DooM: The Dark Ages

[Lenny Solidus]

https://insider-gaming.com/41814-2doom-the-dark-ages/

[Animalmother]

This looks like it's getting great scores across the board. I enjoyed Ethernal but I really started to struggle near the end and couldn't wait for it to finish. Really looking forward to giving it a go next week.

[Alan]

I’m interested but I’ve never been that into parry gameplay and I’m going to miss the mobility of Eternal a lot. I’m also in no fucking way paying 70 quid for it so maybe in a year

[Mantis]

It is going straight to Game Pass too if you're subbed to that.

[Lenny Solidus]

My one concern still comes down to how vague they all are being about just how well the game slots into an open world mould - with levels that take up to an hour to complete.

I'm just happy to see zero mention of having to do timed jump/mantle sections because that for me was a true low point in Eternal, I get that it was divisive......and some are happy to defend its inclusion, it wasn't Doom for me.

[Animalmother]

I've seen it mentioned thats it's a return to the open levels from the original games, complete the objectives as you please. The block and parry with the shield looks like it doesn't need split second reflexes to achieve, which is great as they are a distant memory for me.
Reinstalling it now, not too bad at 77GB.

[Animalmother]

Ok so this has me a tad worried. He loved the game but you can tell he feels jadded by the series now. The last half of the video is everything that didn't he like or was a slog to get through, and there was a lot.

Spoiler

The open world sections are too big and take ages to clear and they appear every 2nd level in a 22 level game. The mech and flying parts sounds like they get dull pretty quick. Weapons become redundant with the super shotgun kind of useless after a while. The story is a bit of a mess and he eventually stopped following it. Top that off with a punishing checkpoint system that has you replaying large sections if you die.

Still looking forward to it but with a bit more caution now.

[Sly Boots]

Just watched WaB's video on it where he was showing how the combat works, it's basically a colour-coded Simon Says game where you have three types of attack that you have to match to what an enemy is doing - green, purple or blue.

It looked garbage honestly.

[ManBearSquid]

I'm into it. Got it pre-installed for tomorrow for some demon slaying!

[Can't think of one]

Just watched WaB's video on it where he was showing how the combat works, it's basically a colour-coded Simon Says game where you have three types of attack that you have to match to what an enemy is doing - green, purple or blue.

It looked garbage honestly.

I just watched his video aswell, It does look rather boring

[Animalmother]

Was going to play it after work today but I'm just too tired and not all that bothered. My mate says it keeps crashing on his PC after the first level so he's given up for the time being.

[Raid]

This does not make a good first impression.

- Firstly, before booting the game, it told me to do a BIOS update to "protect my CPU from potential damage". What the hell is this game doing that could damage my hardware?
- The game has a sprint button. Why the hell would I want to not sprint in Doom? There's an auto-sprint option that you can toggle on, but it still insists on doing this stupid little *whoosh* effect every single time you start moving forward. I don't just mean if you release the W key, I mean if you strafe, then stop strafing, *whoosh*. You run through a vent that has little raised bits separating each section. *whoosh* *whoosh* *whoosh*
- Even when you are sprinting, it still feels really lethargic compared to the first two games, and there's neither a double jump nor a dodge (at least at the start), so you're left with slowly trying to strafe out of the way of projectiles.
- All projectiles seem to be human-sized objects that run along the ground - some of them actually look like it, but even the ones that don't seem to have a pretty big collision box. It doesn't feel right at all.
- The combat shotgun now feels utterly dull. It may as well be a pistol. There was a reason you just ditched the pistol entirely in Eternal, id. It does plenty of damage still, but the sound design doesn't match it and the game feels like it wants you to deal with things outside of what I'd normally consider shotgun range.
- The second main weapon it gives you, a machinegun thing, doesn't have any real impact.
- The third main weapon it gives you is just a plasma version of the machinegun, and it doesn't have any impact either. The weapon sounds and visual effects have absolutely no bite to them.

...and then there's the story. I'm finding this complete and utter fetishization of the Slayer really quite tedious now. It was fun in 2016, it was wearing a bit thin by the end of Eternal, and now it's just boring. We get it, the guy kills demons good, can we move on please? Oh, no, we need a cutscene where he's overpowering his... angelic tether. I'm going to take a guess it's because HE'S JUST SO ANGRY AND WANTS TO KILL ALL THE DEMONS.

Urgh, I know they had to do something different for this one, Eternal dragged on entirely too long and the concept was absolutely done to death, but what they've replaced it with just isn't fun, and I don't think it's particularly well designed or assembled. It does not feel like an id game.

[Mantis]

Pity. All they really needed to do was just do another version of the 2016 reboot with new enemy types and varied levels. The enormous swathe of mods and custom levels that were made semi official releases over the years just shows that all you really need is fresh content because the formula is rock solid.

I read John Romero's autobiography a while ago and it was pretty clear that the design ethos behind Doom was simply "what is cool as fuck" and they didn't take it seriously at all as they built on that. It does feel a little bit like the guys in the current team don't really get it.

[ManBearSquid]

I'll throw in an alternate take.

I wasn't sure at first, and I'm still getting used to the combat changes a few levels in, but it's clicking with me. They have entirely ditched double jumping and dodging - the latter still keeps catching me out - in favour of the shield for parries and dash-bash forward. I customised some options and I'm preferring it now compared to my initial thoughts, including turning of that sprinting effect that I also hated.

I'm really liking the levels and combat now that I'm finding more of a flow, and the weapons are starting to feel better as I upgrade them a bit - love my shotgun setting enemies ablaze. To me, it definitely has the weakest initial opening impression from the 3 games. Vibe wise, I do like that it's at times more akin to the 2016 game.

I also like that the 3 games are all quite different to each other. A large part is also that I'm enjoying the spectacle, and don't mind the hokey, fantasy sci-fi story they're dressing it up in. I'm curious what my overall thoughts will be once I've completed it, but I'm enjoying the ride.

It's running great on my system and looks a treat.

[Sly Boots]

lol