In a tale as old as time, on my path to playing Doom: The Dark Ages (that is now out on Xbox Gamepass), I decided to play through the previous newer Doom games. Returning to Doom 2016 was a complete blast, that game just seems to get better with each subsequent playthrough. Doom Eternal is a different beast altogether. I brought this on day one, super excited to play. The game just didn't click with me, despite some amazing levels, I eventually crawled my way to the last third of the game and promptly gave up. Now, some five years later I have returned, deciding to play the game on easy mode so that I could finally finish this particular fight. In a film-less week, the two DLCs will be making up my other reviews.
This picks up fourteen years after the end of Doom, with no explanation whatsoever, Doom Slayer is now on a space station orbiting Earth (he was last seen fourteen years previously being teleported away to an unknown location), an Earth that is under supreme demonic assault due to the UAC (Union Aerospace Corporation) becoming completely corrupted by Hell. Dr. Samuel Hayden (a powerful robot with a human brain) had led a resistance, but had been defeated, so now the Earth is at the mercy of the legions of Hell, and the three Hell Priests leading the invasion. Your goal is to head to Earth and kill these three Hell Priests, with it hoped that will lead the invasion to collapse. Unfortunately, it appears that the demons have teamed up with an alien race named the Maykr, and the leader of this race; the Kahn Maykr is determined to stop Doom Slayer completing his task.
I have mixed feelings about this game. When it is firing on all cylinders there is nothing quite like it. There are a load of fantastic levels here. In the first game, the levels took place either on the Mars UAC facility or in Hell, with the former being much more fun to play through. This time around, the levels are either set on Earth (channelling the spirit of Doom II), or in various other planets. You have several set on the Sentinel (the alien race who helped Doom Slayer after the events of Doom 64) home world of Argent D'Nur for instance. These take place on sprawling maps which is basic Roman architecture turned up to eleven. These levels just were not as fun as the more logically designed Earth levels. The absolute highlight of Doom Eternal were the levels set on Earth, from an artic cultist base, to the epicentre of the demonic invasion in the middle of a huge city, these were all amazing. I also loved the detour that takes you briefly back to Mars, again, some lovely designed levels. In between most levels you return to a hub area set on the space station. I enjoyed this break in pace, even if there isn't really that much to do on the station, other than use energy cells hidden in levels to unlock power-ups.
A weird new addition to the series is the introduction of platforming sections. Doom Slayer is inexplicably now able to swing on poles and clamber up rock walls, throw in the return of a double jump, and the ability to dash forward twice in mid-air and you have a much more dynamic protagonist. These sections were fine, but they felt out of place (having now started playing Doom: The Dark Ages I can confirm there are mild platforming sections in this prequel).
Combat is the main focus of this sequel, and spices things up by having different enemies be weak to different weapon types. A lot of the enemies from Doom return, albeit with new looks and abilities, and a lot of new enemy types are introduced, many being ones that had appeared in Doom II. Mech spider creatures for instance fire missiles, but their launcher can be destroyed by rockets. The magma monster is suspectable to gatling gun fire, while the returning BFG can lay waste to multiple enemies at once. There are four key powers on a recharge meter that are essential to get the most out of the game. A flamethrower causes enemies to drop armour pieces, a chainsaw can be used on weaker enemies to create ammo pick-ups, a super punch can instantly kill weaker enemies or massively damage larger ones, while both ice grenades and normal grenades can be fired. All enemies can be stunned, which allows you to perform a gory execution kill for health. Being required to constantly change up your weapons depending on the enemy type, as well as having to constantly manage your ammo and armour might not appeal to everyone. That was actually me included, but by the end of the DLC missions I had started to finally appreciate this aspect.
Levels are full of secrets to collect, and grant points of various types that be used to upgrade weapons (each of which has two different special functions), or to upgrade your character, such as being able to see secrets on the maps, and increasing the damage of your grenades. The levels are mainly split into adventure sections and battle arenas. Unfortunately, the last third of the game is pure combat. The final four levels are all intensely combat heavy, as a result I got quite bored with this final section of the game. I understand one or maybe two levels like this to finish on (the manic final boss fight brought to mind a feeling of the similarly manic final boss in Doom II), but four in a row was a real test of endurance. The levels also get worse as they go on, the very final one gave an intense feeling of playing an Xbox 360 game, and not in a good way. The level design got more and more dull, almost as if the creators were running out of time to get the game finished.
Doom Eternal has some levels that match or even surpass some of those found in Doom. It also has its fair share of more bland ones, especially towards the end of the game. I loved the lore given here, I was delighted to discover Doom Slayer is meant to be the same character from the original games, and the drip-fed backstory as to what happened in the character's past was both awesome and fascinating. It was however, also weird how so little of what happened in-between games is explained, leading to lots of confusion. I had a tremendous amount of fun playing this, but I also had a less entertaining time than the first time around. Level design really suffers at times thanks to the unneeded inclusion of the gymnastic sections, and those parts really do not feel like Doom at all. Great story (for a mindless shooter at least), it looks and sounds fantastic, and the gameplay is solid. I wish that sometimes more care had been given to the level design, and that the final third had been improved upon.
SCORE:
No comments:
Post a Comment