• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

DOOM Review Thread - The Fury Road of Shooters

truly101

I got grudge sucked!
It's not actually from Polygon's review

OK, that makes me feel better. I'm not a huge FPS fan but I was curious to see how the latest Doom was faring critically. I saw that and I really couldn't understand it at all. Glad to read that FPS fans have really taken to the game. I may check it out later when it goes down in price and there aren't a shitton of other games coming out I want, like I did with Wolfenstein.
 
Some say I'm in the last mission.
The Whell I guess it's called

I'm dissapointed with just one reason.
Saw in the main menu the boss gauge life HUD Toggle.... and only found bosses at the end of the game, two in a row to be more precise, they should explored those encounters even more, it's tense and very precise to dogde
. But, I guess don't have to finish to say this game one of the best shooters I played since Call of Duty 4 (the real reason why FPS started dying trying to reproduce the same thing).

For me, I can say easily it is a solid 9 out of 10 playing only the Single-player and Snapmap.

Played the Beta on PS4 but didn't touch the final mutiplayer version.
 

Tovarisc

Member

I disagree with that. For me game kept one upping itself, increasing encounter difficulty and varying up demon compositions, all the way to the end. When credits rolled I wanted more, but same time felt it ended at right note and didn't overstate its welcome so it didn't run thin / loose steam. Hell was artistically mostly safe design, but also had its cool moments and looks. Overall graphical visuals and art won't blow any minds most likely, but what it does and goes for it does well.
 

danowat

Banned
The gulf is interesting, no?

Yes and no.

Enjoying a product as a consumer is quite a different thing from trying to offer up a subjective critical opinion of a product.

Reviewers are looking for progress in the genre, consumers, in a product that is just unashamedly fun, don't really care as long as they are having fun doing it.

I also think there were a lot of negative preconceptions about the game, alot of reviews I've heard have stated that they weren't looking forward to playing it, so maybe that clouded things.
 
Yes and no.

Enjoying a product as a consumer is quite a different thing from trying to offer up a subjective critical opinion of a product.

Reviewers are looking for progress in the genre, consumers, in a product that is just unashamedly fun, don't really care as long as they are having fun doing it.

Even the most positive review from Videogamer called it very shallow, and wondered what kind of grade to give it because it doesnt do anything special.
 
It's funny to me that the advance word on this game was so negative. Review copies aren't getting sent out, let's all jump to the conclusion that they're hiding the game because it sucks. Wailing and gnashing of teeth ensue. And then, whoops, it's actually out now and it doesn't suck.
 
Still contemplating. 6 hours isn't a whole lot given I'll likely not delve in to the MP.

It's not 6 hours, man, I was at 13 after viewing the credits. I did explore a lot and took the time to upgrade weapons, etc.

It's 6 if you just blaze through ignoring 1/2 of what's on offer, I guess.
 

Tizoc

Member
I really liked Uncharted 4 but I don't want to replay it. I already want to play more of Doom. That's how good it is. I have no problem shitting on a stinker when I buy one. I thought Fallout 4 was terrible and sold it two days later.
The uc series' replayability factor really hurts it imo but thats something for another thread
I am alreayd payched to replay the game in higher difficulties to clear up upgrsdes etc and rip and tear some truely brutal demons~
 

Metal-Geo

Member
There seem to be a consensus on MP being bad but no one is telling exactly why.
I have been playing for a couple of hours and having a blast as well.

It's as much a return to form as the single player.
It's fast, it's relentless and you need the skill.
It plays like old Unreal Tournament and Quake with a XP and leveling system + a couple of great ideas like the demons to spice things up.

I have got a hunch that a lot of people are bashing the MP because they are getting destroyed and are not used to this kind of old school MP.

Here are just some of my personal complaints:
- Loadouts. A terrible idea. It removes the fun of what others call 'map control'. Where players have to think about weapon spawn times and the built-up arsenal of enemies. It's also practically the reason why the rocket launcher is such a sad, sad display.
- The maps are pretty damn dull. None make themselves really interesting or unique from another. Except one has a Hell theme, the other has a space station theme, and another has a Hell and space station theme.
- No server browser.
- Slow transition from one map to the other. When a game ends, take us to the next one immediately. Don't dump us in a lobby, dammit! Keep the fast pace going.
- Demons are an interesting concept - but why the fuck are they in Team Deathmatch? Or why can they capture Souls in Soul Harvester? And why can they capture the zone in Warpath? That shit 's unnecessary. When a demon sees you, you're as good as dead. They really should've balanced this.
- No free-for-all Deathmatch. And with the player model customization in this game, I wouldn't be surprised we'd never get this mode either. Considering you can nearly turn your player model into a walking neon sign.
- No music. The game sounds really, really dull in multiplayer. More so with VEGA as the announcer. I mean I understand it from a 'narrative' perspective... but nah, that was a weird decision.
- Burning cards. Why?
- Terrible feedback when getting hit and when hitting other players.

Now these are all of course my personal pet peeves and complaints. I'm not going to claim everyone else shares my views.

It just seems the multiplayer would've had a much warmer welcome had they made it simpler. Because that's what DOOM 2016 seems to be about. Back to simpler times.
 

lowrider007

Licorice-flavoured booze?
Listening to Arthur Gies talking about Doom on RebelFM was so painful I had to turn it off, the fact that he loved Doom 3 explains a lot though, I think some reviewers will 'over review' or over analyse this game, This games biggest appeal is quite simple, how it feels/controls, forget about the story, underlining themes etc, no other FPS on the market today 'feels' like this, and that is an incredibly important aspect of this game, and it isn't by accident either, and is that which is carrying me through the campaign because it is so satisfying.

I do a lot of cooking at work, and I think many people make the mistake of dismissing simple food, for example, take scrambled eggs, very simple right?, to most people scrambled eggs is just that, scrambled eggs, but to me being a cook, it is certainly not that simple, ten people could cook me scrambled eggs and I can assure you I may only really enjoy one of them, it's all about refinement, and that's where this game shines, it takes the first person shooting genre, and refines the most important aspect of it, how it feels to play.

Unfortunately just slapping a conventional review template onto Doom isn't going to work very well imo because outside of how amazing it feels to play it there isn't a lot, so you end up hitting the game with the review hammer until some bigger cracks appear.
 

Momentary

Banned
Calling this game's gun play shallow is a God damn knee slapper. The weapon cancel switching combos to maximize damage is pretty awesome. That coupled with the kinetic frenzy that melee and speed boosts brings with it makes the combat just look amazing once you know what the heck you are doing.


The game really shines with its mechanics on anything outside the 2 easy difficulties.
 
This is the game that changed my perception on using Metacritic as a source for good opinions on games. Will use GAF and user reviews from now on.
 

ironcreed

Banned
This meta score is so bullshit. It seems like not sending review copies before release is a good thing now. I would probably do the same thing, video games journalism is a joke nowadays

A game should always speak for itself. Some arbitrary averaged out number from a select group of 'professional' opinions has never been the measuring stick for me. I just go with what I think looks good, which pans out well for me more often than not, despite how the games might review.

But even then and as always, you will win some and lose some. I just know that I have also been burned more times than I can count by mega-hyped, " 9.5/10 - One of the greatest games we have ever played" titles as well. At the end of the day, I would rather trust my own judgment and word of mouth.
 

ChaosXVI

Member
I actually enjoyed the multiplayer Beta (didn't think it was AMAZING, but into it enough to keep playing it), and was so worried that the Single Player game was just going to be some kind of throwaway crap that got slapped together.

I know it's been said like 1000 times now, but I can't believe how Bethesda's marketing misfired on this. How do you completely nail how to advertise Wolfenstein TNO and then botch this so badly? Everything about how they were treating the game led me to believe that the multiplayer was the primary component.
 
Videogamer gave it an 8.

http://www.videogamer.com/reviews/doom_4_review.html
Vid review.

For an 8, it's pretty frickin' glowing.
But he also gave Wolf TNO a 6, and considers that a "good" score, compared to a "blah" score I guess.

I guess this is why aggregate scores don't make sense, when one outlet considers 50 to be average, while another would rate that at 70 or even 80.

This is why I value forums and word of mouth so much.
 

Oneself

Member
Finally played the 1st level this morning (had the game since friday but you know, UC4/family...) and it looks promising. It's a lot like Wolfenstein (weird coïncidence eh!) but definitely better in every way so far. It's just like what I wished a shooter would be "in the future" when I was a kid. It's a game that never pretends to be anything else than a superb shooter. It's fast, slick, responsive, fun and very old school. Straight to the point, level by level

It's a bit like what Driveclub was in a crowd of open world and sim racers.

Edit: it feels a lot like Quake. Sounds a lot like Quake as well.
 

Vire

Member
Even the most positive review from Videogamer called it very shallow, and wondered what kind of grade to give it because it doesnt do anything special.

What would you rate it JC? We have pretty similar tastes so I'm wondering if I should pick it up or just redbox it.
 

Bedlam

Member
Listening to Arthur Gies talking about Doom on RebelFM was so painful I had to turn it off, the fact that he loved Doom 3 explains a lot though, I think some reviewers will 'over review' or over analyse this game, This games biggest appeal is quite simple, how it feels/controls, forget about the story, underlining themes etc, no other FPS on the market today 'feels' like this, and that is an incredibly important aspect of this game, and it isn't by accident either, and is that which is carrying me through the campaign because it is so satisfying.
Haha, this makes too much sense after having seen him "play" the game.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow's Bombcast though.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
Calling this game's gun play shallow is a God damn knee slapper. The weapon cancel switching combos to maximize damage is pretty awesome. That coupled with the kinetic frenzy that melee and speed boosts brings with it makes the combat just look amazing once you know what the heck you are doing.


The game really shines with its mechanics on anything outside the 2 easy difficulties.

I am a console peasant, but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIKypIO1ueY

This is on UV, w/o clutch stun I would've been dead. I love that I am able to do this in an FPS. On PC, I would've played with keybinds and it would've been seamless but still.
 
What would you rate it JC? We have pretty similar tastes so I'm wondering if I should pick it up or just redbox it.

Its a solid shooting game. Its not from the school of Half-Life like Wolfenstein: The New Order, with strong characters and varied set pieces and tones. Its pretty much just one big thing it does well and escalates it for 10 hours on Hard. Once you get the mobility runes/double jump, the feel of moving is really good, and a lot of the many arenas offer a lot of vertical spaces. There's a large amount of enemy variety, and the game requires you to prioritize which enemies to kill, and to manage your Health/Ammo supplies both in the area itself and the Glory Kills which grant you health/ammo. Its challenging, and mostly fair, although there are moments where you will suddenly die and you'll not know from what direction or what caused it. The sound mix is flat out not good, with loud annoying demon noises giving prominence over some wimpy weapon sounds. The game has a great sense of humor about its edgelord RIP&TEAR aesthetic and the inherent ridiculousness of the UAC, a company that somehow thought summoning demons would be the key to humanity's future. There's a dynamic Mick Gordon score of industrial noise that fits the carnage on screen, although its not really my preference. There's also a fair amount of exploration possible in the levels themselves, including secret Doom levels, collectibles, and challenging optional trials that test your understanding of the game mechanics and enemy design.

It's good! A solid 7/10 game. Which is much higher than the marketing would have you believe. Im not up all the hyperbole of OMG BEST SHOOTER OF ALL TIME THE FURY ROAD OF GAMES OMG THE BLOOD RIP AND TEAR WOW A SHOOTING GAME THATS JUST SHOOTING WHAT AN ACHIEVEMENT IN GAME DESIGN...but its good!

For the record, of all the games I played this year:

XCOM 2: 9/10
Dark Souls 3: 8/10
Street Fighter V: 8/10(the core game...the product itself is terrible lol)
Uncharted 4: 8/10
Ratchet & Clank: 7/10
Doom: 7/10
Rise of the Tomb Raider PC: 7/10
Star Fox Zero: 7/10
Hyper Light Drifter: 7/10
Superhot!: 6/10
Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam: 6/10
Quantum Break: 5/10
 

Fishook

Member
I have only played 2 and half levels, and only picked the game up because I have nothing to play. But what a solid shooter and it just makes a refreshing change a bit like Wolfenstein

I am getting bored to death with open world games, or generic multi-player games. The modern reviewers and gamer's are not interested in these games. I have no interest in Overwatch, any MOBA's for that matter. I want to play solid single player games, where for the younger generation it's a big turn off.

I suppose it's down to age of people playing certain games and genres, A bit like music tastes and such. I would class myself as a old school PC gamer, but I can understand why modern gamer's and reviewer's its not there cup of tea.
 
This is the game that changed my perception on using Metacritic as a source for good opinions on games. Will use GAF and user reviews from now on.
I was almost certain this game was going to review well with critics and users. Are the critic scores getting bogged down by multiplayer?

It has a 92% positive rating on Steam. Probably mostly people playing single player and not caring about the multiplayer.
 
Some of these score man, this game is great. Long campaign with fantastic action, great map design, loads of good secrets, better platforming than uncharted. Yeah multiplayer sucks, whatever, ignore it. Snap map is like LBP for Doom, it's non stop content.

The action is an absolute blast and that is what it matters. Yes it can be repetitive in its design, the action is a series of kill rooms where you fight floods of enemies then move on to the next. But those fights are frantic and so much fun.

It's no old Doom. It's missing the synergy between map exploration and the threat and fear of being killed by a ton of monsters as you explore. That's the biggest issue with the campaign but it's still great to play a FPS that is all about running and gunning.
 

dlauv

Member
I am not a big film viewer and don't understand the reference. Was Fury Road slated or something? Or is it amped up from older films?

No one believed in it. Development hell. Thunderdome/DOOM 3 had a mixed reception and was a bit of a letdown overall.

Comes out, is amazing in spite of some changed tone, and is just balls to the wall action packed.

Some people are going to call it shallow, and to a degree they're right. More-so the story moguls making these claims (in terms of Mad Max). But it's all so calculated and cleverly crafted and brilliantly simple.

Big difference here is that critically DOOM 4 will be less well received.
 
I've only had time to finish the first two missions and get into the third, but I'm having a blast. It's fast, it looks good, you kill things before they kill you.

I think I enjoy most how the game totally commits to what it is, owning that it's dark, gory, and funny, doubling down on all of it in some places, but not coming off as campy. At least not from what I've seen.
 

Karak

Member
I've only had time to finish the first two missions and get into the third, but I'm having a blast. It's fast, it looks good, you kill things before they kill you.

I think I enjoy most how the game totally commits to what it is, owning that it's dark, gory, and funny, doubling down on all of it in some places, but not coming off as campy. At least not from what I've seen.
Ya it has no qualms with alerting you both within the gameplay but even in the smaller animations and even voice bites about what it is from the get go.
 

EvSOLO

Member
What I don't understand about IGN's review is that they gave it an in-progress score of 7.1 after the single player which the reviewer praised, and then kept it at 7.1 for a final score after they tested the multiplayer which the reviewer panned. How does that make sense? The in-progress score should have been higher based on the great single player or lowered from 7.1 after the sub par multiplayer. I don't see the logic in keeping it the same as there is no way to determine if the multiplayer aspect factored into the score at all
 

Simo

Member
I am not a big film viewer and don't understand the reference. Was Fury Road slated or something? Or is it amped up from older films?

Fury Road was a terrific action flick on it's own where the director and film schooled recent action films on how to do it right. I mean there's a lot more to the film but I think that's what the OP was going for with the title. Basically it's one of the top action films to be released in the last 30 years, a sentiment a lot of people including critics agree on.
 
I'm now very tempted buying this. The MP portion of the game seemed really poor during the beta but seeing some footage of the SP, reading impressions and reviews, I think I just might gor for an impulse purchase. I honestly thought it would bomb hard, critically.

Bought classic DOOM on the PS3 some time ago and have been craving for a proper ''next-gen'' experience of DOOM.

Time to trade in some shitty games, I guess.
 

Brandon F

Well congratulations! You got yourself caught!
I am not a big film viewer and don't understand the reference. Was Fury Road slated or something? Or is it amped up from older films?

Fury Road was essentially a reboot of a classic franchise that did a superlative job modernizing and updating the elements that made the older films so endearing without allowing current trends and popular technology distract from the core vision.

It is understandable how that can act as a metaphor for this current iteration of Doom when compared to its 90's roots. New and different in some ways, yet the foundation runs parallel to that of its forebears.
 
I don't know what the heck that person is talking. The game kicks into overdrive at the end and the boss encourage terse are some of the best ever in the game. Graphically this game is amazing and I thought hell looked awesome.

This game getting enything less than an 8 from reviewers just blows my mind when. You got garbage out there that is no where near as fun as this getting praise for no damn reason.

I'm so glad they didn't give this game to reviewers beforehand. It limes they don't know how to play a twitch based Shooter and used baby mode as a basis for their review. I'm so glad I've stopped caring about what reviewers have to say about games. Especially when it comes to skill based games like twitch shooters, shoot'em ups, fighting games, etc.

Review scores aren't as important as the review itself. I'm going to be buying the game based on metro's review because the content of the review is pretty damn positive. Their rating scale is one of the better one's but even they ask that people ignore it and read the content of the review itself.
 
Listening to Arthur Gies talking about Doom on RebelFM was so painful I had to turn it off, the fact that he loved Doom 3 explains a lot though, I think some reviewers will 'over review' or over analyse this game, This games biggest appeal is quite simple, how it feels/controls, forget about the story, underlining themes etc, no other FPS on the market today 'feels' like this, and that is an incredibly important aspect of this game, and it isn't by accident either, and is that which is carrying me through the campaign because it is so satisfying.

I do a lot of cooking at work, and I think many people make the mistake of dismissing simple food, for example, take scrambled eggs, very simple right?, to most people scrambled eggs is just that, scrambled eggs, but to me being a cook, it is certainly not that simple, ten people could cook me scrambled eggs and I can assure you I may only really enjoy one of them, it's all about refinement, and that's where this game shines, it takes the first person shooting genre, and refines the most important aspect of it, how it feels to play.

Unfortunately just slapping a conventional review template onto Doom isn't going to work very well imo because outside of how amazing it feels to play it there isn't a lot, so you end up hitting the game with the review hammer until some bigger cracks appear.

+1

Very good analogy too.

Fact is some people want something from some games that those games aren't even trying to offer.

And then those games are dismissed over that. It is very insincere and disingenuous.

It's one thing to not like the content in a game, nothing wrong with that. But dismissing a game experience simply because it is not something else is just stupid.

A good previewer/reviewer should be able to tell the audience what a game tries to do, and how well it achieves that. Not just "what the game isn't."

It's like going to review Myst and saying there wasn't enough action and the pace was too slow.
 

Sephzilla

Member
Listening to Arthur Gies...

There was your first mistake, in my honest opinion

... talking about Doom on RebelFM was so painful I had to turn it off, the fact that he loved Doom 3 explains a lot though, I think some reviewers will 'over review' or over analyse this game, This games biggest appeal is quite simple, how it feels/controls, forget about the story, underlining themes etc, no other FPS on the market today 'feels' like this, and that is an incredibly important aspect of this game, and it isn't by accident either, and is that which is carrying me through the campaign because it is so satisfying.

I do a lot of cooking at work, and I think many people make the mistake of dismissing simple food, for example, take scrambled eggs, very simple right?, to most people scrambled eggs is just that, scrambled eggs, but to me being a cook, it is certainly not that simple, ten people could cook me scrambled eggs and I can assure you I may only really enjoy one of them, it's all about refinement, and that's where this game shines, it takes the first person shooting genre, and refines the most important aspect of it, how it feels to play.

Unfortunately just slapping a conventional review template onto Doom isn't going to work very well imo because outside of how amazing it feels to play it there isn't a lot, so you end up hitting the game with the review hammer until some bigger cracks appear.

Good comment here though. I liked the analogy
 
It's a well polished game. I played the ps4 version. The multiplayer is garbage but the single player, if you're okay with the lack of story, is a lot of fun. The gun play and movement is smooth. I was afraid that the lack of ADS may affect my fun, but once you get into it, you don't think about it. However, I am a person that enjoys the story as much as the gameplay, and as such, it felt a little shallow. If you're okay without the story, it can be a great deal of fun. Just be aware of the no story, and lackluster multiplayer.
 
This is the game that changed my perception on using Metacritic as a source for good opinions on games. Will use GAF and user reviews from now on.

Metacritic has its uses... a 76 itself is NOT a bad score, but it is nowhere near reflective of the quality of the game.

Tons of games on metacritic are mid-high 70s and are absolutely phenomenal games that should not be missed.

Just one of many avenues to get opinions on a game... by no means an end-all be-all like some people make it.
 
Metacritic has its uses... a 76 itself is NOT a bad score, but it is nowhere near reflective of the quality of the game.

Tons of games on metacritic are mid-high 70s and are absolutely phenomenal games that should not be missed.

Just one of many avenues to get opinions on a game... by no means an end-all be-all like some people make it.

But the Uncharted 4 review thread said I can't complain about review scores?! :(:(:(
 
Top Bottom