Doom (2016)

[Mister Six]

A great game, but who the FUCK thought, "Hey, this beautifully balanced, well-tuned, deeply compelling shoot-em-up needs a load of double-jump platforming elements that will send you back to a checkpoint if you mess up"?

They must be destroyed.

Is Doom Eternal good? I vaguely recall people complaining about some changes to the formula from this version.

[C_Larence]

I played both recently and thought Doom was ok, but Doom Eternal is a huge step up just from the addition of the super shotgun's meat hook.

[Thursday]

Doom Eternal made me angry, there's even more platforming, but the worse thing it adds is having to juggle while riding a unicycle and playing the harmonica, and then it keeps adding more and more balls you have to juggle, and then it asks you to start spinning plates. Not going to explain this, but fellow haters will know what I mean.

[madhair60]

Doom Eternal made me angry, there's even more platforming, but the worse thing it adds is having to juggle while riding a unicycle and playing the harmonica, and then it keeps adding more and more balls you have to juggle, and then it asks you to start spinning plates. Not going to explain this, but fellow haters will know what I mean.

get good.

[Thursday]

I did. The game should get fun.

[Mister Six]

Yeah, that was what I vaguely recall reading - that the balance of Doom 2016 is lost with loads of unnecessary fiddly shite. I dunno, I'll have a go anyway, and see if I can just keep it to juggling, with minimal unicycle-wobbling, plate-spinning and clown-fisting when absolutely necessary.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

If you disliked the platforming in Doom, you'll absolutely despise it in Eternal.

[popcorn]

Doom Eternal is a headache. They amped up the Doom 2016 formula by CRANKING IT TO ELEVEN in the most obnoxious way, adding countless pointless complications and obfuscations. I remember very little of it whereas I have very fond memories of the joyfully meatheaded maximalist minimalism (MMM) of the first one.

[Mister Six]

Hm, maybe I'll give it a miss then. All the times I've enjoyed Doom so far have been zipping around, dodging fireballs and blasting suckers. The simplicity of the systems and the gameplay are perfectly balanced, with enough flexibility in how you can approach fights that it never gets (or hasn't yet got) tedious and repetitive.

I can't believe anyone picked up this game thinking, "Wow, I really hope there's long stretches of platforming, usually without combat, in which a single slip-up sends you back to do it all again!"

[popcorn]

As I recall the platforming in Doom 2016 didn't annoy me but it certainly did in Doom Eternal — one of several areas they decided to massively expand to no one's delight.

I am still a bit annoyed that they didn't call the sequel Eternal Doom. I mean Final Doom wasn't called Doom Final was it?

[Mister Six]

As I recall the platforming in Doom 2016 didn't annoy me

There have only been a couple of points where it's really got on my tits (the long gantry/pipe/crane sequence to get to robo lady before she can blow up the tower or whatever, and one of the bits in Hell where you have to wait for a fat bastard and a couple of skeleton lads to finish fighting before it's safe/advisable to engage) but it just seems like a very odd blindspot in an otherwise carefully crafted game, and the fact that they leaned harder into this later on is baffling.

[Mr Trumpet]

It's the old beef people had with Half-Life all over again. Can't say I was too bothered in either case, although I preferred the shooty-shooty bits of both games.

[Cold Meat Platter]

In Doom Eternal if you fuck the platforming it just puts you back on the bit you fell off with a bit of health lost rather than killing you, though.

[Mister Six]

Well that's a bit of an improvement, but also makes me wonder why they bothered at all. Just take out the platforming! I want Doom 2 in the way that the original Doom 2 was just more of the same, with a new weapon and some new monsters. You almost got it perfect the first time around, stop pissing about!

[madhair60]

i like the platforming in Eternal, but not so much Doom 2016. in Eternal there's a lot more going on, so it's more engaging. The exploration is better too, as a result.

but Eternal is an acquired taste in general, it's a very esoteric, difficult, demanding game. i really like the rhythm of it, the loop. I think it captures something of the flavour of the original Doom, but in a different way. it's quite hard to explain, but the enemy management of Ultimate Doom is somewhat replicated in the weapon management of Eternal. Like, the rhythm of flame belch, blood punch, chainsaw, etc. I dig it a lot.

bye

[C_Larence]

Oh yes forgot about blood punch. My only gripe with Eternal, coming straight off 2016, was that melee no longer did any damage. Still feels like a stupid decision but I understand why blood punch was added.

[popcorn]

Oh yes forgot about blood punch. My only gripe with Eternal, coming straight off 2016, was that melee no longer did any damage.

Yes this also bothered me because it's just counter-intuitive and you have to unlearn using it. It really bugs me when stuff in games just doesn't make sense on an intuitive level so it's working against you rather than with you. It's like having a low-hanging bit of wall in your flat that you bang in your head on 20 times until eventually you start ducking out of habit. Yes you learn how to work with it (ie you "git gud") eventually but it's a needlessly annoying journey.

Likewise the flamethrower thing — it does get into a fun rhythm when you get used to it, but it's just so fucking weird conceptually and you have to "learn" it in a way you don't with the glory kills in Doom 2016.

[Mister Six]

I didn't even know there was a melee attack, so I'm ahead on that score at least.

[C_Larence]

Not sure about other consoles/PC but melee on the playstation was R3. In Doom 2016 it does a lot of damage and is useful if you're overwhelmed, in Eternal it literally does nothing.

[Thursday]

Yes this also bothered me because it's just counter-intuitive and you have to unlearn using it. It really bugs me when stuff in games just doesn't make sense on an intuitive level so it's working against you rather than with you. It's like having a low-hanging bit of wall in your flat that you bang in your head on 20 times until eventually you start ducking out of habit. Yes you learn how to work with it (ie you "git gud") eventually but it's a needlessly annoying journey.

Likewise the flamethrower thing — it does get into a fun rhythm when you get used to it, but it's just so fucking weird conceptually and you have to "learn" it in a way you don't with the glory kills in Doom 2016.

Yeah and this is sort of why, I feel like there is something to Doom Eternal, it's just it's retrofitting Doom concepts to fit these weird mechanics that don't make sense. Like the game could still effectively but instead of chainsaw and flamethrowers etc... it's something that makes.. and the enemies aren't Doom enemies, they're something else where it would make sense that attacking them generates health/armour/fuel etc.

Felt like they wanted to make their own thing, rather than a Doom sequel and snuck it in through that.

[Mister Six]

Yeah and this is sort of why, I feel like there is something to Doom Eternal, it's just it's retrofitting Doom concepts to fit these weird mechanics that don't make sense. Like the game could still effectively but instead of chainsaw and flamethrowers etc... it's something that makes.. and the enemies aren't Doom enemies, they're something else where it would make sense that attacking them generates health/armour/fuel etc.

I genuinely can't understand this, but I want to!

[Thursday]

The main problem there is I can't write properly, I can't even quite work out what I was trying to say now.

[popcorn]

Whatever you were saying, it appeared to agree with my post, so I fully support it.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Thursday's bizarre ramblings seem to say something I've seen said quite a lot about Doom Eternal: that it is completely redesigned from the ground up and/or not a sequel to the 2016 one. Both of these ideas are patently wrong, but a fair few people seem to believe them.

[Obel]

Doom Eternal is fucking brilliant. What do you really want from Doom? The exact same game again? The developers should be applauded for not just simply taking the mechanics of Doom 2016 and making some new levels. It's proper demanding and often frustrating if you die, but it's always your fault. The enemies are designed to approach you in different ways, they force you to move differently and pick the appropriate weapon, gradually layering the complexity as the game goes on until your strategy for defeating them becomes dynamic, your reactions automatic and you enter a flow state during the horde sections.

It's a shame that every game can't be appropriate for all types of player but this one seems to be designed for a more masochistic kind of player. For what it's trying to do it's an out and out success. I recommend watching the NoClip interviews with one of the lead designers actually, he gives great insight on the sorta 'battle chess' approach they took for Doom Eternal.

I hope when they do the next Doom they switch up again and give us another different and interesting iteration of what is, let's be honest, a properly stale genre of games.

[C_Larence]

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

It is the same thing again, just dialed up to 11. If they change things up for the next one, it'll just be to send someone round your house to kick you in the shin while you play.

[Mister Six]

Doom Eternal is fucking brilliant. What do you really want from Doom? The exact same game again?

Yes.

Fair fucks, that was quite funny.

[madhair60]

i love Doom Eternal. and every person I meet who goes "what the fuck is this, why'd they change it like this" is completely within their rights to think that, because Doom Eternal is fucking alienating. Doom (2016) is like, shoot, glory kill, sometimes jump. And it's all built around that and a series of upgrades that don't particularly deviate from what you'd expect. Eternal builds on it but it also turns it into a game where you are constantly switching weapons for different enemy types, using your flamethrowers, blood punch, chainsaw etc. It's a fuckin dance, it's a finger ballet. I am 100% on board with Not Liking It, because it's really fucking difficult to like. I dig it; when I get into the flow it's one of the best games I've ever played. But holy shit does it ask a lot from people who maybe just want to shoot some fucking Hell Knights in the dick.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Eternal feels more Platinum than Id, it feels like it should have a ranking/scoring systems that was wisely cut out at the last moment.

i liked it fine but i LOVED the challenge rooms after i'd been playing it for so long. once i knew all the monsters, moves and weapons it clicked into place and my complaints about the main game fell off. the embarrassing lore, reddit pleasing tone and occassional poor exploration sections seemed like minor complaints for something as incredible fucking fun as Doom Eternal is. in the main game, Doom Hunters and Mauraders both made me groan when they turned up because they felt unfair and too based on rhythm to be fun in arenas. soaked up hits and made all the mobility and bouncing seem pointless. when they started showing up late game and in challenges, they were fucking brill to fight especially the Mauraders. it stopped feeling like a FPS, more like Robotron 2084 meets Bayonetta or Vanquish

My biggest complaint with the presentation of Eternal is that it gave Doom fans what they wanted in a way it shouldntve - we said "we want CLASSIC looking doom monsters in primary colours" and they gave us that, it wasn't as good as we'd imagined. Doom 2016 erred slightly too hard on the grimdark but Doom Eternal over compensates with the AWESOME AND EPICness. not even talking about the rip and tear and vinyl collecting [GROAN!!] just ever overall tone of the thing.