The 2016 version of Doom is a game based on the idea of run around really fast and shoot things. A really good idea in my opinion. Using the words bloody hell and working from there, the developers have made a very fun demon slaughter game.

The combat is fast. That’s all there is to it, speed. The character moves fast, most of the guns shoot fast and you do melee attacks quickly. The speed makes the game crazy because a lot of the enemies are fast too, leading to the tense, adrenaline fuelled battles that the game constantly puts you in, plus there was the fast paced music which added to the intensity of the battles. There were even power-ups to grab which would make you move even faster, punch everything, invincible or even fill up your health.

There were also Rune Trials which were time trials, often based on combat where you had to skilfully dispatch a number of enemies or achieve a slightly different goal in a limited number of seconds. Rune Trials along with collectables are the main source of character progression in the game.

Don’t just think this is a thoughtless run and gun because the combat can be tough, overwhelming you with many different strong enemies at once. Every decision matters, from where you stand to which gun you use, it can all be the difference of life and death making it a strangely tactical strategy game.

There is also some first person platforming to be done as you scurry around putting bullets into the demonic horde. Climbing and double jumping are key to navigating your way through levels whether you’re heading straight for an objective or exploring in an attempt to gain all of the collectables that the developers have kindly scattered around the game for you.

Eventhough the game had me ploughing my way violently through the demonic horde the thing that I found weirdest about the game was that the plot made sense. Humanity couldn’t sustain it’s power usage so they turned to hell for an unlimited power source and things got out of hand so the main character was brought in to sort things out. I’m still amazed that they found something that was even slightly believable to give reason to fighting the beasts of hell.

Sadly there were bad things about the game like when I fell through the floor or fell of the map (my main cause of dying). There was the fact that it is a game for a player like me who loves it when chaos reigns and a player that likes to take their time probably won’t have the chance. For a few seconds near the end of the game I had framerate slow down. Then there’s the weird floaty things, big balls which eat your head and spit fireballs (I just personally hated those).

The last time I played a game that seemed to be all about fun, intense battles was Serious Sam on the PS2 which was years ago and it makes a nice change to see a game like that appear again. So because the game took me down memory lane, was a hell of a lot of fun, managed to always make me feel death was my fault rather than the unfairness of the game and left me shaking with adrenaline after the final boss fight by my rating method I can only call this game great, plus I have the added bonus of knowing there’re still things to do in the game when I return to it such as multiplayer, custom maps and getting all of the collectables.

 

The art that I’m using as the featured image was found on the achievements section of the Xbox website. I don’t think this is good artwork as it’s just a man in armour that without the word doom spread across the middle could easily be mistaken for masterchief from Halo. The gold background does make it stand out though.