going to recommend to ppl to enjoy the game more is invest in 'Air Control' and the slowdown power up and use in conjunction with the shotgun's hook shot. What you get then is a grabby arm ability like Nero's/Dante's but which you can use to slingshot yourself around enemies and generate huge momentum to barrel across the map. It's much more than a distance closer that way and it has incredible utility. It's cooler than dash also as the dash doesn't generate momentum as such, it just shifts you ahead a few yards.

 

Other weapons have different movement properties too, which I'll allow ppl to figure out themselves. I just found that that Air Control is one a lot of ppl might miss out on which has huge gameplay benefits.

 

edit I might be mistaken about the 'generating momentum' bit maybe, either way it's huge fun to use

[Maf]

The No Clip documentary hurt this series because it was better than the game, I think. Listening to the developers talk is more hype than what they actually made.

[DisturbedSwan]

2 hours ago, Maf said:

The No Clip documentary hurt this series because it was better than the game, I think. Listening to the developers talk is more hype than what they actually made.

 

You've not played the game numbnuts ?

[Maf]

No, but I can tell. Everyone is saying the first game is better, the first game wasn’t as good as the documentary, food chain. I’m glad I got this with a £50 voucher.

[one-armed dwarf]

Maf your opinions and takes on just about everything are so shit that it never ceases to amaze, even if you are just taking the piss

[Maf]

And yours are always pretentious and overly anal. Sorry your game turned out bad ? 

[one-armed dwarf]

No, we're on a new page so lets pretend it never happened. 

 

What do people think of the soundtrack? Kind of forgettable to me so far compared with 2016

[AndyKurosaki]

Some of the tracks I’ve really enjoyed. 
 

Finished getting all the collectibles, and got all weapons to master level. I’ve certainly had fun with it.

 

Is Doom 2016 better? Yeah, as there’s no godawful platforming. Is this a disappointment? Most definitely not. 

[DisturbedSwan]

I love it @one-armed dwarf. It is fucking phenomenal.

 

I couldn’t exactly remember one track from 2016 but thought that was awesome too. Mick Gordon is an absolute legend.