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DOOM Review Thread - The Fury Road of Shooters

I'm a reviewer and I'll be giving the highest marks to Doom available. I haven't liked shooters for many years. This is like flexing an old muscle, one that you hadn't worked out in a long time. I'm still reflexively tapping the non-existent reload button, but I'm bunny hopping again like it's 1999.

Remember strafejumping? I cant' be TOO awful sure, but I'm 80% sure it's a thing here, too.
 
No weapon pick-up = getting straight into the action instead of looking for weapons.
And the action is too frantic for you to have time to collect enough weapons before dying anyway.
Plus, you can pick up special weapons around the map.

I agree that the lack of free for all is disappointing but come one people!
It plays nothing like Call of Duty.
It's fast, it has a lot of verticality, you actually need skill.

They applied the same design philosophy to the MP than to the SP.
Old school MP might not be your thing but comparing it to COD is ridiculous.

Weapon pickups work fine in the new Unreal Tournament and it's without a doubt the better arena shooter. I wish there was an option for "classic" pickups, it's so close as it is with armor and powerups.
 

Hedrush

Member
Woof
Gamers sure are lame.

Cmon, surely our first hand experiences with games should hold more weight than any reviewer/critic? The general consensus is that DOOM is great, reviews are varied but mostly positive. The player base here on GAF are having a blast with the game, who should we listen to? I'm certainly not going to let any reviewer dictate to me what I should and shouldn't like.
 

Z3M0G

Member
Im all for it. But i would still like to know if a game is a scam or broken before i buy it....its a tough balancing act. But yeah, seems an odd thing to want but really numbered reviews have just turned the gaming scene into a cynical clusterfuck at launch. When i was a young lad, gaming was so much more fun cause i gave no fucks about reviews. I looked at the box art and decided to buy it at KB toys.

Simple. Never pre-order games, and wait for peer impressions before throwing money at something if you arent sure you want it.
 
Doom and Uncharted make me realize they are both like bacon.

Either you like bacon or YOU'RE WRONG!

:p

I've said before due to the nature of people buying games for SP alone, MP alone or both - they should be rated on their own. And if they are tied like some games (Souls, etc) then they should noted as such. This isn't rocket science to see how a cumulative review score can be misleading.
 

sonicmj1

Member
Just out of curiosity what do you think you would've given if it had no multiplayer and just the campaign?

Would it have scored higher because the multiplayer didn't drag it down or would have it scored lower because of the complete lack of multiplayer?

From earlier in the thread:

Still, I'm down to answer your actual question anyway. Here's my thing - I liked the SP, but I didn't love it. I thought it was a spectacular homage to the older, 23 year old games, but I didn't think it was all it could be. The MP was a hefty knock against it, but SnapMap was a balancing factor. In the end, it didn't feel like the negative feelings I had about the MP impacted my SP first impressions to a point that I would reduce the score, so I left it as is.

The "review in progress" score is basically his score for the singleplayer content, and the other stuff wasn't good or bad enough on balance to shift it.

People do get way too bent out of shape over this stuff, but it's not THAT much of a head scratcher.

In this case, most people here absolutely love Doom. I think it's one of the best shooters of the last decade. Why should it matter what a reviewer thinks? Well, publishers DO pay attention to that stuff and many buyers DO read sites like IGN. A score like that can absolutely have an impact (how much, one cannot say) on sales of a game like this.

Basically, when a big site slags on a game it can influence whether or not the studio is able to continue in this direction or not. I think most of us want to see more games from id in this mold but if it flops and the critical reception is poor, it may impact the future of games from the studio. When id was independent, it was different, but now they answer to Bethesda who could determine the direction for the studio.

Now, who's to say how much power IGN really has here, but if that review score has ANY negative impact on the future of id then I'd say that people have a right to be upset when that reviewer is so clearly out of alignment with many of us.

It's an issue because games like Doom are a rare breed. Very few developers are making games like this and, in the AAA space, Doom is just about the only one out there. It needs to succeed.

I get that if someone is emotionally invested in a game's success, any element that stands in the way of that success has to be frustrating. But that doesn't justify venting that frustrating on a reviewer, whose only crime is not having his taste "in alignment" with a particular audience. I don't know if I'd personally agree with his score in practice, but I can't say he failed to justify it, or present the game as anything other than what it is.
 
Yeah I understand that everyone's going to rate things differently but I couldnt see Doom earning anything below an 8 honestly. Best FPS SP of the last 10+ years IMHO.
 

ISee

Member
The more I play it the more it cements my opinion that TNO>Doom. I suppose Im in the minority here tho

Yeah probably but I don't think it's good to compare TNO and Doom 4. Granted Doom 1 and Wolfenstein 3D are very similar gameplay wise but the modern iterations are quiet different games, imo.
TNO feels more modernized as it seems to pick up several ideas from modern shooters like aiming down sights, stealth mechanics, turret sections, a plot with plenty of cut scenes, scripted level segments to bring in some variety while still keeping some old wolfenstein elements like health pickups, armor etc.
But Doom 4 doesn't do that, granted there are some cutscenes here and there and you can level up your character/guns like in other modern games (or TNO) but Doom 4 really tries to bring back an old style of shooter gameplay just modernizing it a bit and even bringing something new to it: Glory kills. Without Glory kills I wouldn't love Doom 4 as much as I do. They're a great way to replenish your health/armor and they force you to be even more aggressive when in a bad spot. Sometimes I took cover in TNO, I never even tried to do that in Doom 4 I am always running around, climbing, jumping, strafing and when I get hurt I change direction and kill a lower prioritized target to get back some health.
 
It now makes perfect sense to me why Bethesda didn't send out early review codes. So much of games media is out of touch with what I, and apparently many others, want from an FPS.

I powered through the SP on the weekend and this was the best shooter I've played in at least a decade. I really hope it does well because I want more like this.
 

Surface of Me

I'm not an NPC. And neither are we.
Yeah probably but I don't think it's good to compare TNO and Doom 4. Granted Doom 1 and Wolfenstein 3D are very similar gameplay wise but the modern iterations are quiet different games, imo.
TNO feels more modernized as it seems to pick up several ideas from modern shooters like aiming down sights, stealth mechanics, turret sections, a plot with plenty of cut scenes, scripted level segments to bring in some variety while still keeping some old wolfenstein elements like health pickups, armor etc.
But Doom 4 doesn't do that, granted there are some cutscenes here and there and you can level up your character/guns like in other modern games (or TNO) but Doom 4 really tries to bring back an old style of shooter gameplay just modernizing it a bit and even bringing something new to it: Glory kills. Without Glory kills I wouldn't love Doom 4 as much as I do. They're a great way to replenish your health/armor and they force you to be even more aggressive when in a bad spot. Sometimes I took cover in TNO, I never even tried to do that in Doom 4 I am always running around, climbing, jumping, strafing and when I get hurt I change direction and kill a lower prioritized target to get back some health.

I just dont find new Doom that compelling, even though they are different. It is just walk down a hallway>circle area to fight enemies>walk down more hallways depending on keycards>more circle areas. Not that great of encounter design IMO.
 

ISee

Member
I just dont find new Doom that compelling, even though they are different. It is just walk down a hallway>circle area to fight enemies>walk down more hallways depending on keycards>more circle areas. Not that great of encounter design IMO.

In the end you can always describe gameplay in it's most simple (boring) form. You can do that for TNO, for COD, for WoW or even Chess and it would always sound bad because of that. But that's okay. If you don't like Doom 4 than you don't like Doom 4. Nobody forces you to play it or to like it. Sometimes a game just isn't for you and I'm pretty sure many people feel the same way.
I for example really dislike the newest Captain America movie, other people like it. No big deal, different opinions are a good thing.
 
In the end you can always describe gameplay in it's most simple (boring) form. You can do that for TNO, for COD, for WoW or even Chess and it would always sound bad because of that. But that's okay. If you don't like Doom 4 than you don't like Doom 4. Nobody forces you to play it or to like it. Sometimes a game just isn't for you and I'm pretty sure many people feel the same way.
I for example really dislike the newest Captain America movie, other people like it. No big deal, different opinions are a good thing.

It's a lot easier to be reductive when the game is so simple. Like you said TNO had variety in its ideas, and carried that through with an ambitious narrative and character drive. Doom doesn't have that, it works in one phase for over ten hours. Walking to arenas and shooting demons.
 

ISee

Member
It's a lot easier to be reductive when the game is so simple. Like you said TNO had variety in its ideas, and carried that through with an ambitious narrative and character drive. Doom doesn't have that, it works in one phase for over ten hours. Walking to arenas and shooting demons.

Yeah I know and that's fantastic! Combine that with glory kills, the extremely fast action which forces you to keep on moving, good music, no need to reload and exploration heavy map design. Perfect. Doom 4 is game play and level design over story and set pieces. It's killing stuff followed by some exploration over and over again. Great! No boring turret sections, no heavily scripted sequences or set pieces, no stop and go shooting mechanics, no forced on badly written dialogues, no reloads, no boring cover mechanics, no AI team mates acting like they're achieving something (while destroying the illusion). It's like Doom 4 isn't a standard 08/15 shooter but it reinvents an old school shooter genre and it feels extremely fresh because of that.
 

Hasney

Member
It now makes perfect sense to me why Bethesda didn't send out early review codes. So much of games media is out of touch with what I, and apparently many others, want from an FPS.

I powered through the SP on the weekend and this was the best shooter I've played in at least a decade. I really hope it does well because I want more like this.

I don't understand what you mean? There's a lot of great scores.
 
Yeah I know and that's fantastic! Combine that with glory kills, the extremely fast action which forces you to keep on moving, good music, no need to reload and exploration heavy map design. Perfect. Doom 4 is game play and level design over story and set pieces. It's killing stuff followed by some exploration over and over again. Great! No boring turret sections, no heavily scripted sequences or set pieces, no stop and go shooting mechanics, no forced on badly written dialogues, no reloads, no boring cover mechanics, no AI team mates acting like they're achieving something (while destroying the illusion). It's like Doom 4 isn't a standard 08/15 shooter but it reinvents an old school shooter genre and it feels extremely fresh because of that.

I think that's where I'm a bit distant from a lot of the GAF praise. I mean its good at what it does, but it what it does is highly repetitive. Like you go about all those features it doesn't have like they were always bad, when you can just as easily write "no great dialog, no entertaining NPCs the player bonds with, no really cool set pieces and sequences to make individual chapters stand out from its endless locked room encounters, no variety in game ideas despite the length of the campaign..."

I feel a lot of Doom 4's reception is based on the fact that we just dont have a lot of games like this. Its like dropping a Big Mac to a starving man in the desert. Not the best food tbh, but at this point anything even resembling food is treated like holy mana. "Wow, a game where you just shoot people! Anything below a 9/10 is bullshit!"
 
I think that's where I'm a bit distant from a lot of the GAF praise. I mean its good at what it does, but it what it does is highly repetitive. Like you go about all those features it doesn't have like they were always bad, when you can just as easily write "no great dialog, no entertaining NPCs the player bonds with, no really cool set pieces and sequences to make individual chapters stand out from its endless locked room encounters, no variety in game ideas despite the length of the campaign..."

I feel a lot of Doom 4's reception is based on the fact that we just dont have a lot of games like this. Its like dropping a Big Mac to a starving man in the desert. Not the best food tbh, but at this point anything even resembling food is treated like holy mana. "Wow, a game where you just shoot people! Anything below a 9/10 is bullshit!"

You take that back. Big Macs are delicious...
 
DDnet_rating_graph-NW.png



digitallydownloaded have a really weird review scale - but reviews and impressions in general seem very positive! How long is the game for those that have finished it?

that x axis is fucked up, but I guess people who get angry at games having too much story may agree.
 

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
I think that's where I'm a bit distant from a lot of the GAF praise. I mean its good at what it does, but it what it does is highly repetitive. Like you go about all those features it doesn't have like they were always bad, when you can just as easily write "no great dialog, no entertaining NPCs the player bonds with, no really cool set pieces and sequences to make individual chapters stand out from its endless locked room encounters, no variety in game ideas despite the length of the campaign..."

I feel a lot of Doom 4's reception is based on the fact that we just dont have a lot of games like this. Its like dropping a Big Mac to a starving man in the desert. Not the best food tbh, but at this point anything even resembling food is treated like holy mana. "Wow, a game where you just shoot people! Anything below a 9/10 is bullshit!"

It's a matter of met expectations and a game doing what it is supposed to do. We don't rate Uncharted lower because it doesn't have heavy RPG mechanics or upgradable hot rods. Doom fans don't expect - and more importantly, don't want - entertaining NPCs or set pieces/sequences. They want Doom. The developers finally understood that and rather than giving fans another Call of Duty: Hell Editiion, they delivered what the fans wanted. Fans finally got a proper Doom game, with no bells, no whistles and just balls-to-the wall action.
 
Why can't I change my name to something Doom related when it's all I did all weekend? And I wasn't referring to the people who disagreed with me in that tweet. I was referring to the much, much nastier comments. A 7.1 is a good score. I enjoyed my time with Doom. That's why I think I don't see the negativity in my comments that you keep seeing.


I want to start by saying thank you for the review. We can all agree that the multiplayer is bad and uninspired but I think we are disagreeing on how you presented that as an undeniable measurable fact rather than opinion, which at the end of the day that's all it is.

I think what really is driving a lot of the drama regarding your review is how you seemed to enjoy the game,but then docked it points for a multiplayer when the primary product was a single player. How would you have reviewed this game if it had no multiplayer??

Now, specifically regarding the campaign. I think a lot of those who partake in this hobby rate games based on whether or not the game delivered what they wanted. I don't have proper gaming lexicon to describe what that is but it's like eating a meal that you were craving for a long time and you got just what you wanted, it "hit the spot." This game delivered to so many people what they have wanted for so very long. Do you know what that means? That means in our incredibly cynical gaming world, gamers received what they want rather than be told what they should want. Contrary to what you think, an ign score of 7.1 does not indicate a good game. It may based on the scoring charts, but we see too many 8.5s and above to give a 7.1 a second look.

Look I've played call of duty until two years ago when I realized that it had become a generic caricature of itself. How COD can get a 9 but a game like doom, dripping in atmosphere, fun gun play, and amazing graphics (especially on PC) is beyond me.

At the end of the day you have to live with that score, not us. You'll know that the game has 92% positive reviews on steam, something few games achieve, and that you were not congruent with those reviews. Do you lack perspective as a reviewer? Was it a bad day? Was DOOM not the particular itch you needed scratched?

I'll pose one final question to you: When you finished the campaign, did you feel like you had just played a DOOM game? If yes, that alone deserves it a better score. It's 2016, where we get yearly CODs and assassin's creed, and this was the most fun I've had with a game since I graduated medical school.

Seriously badass fun.

Thank you for reading.
 
I'll pose one final question to you: When you finished the campaign, did you feel like you had just played a DOOM game? If yes, that alone deserves it a better score. It's 2016, where we get yearly CODs and assassin's creed

This is exactly what I was talking about regarding this game's reception
 

mark_79

Banned
For those of you who need to upgrade your PC to run Doom get a load of the nVidia 1080 benchmarks running it....

At 4k Ultra settings it averages 59fps, 1440p Ultra, 112 fps and 1080p Ultra, 176fps.

Icing on the cake :)
 
From earlier in the thread:



The "review in progress" score is basically his score for the singleplayer content, and the other stuff wasn't good or bad enough on balance to shift it.



I get that if someone is emotionally invested in a game's success, any element that stands in the way of that success has to be frustrating. But that doesn't justify venting that frustrating on a reviewer, whose only crime is not having his taste "in alignment" with a particular audience. I don't know if I'd personally agree with his score in practice, but I can't say he failed to justify it, or present the game as anything other than what it is.


To be honest, I hate sports games. If you made me review a sports game I could find so many wrong things with it. If I gave it a mediocre score when the average user reading is very positive, would you accept "oh my tastes don't align with the gamers oh well"

Probably not. Which brings me to a point and the solution to all this. Why don't they allow more than one reviewer to review the game and give it a score then average the scores. Surely that would balance it the outlier reviews that don't match up with other people's perception of reality.
 

ISee

Member
I think that's where I'm a bit distant from a lot of the GAF praise. I mean its good at what it does, but it what it does is highly repetitive. Like you go about all those features it doesn't have like they were always bad, when you can just as easily write "no great dialog, no entertaining NPCs the player bonds with, no really cool set pieces and sequences to make individual chapters stand out from its endless locked room encounters, no variety in game ideas despite the length of the campaign..."

I feel a lot of Doom 4's reception is based on the fact that we just dont have a lot of games like this. Its like dropping a Big Mac to a starving man in the desert. Not the best food tbh, but at this point anything even resembling food is treated like holy mana. "Wow, a game where you just shoot people! Anything below a 9/10 is bullshit!"

It's more like throwing a delicious and well prepared kobe beefsteak in front of a starved crowed.

As I said a couple posts above, you can always describe something in a boring way, if you want to. And I stand by my point:Doom 4 isn't for everybody and that's okay. Normally I also love story heavy games and well designed set pieces but game play wise most SP campaigns in shooters feel extremely terrible. There are turret sections, there are vehicle sections, there are scripted slow motion sequences etc. It's standard, linear and predictable. But granted it was great for the first couple of years, but all the shimmer doesn't click with me anymore.
But I think there is room in this industry for arena based, fast action shooters with maps that have to be explored and linear, story driven, staged (like in a theater) shooters. No harm in having both.
 

Chola

Banned
I think that's where I'm a bit distant from a lot of the GAF praise. I mean its good at what it does, but it what it does is highly repetitive.

You will find the core gamplay of any modern games repetitive if you remove other aspects like cut scene or RPGish upgrade system. It all about whether you enjoy the repetition or not. Devs hide the repetitiveness by rewarding player with a cut-scene or a better weapons etc. Doom 4 does only one thing and does it brilliantly.
 
I don't expect to play MP, so these high scores and the response I'm seeing for the campaign--a lengthy campaign, too, not just 4 hours--is really great. This is shooting up my list for Father's Day.

Hopefully the Xbone version doesn't suck.
 

Neiteio

Member
I think that's where I'm a bit distant from a lot of the GAF praise. I mean its good at what it does, but it what it does is highly repetitive. Like you go about all those features it doesn't have like they were always bad, when you can just as easily write "no great dialog, no entertaining NPCs the player bonds with, no really cool set pieces and sequences to make individual chapters stand out from its endless locked room encounters, no variety in game ideas despite the length of the campaign..."

I feel a lot of Doom 4's reception is based on the fact that we just dont have a lot of games like this. Its like dropping a Big Mac to a starving man in the desert. Not the best food tbh, but at this point anything even resembling food is treated like holy mana. "Wow, a game where you just shoot people! Anything below a 9/10 is bullshit!"
It's more like:

Imagine an alternate reality where for more than 10 years, pretty much every fighting game interrupted each match with forced storytelling, setpieces less fun than the core action, and NPCs that get in the way of the characters fighting.

And then all of the sudden someone released a fighting game that focused purely on the fighting. The glorious, glorious fighting.

That's what DOOM is for me, in the context of shooters. It's a return to high-speed movement, jump-based traversal, meaty gunplay, complex maps, map exploration, weapon access, health pickups, enemy fire you can see and avoid, and carrying each mission with addictive gameplay and impeccable pacing/flow rather than scripted monster closets, taking cover, and walk-and-talking with characters that slow me down.

Heck, just the movement speed alone in DOOM already makes it more fun than any shooter I've played in ages.

My main issue with DOOM is it's put my UC4 play-through on hold and I'm not sure when I'll return.
 

Neiteio

Member
Hopefully the Xbone version doesn't suck.

Not sure if this makes a difference for you but the xbox version has the most turned down graphics due to the hardware not being able to keep up. And one of the great things about this game is the graphics. If you can, get it on something else.
I'm playing on PS4, but everything I've read and heard said the Xbone version is great.

See this comparison here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhhsmcoYybc

PS4 has the edge, but Xbone version is perfectly great. This is a case where all three versions of the game look slick and run well.
 

Raptor

Member
It's a lot easier to be reductive when the game is so simple. Like you said TNO had variety in its ideas, and carried that through with an ambitious narrative and character drive. Doom doesn't have that, it works in one phase for over ten hours. Walking to arenas and shooting demons.

And that its why this is great IMO.

The thing of why most put TNO above Doom is the thing that kills its replayability IMO.

Doom being just combat arena after combat arena makes it very replayable, just like Souls/Bloodborne games.

Also Doom has way better gunplay and general gameplay than TNO is not even fair to that game going back to it after a session with this one, would feel like complete slow boring ass game, and that goes to 99% of FPS out there too.

This game should have been reviewed with a 90s mindset, the 10s would just come like there was no tomoroow.
 
Yeah probably but I don't think it's good to compare TNO and Doom 4. Granted Doom 1 and Wolfenstein 3D are very similar gameplay wise but the modern iterations are quiet different games, imo.
TNO feels more modernized as it seems to pick up several ideas from modern shooters like aiming down sights, stealth mechanics, turret sections, a plot with plenty of cut scenes, scripted level segments to bring in some variety while still keeping some old wolfenstein elements like health pickups, armor etc.
But Doom 4 doesn't do that, granted there are some cutscenes here and there and you can level up your character/guns like in other modern games (or TNO) but Doom 4 really tries to bring back an old style of shooter gameplay just modernizing it a bit and even bringing something new to it: Glory kills. Without Glory kills I wouldn't love Doom 4 as much as I do. They're a great way to replenish your health/armor and they force you to be even more aggressive when in a bad spot. Sometimes I took cover in TNO, I never even tried to do that in Doom 4 I am always running around, climbing, jumping, strafing and when I get hurt I change direction and kill a lower prioritized target to get back some health.

I feel like that's kind of a misrepresentation of TNO, there's only one "turret section" in the game and it's in the tutorial, and aim down sights are indeed in the game, but are basically useless, the gameplay was clearly built with a run and gun, pop and shoot, style gameplay in mind.

While not as open as Doom, the levels offer a pretty impressive amount of openness, with collectibles, weapon upgrades, and health/armor upgrades around to reward you.

The perks system in TNO is a little more inspired too, you get them through being skilled at the game as opposed to finding upgrade tokens. I still like Dooms style, but wish the way of upgrading your character was similar to how you upgrade your guns.

I love both games, two of my favorite shooters of the last decade, but they both clearly play to the strengths of the devs behind them.
 
It's more like:

Imagine an alternate reality where for more than 10 years, pretty much every fighting game interrupted each match with forced storytelling, setpieces less fun than the core action, and NPCs that get in the way of the characters fighting.

And then all of the sudden someone released a fighting game that focused purely on the fighting. The glorious, glorious fighting.

That's what DOOM is for me, in the context of shooters. It's a return to high-speed movement, jump-based traversal, meaty gunplay, complex maps, map exploration, weapon access, health pickups, enemy fire you can see and avoid, and carrying each mission with addictive gameplay and impeccable pacing/flow rather than scripted monster closets, taking cover, and walk-and-talking with characters that slow me down.

Heck, just the movement speed alone in DOOM already makes it more fun than any shooter I've played in ages.

My main issue with DOOM is it's put my UC4 play-through on hold and I'm not sure when I'll return.

Here's how I see it. There's Wonderful 101 on one side, and there's God Hand on the other.

One game is about 15 hours, with a large of variety of things you do that isn't combat. There's story sequences, set pieces, minigames, punch-out bosses, a steady stream of new teammates, puzzles, gamepad segments, the whole 9 yards. Now a bunch of people dont like that, they just want to get to the combat parts, say its too long, too much filler, whatever. I fuckin' loved it. Its one of the best games Ive ever played, and that variety, even if they arent all pitched at the same level of intensity, came me compelled to play it.

Then there's God Hand. God Hand is a straight up beat'em'up game, but instead of being a hour long its like 12. 12 hours of running forward to fight the next wave of bad guys. Yes, there is variety in your combat options. Yes, there is a high amount of skill involved. Yes, it feels good to win. But its incredibly repetitive, and unlike the games back in the day that its clearly based on, its about 10x as long to beat. Thats 10x as many waves of enemies to fight, with no real variation in game ideas or sequences outside a couple sparse "platforming" sequences or that one puzzle like 3/4ths of the way in. So as good and challenging and varied as the combat is, if you're gonna be 12 hours long, you need to do something else besides endless combat sequences.

And that's how I see UC4 vs Doom. One game has a variety of things it ask the player to do over the course its 12 hours, and maybe they're not all super adrenaline pumping, but they all work in unison to create a varied compelling experience. Like a balanced varied diet! Doom doesn't ask that, its like eating your favorite meal over and over again 3x a day, every day. Yeah, its a great meal...but I dont want to eat it every fuckin day.

fake edit: for my taste, the game would be more replayable if it was much shorter. So by the end of the game, I want to experience it again, instead of feeling like "OK, I think I've had my fill of this for like, ever, now"
 

A-V-B

Member
Here's how I see it. There's Wonderful 101 on one side, and there's God Hand on the other.

One game is about 15 hours, with a large of variety of things you do that isn't combat. There's story sequences, set pieces, minigames, punch-out bosses, a steady stream of new teammates, puzzles, gamepad segments, the whole 9 yards. Now a bunch of people dont like that, they just want to get to the combat parts, say its too long, too much filler, whatever. I fuckin' loved it. Its one of the best games Ive ever played, and that variety, even if they arent all pitched at the same level of intensity, came me compelled to play it.

Then there's God Hand. God Hand is a straight up beat'em'up game, but instead of being a hour long its like 12. 12 hours of running forward to fight the next wave of bad guys. Yes, there is variety in your combat options. Yes, there is a high amount of skill involved. Yes, it feels good to win. But its incredibly repetitive, and unlike the games back in the day that its clearly based on, its about 10x as long to beat. Thats 10x as many waves of enemies to fight, with no real variation in game ideas or sequences outside a couple sparse "platforming" sequences or that one puzzle like 3/4ths of the way in. So as good and challenging and varied as the combat is, if you're gonna be 12 hours long, you need to do something else besides endless combat sequences.

And that's how I see UC4 vs Doom. One game has a variety of things it ask the player to do over the course its 12 hours, and maybe they're not all super adrenaline pumping, but they all work in unison to create a varied compelling experience. Like a balanced varied diet! Doom doesn't ask that, its like eating your favorite meal over and over again 3x a day, every day. Yeah, its a great meal...but I dont want to eat it every fuckin day.

fake edit: for my taste, the game would be more replayable if it was much shorter. So by the end of the game, I want to experience it again, instead of feeling like "OK, I think I've had my fill of this for like, ever, now"

Making it shorter wouldn't improve the experience for you. It sounds like you just don't enjoy the core gameplay very much. Which is fair.
 
I replayed the game on Nightmare immediately after finishing it the first time. Very rare for me.

It's really uncommon for games to actually have gameplay as the focus nowadays that this was a huge breath of fresh air. Don't think the developers could have done a better job at bringing this series into modern times.
 
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