Doom (2016) is a return to the nightmare that took our gaming hearts by storm. The graphics, the platforming, the power up collections, the collectible in hard to reach places and the enemies, my gosh the enemies are all here to give us this love letter to the original Doom. Let's talk about it, shall we?
I'll get into the review with minor spoilers below. If you already are loving the idea of a love letter to those who were all about the original Doom, support the blog by buying your copy here:
PS 4: http://amzn.to/1TkVdFU
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PC: http://amzn.to/1OBpd05
Graphics: Doom brings some major gore in some major ways. The graphics are amazing with their blood effects, the splatter patterns and the pure unadulterated violence that this game franchise is known for. There's some serious time put into the animations that your character goes through with each weapon he picks up. There's also a grand array of ways to slicing your foes in half with the chain saw which is just marvelous. Fucking marvelous!
The game takes the environments of Mars and breathes a little bit of life into it. While we don't get set pieces like Uncharted, we do enjoy a pretty intricate facility and some time on the surface of the planet as well. We are on Mars so the color tones are a little one sided. Lots of browns, reds and a mix of yellows and greens to form the path that the players take.
The enemies (which its Doom, this is kind of important) are extrordinarily well done. The animations they take are both threatening and creepy. They can inflict a large amount of damage in a short amount of time meaning even the earliest baddies can pack a punch if you're not careful. The designs and AI of the enemies are pretty good all in all. We're playing Doom, so we aren't going to take cover and we're not going to get flushed out. This game is about aggression. The enemies show it too.
There's also some great death scenes, a call out to Terminator 2, some really cute collectibles and when you start going in for kills that are up close and personal you really appreciate the time that the developer put into the animation. Graphics are pretty big here since this is the next gen, this is a reboot of Doom and in order to keep an audience engaged you need to offer them something to look at.
Like that, right above. I want my fucking arm back you son of a bitch!
Sound: Doom has a pretty great handle on ambient noises happening around you. You almost have some sort of humming, zapping, walking, growling and the facility is rarely quiet. The voice acting is done well enough. There's some life done in it, but there's nothing to write home about that. One of the things I do want to give Doom credit for is how they work in a sound track during the fights. Its a subtle change from the mechanical and demonic noises that happen around you and then gives you a foundation of generic rock to listen to while you're dealing out some major damage.
While the sound won't make this game a block buster, if it were missing you'd definitely notice.
Story: The story is an attempted reboot of Doom. So, we're getting this mix of Doom 3 with the general idea of what Doom was always eclipsing on. There's a technology that uses Hell for something. Then a lady decides fuck all I'm going to help demons invade this place and then she'd be a killer awesome demon. Just look at this lady (Yes its from a German game screen capture, best I could do on a quick search at the moment.)
She's going all sorts of demonic in that.
Look, its Doom, there's a little bit of a story that's basically pieced together to get you from one fight to another. That's that.
MultiPlayer/Replay Value: It exists but I'm not sure how long any gamer will spend playing Doom multiplayer. The world if vast and with so much to do, so much to play and the fact that Halo, Gears and CoD/BF all exist its hard to make an argument as to why people should stick around and play Doom multiplayer. One of the modes do let you play as demons, but there's not a lot of substance there. This is kind of a one and done game but the ability to hang out with your friends, jump into the game, pass off the controller and enjoy the moments of death is there. That's kind of hard to find now a days. Its weak in this area.
Related to Horror: So, you're here reading a horror blog, lets get to it Roy. Is it scary? Is it terribly frightening? Am I going to wet myself in fear? Well, no. Not really. Doom 3 was terrifying. Mostly because they used the elements of darkness and then setup a never ending jump scare. The blood is massive, the facility is a fun environment to run around and kill demons in but its not really scary. We have a lot of horror titles now a days and while Doom fringes into our territory with this addition to the library. It doesn't feel scary and there's no impending sense of I'm going to get fucked up. My score for this is based highly on this, so don't take it the wrong way at the end.
Final Score: Doom's reboot is like having a snack but still being hungry. Sure I can have a lot of gore but there's not a lot of fear involved in the game. Yes, we're dealing with hell. Yes the demons are all awful and terrible looking and want to gut us as fast as they can, but horror wise there's things that are missing. Its not from a lack of trying, there's plenty of moments that can be a bit of jump scaring, but it's just not fulfilling for my dark heart. With that said, its Doom, its fun, my gosh is it fun. There's tons of weapons, tons of enemies, the bosses are fucking killer, the environments are great to play in, the horror isn't there. 3 severed limbs out of a human.
Support of the Blog by buying your copy here:
PS 4: http://amzn.to/1TkVdFU
XB 1: http://amzn.to/1V7wMNA
PC: http://amzn.to/1OBpd05
Yea, I'm going to rip your fucking head off mate.
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