FPS games are not usually my cup of tea, but DOOM?
I was *HYPED* about this.
Come on, it's ****ing DOOM. If you were a gamer in the 90s and were not hyped about the remake, you might want to check if you still have a pulse.
Unfortunately, like most modern day AAA titles, the game just does not live up to the hype.

Bethesda decided to use the multiplayer portion to give us our first impression of the new DOOM. Either they had no idea it was so bad, or they thought it was representative of the game... and I really don't know which is worse.

This game is clearly supposed to sell teenage gamers the idea of an experience similar to what their parents or older siblings played in the 90s, in an arena shooter format similar to Quake 3 (you can't really spell "ID Software" and "arena-style combat" without bringing up Q3 as one of the genre). Unfortunately, for someone like me, who grew up with those games, this game feels like none of them - it's just a forgettable generic modern shooter #3579 in a superficial Doom skin.


1. Player movement is slow and plodding. Doom was fast. Quake was fast. Quake 3 was fast. Take their demos (I did just to make sure it's not my memories playing tricks on me) and see how movement speeds feel there: snappy, responsive, fast like a freight train full of murder fueled by raw adrenaline. Compared to them, this game is simply sluggish like a doped up sloth in a tar pit.

2. The classic arena shooters were built with the idea that weapons were powerups as one of their core concepts - basically, every weapon was supposed to be what this game now defines as "power weapons", and knowing where your prefered weapons spawn on a given map was crucial to the gameplay. This is gone here - you start with two weapons you can freely choose, and the only ones that can be picked up are "power weapons" that appear from limited spawn points (from what I've seen there's only one or two of those per map - campers ahoy!).

3. Weapons feel WEAK. Due to the loadout system, they had to be balanced against each other - yeah, that means the shotgun, machine gun, plasma rifle and rocket launcher had to be made pretty much interchangeable, and actually pretty wimpy. I'm sorry, but when someone gets a direct hit from a bloody rocket launcher, they should die in a shower of gory bits, not tank several more missiles before going down. The "power weapons" are the only exception, but you spend 90% of the gameplay without one.

4. There's no rush to the gameplay, none of the speed and aggressiveness that characterized Doom, Quake or the seminal arena shooters. Those games were non-stop orgies of mayhem fueled by raw adrenaline, pausing - briefly - only when someone else fragged you - and it was glorious. This game simply feels slow and boring in comparison.

FPS games are not usually my cup of tea, but DOOM? I was *HYPED* about this. Come on, it's ****ing DOOM. If you were a gamer in the 90s and were not hyped about the remake, you might want to check if you still have a pulse. Unfortunately, like most modern day AAA titles, the game just does not live up to the hype. Bethesda decided to use the multiplayer portion to give us our first impression of the new DOOM. Either they had no idea it was so bad, or they thought it was representative of the game... and I really don't know which is worse. This game is clearly supposed to sell teenage gamers the [i]idea[/i] of an experience similar to what their parents or older siblings played in the 90s, in an arena shooter format similar to Quake 3 (you can't really spell "ID Software" and "arena-style combat" without bringing up Q3 as one of the genre). Unfortunately, for someone like me, who grew up with those games, this game feels like none of them - it's just a forgettable generic modern shooter #3579 in a superficial Doom skin. 1. Player movement is slow and plodding. Doom was fast. Quake was fast. Quake 3 was fast. Take their demos (I did just to make sure it's not my memories playing tricks on me) and see how movement speeds feel there: snappy, responsive, fast like a freight train full of murder fueled by raw adrenaline. Compared to them, this game is simply [i]sluggish[/i] like a doped up sloth in a tar pit. 2. The classic arena shooters were built with the idea that [i]weapons were powerups[/i] as one of their core concepts - basically, [i]every[/i] weapon was supposed to be what this game now defines as "power weapons", and knowing where your prefered weapons spawn on a given map was crucial to the gameplay. This is gone here - you start with two weapons you can freely choose, and the only ones that can be picked up are "power weapons" that appear from limited spawn points (from what I've seen there's only one or two of those per map - campers ahoy!). 3. Weapons feel WEAK. Due to the loadout system, they had to be balanced against each other - yeah, that means the shotgun, machine gun, plasma rifle and rocket launcher had to be made pretty much interchangeable, and actually pretty wimpy. I'm sorry, but when someone gets a direct hit from a bloody rocket launcher, they should die in a shower of gory bits, not tank several more missiles before going down. The "power weapons" are the only exception, but you spend 90% of the gameplay without one. 4. There's no [i]rush[/i] to the gameplay, none of the speed and aggressiveness that characterized Doom, Quake or the seminal arena shooters. Those games were non-stop orgies of mayhem fueled by raw adrenaline, pausing - briefly - only when someone else fragged you - and it was [b]glorious[/b]. This game simply feels slow and boring in comparison.