DOOM (2016)

I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ love this game. THIS is DOOM. DOOM 2016 didn’t just revive the franchise—it came back swinging and made it bigger than ever. The guns, the demons, the guts, the music: everything was BIGGER and BADDER than before. Remember Doomguy? Yeah, now he’s the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ DOOM SLAYER. Within the first thirty seconds, the game makes its intentions clear. This isn’t the survival horror of DOOM 3. This is the spirit of DOOM, DOOM II, and DOOM 64 dragged into the modern era, covered in blood, and handed a shotgun. One man alone on Mars against the forces of Hell, armed with the strength of a god and a hatred hotter than every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ star in the universe. And you FEEL it. the addition of Glory Kills let you physically tear demons in half with your bare hands, while Mick Gordon apparently decided he was the reincarnation of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and started playing his guitar like he was composing the next ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Eine kleine Nachtmusik. Every fight feels like you’re personally reminding Hell why it should be afraid of you. But the gameplay and music aren’t the only things that make DOOM 2016 great. Its story is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awesome, and it’s only gotten better with time. The Dark Ages gives you even more context for the absolute force of nature waking up in that sarcophagus. Meanwhile, 2016 introduces some of the coolest characters and concepts in the franchise: the Night Sentinels, the Wraiths, Argent energy, and Samuel Hayden. Hayden spends the entire game roleplaying as Robot Bill Clinton, explaining why harvesting Hell’s energy is actually a great idea. Considering what we eventually learn about where that energy comes from, I guess bro REALLY didn’t want to build a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ windmill. The level design deserves just as much praise. The environments are massive and packed with alternate routes, hidden rooms, and secrets, while still giving you a clear path forward if you just want to keep killing ♥♥♥♥. You can spend your time exploring every corner or charge straight toward the next fight. Either way, the game delivers. It even brings back the kind of secrets that made the originals so much fun. Finding weapons before you’re supposed to get them? Hell yeah. References to games like Skyrim, Wolfenstein, and Commander Keen? Those are here too. There are even hidden classic DOOM areas throughout the campaign, complete with those old-school textures. Finding them unlocks classic maps you can play separately, because apparently making an incredible DOOM game wasn’t enough—they had to stuff even more DOOM inside it. That’s what I love about this game. It understands the appeal of the originals and puts everything it has into making that feeling hit harder than ever. The combat, exploration, atmosphere, and music all feed into the same glorious experience: you are the worst ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ thing that has ever happened to Hell. DOOM 2016 is one of the best games of all time, and I’ll die on that hill. Thank you to Hugo Martin and the incredible team at id Software for reviving my favorite franchise and helping build a modern era of DOOM that I’ll be playing for the rest of my life.

This game will make any men happy as it has these two things: 1st: Double Barreled Mighty Shotgun to kill demons. 2nd: Demons to get killed by your Double Barreled Mighty Shotgun. BONUS: Lovely Glory kills makes you unstoppable. Now going for my 2nd run :D

I honestly liked it quite a bit. It was a good "return to form" like everyone memes about games now. They did a good job of returning to the arena-shooter mechanics and formats of the original doom where your attention and skill are put to the test choosing which enemies to engage in what order while you move and dodge their fire, and enemies are satisfying to kill. The Glory Kill system receives a lot of criticism for being the "cutscene button" but they are honestly quite fun for me. A lot of thought and effort went into the system to make it fluid and functional, and it is very satisfying when you start recognizing the inputs, actions, and circumstances that can trigger certain kills. Everything from positioning to nearby surfaces, your position relative to the enemy, being airborne, and the body part your most closely looking at goes into deciding which animation is used and how you flow into it. There are additionally perks that can be equipped that reduces the waiting time for them, or you can just go without them entirely if you prefer to blow things up the old fashioned way. The developer commentary was very interesting to listen to, and similar to Half Life the developers will sometimes hijack levels when you click on commentary to show you a specific piece of programming or setpiece or debug information to explain how they created the game. I found their "anti-cover" system most interesting for demons, in addition to describing the attack token system. Essentially a way to prevent the player from unfairly being attacked by multiple high level enemies all at the same time while also making it feel like there is constant pressure. Anti-cover is a way for enemies to ensure they are always visible while attacking so the player flows into combat more easily. A lot of thought and design and iterating went into it and it was very enjoyable. The plot and story is good. Not outstanding, but I think they tonally put it just right. Doomguy:tm: is just a guy that wants to kill demons for all practical purposes. He doesn't really care about the overarching plot reasons, which led to some funny interactions within the story where he simply brute forces the solution. The multiplayer was forgettable. And dead. Do not get this game for multiplayer. At least in singleplayer I feel the want to reinstall the game from time to time to play the score-based arcade mode for the singleplayer levels which is pretty fun.