because to me it feels brilliantly solid.
It’s no Quake III, sure, but it’s fast and
frantic, the maps are nicely designed,
the modes are interesting, there’s
a borderline-obscene amount of
customisation options and you get to
play as a demon. I’d call that a pretty
sweet deal.
greys, it’s always beautiful to look
at. And the music. The music. I don’t
often point to music in games as
being something that stands out
for me, but Doom’s music often had
me in complete awe. It’s probably
because I still have a mild obsession
with the first game’s soundtrack,
and I’ll often find myself humming
the E1M1 theme tune to myself
at random times. New Doom is
similarly musically memorable,
packed with heavy, ferocious guitar
riffs that I know will stick around
in my head for years to come.
The rest of the audio is similarly
extraordinary, and the game’s sound
direction is easily one of my favourite
things about it.
About the only things I had to
complain about when the game
first released related to various
technical issues (like sporadic
crashes-to-desktop and assorted
bugs) that cropped up during my first
playthrough, but in the time since
then id’s managed to squash many
of my irritations. I don’t have much
to say about the multiplayer, other
than that I’ve played it and it’s good
fun. I don’t see why so many people
hated the game’s multiplayer beta,
There’s no exaggerating just
how satisfying Doom is in motion.
I keep coming back to the word
“satisfying” to describe the game,
probably because it’s the most apt
way to define it. Everything about
it feels substantial and carefully,
deliberately designed. When the
action kicks into high gear and you’re
circle-strafing, dodging and rocketing
your way to survival, kicking and
ripping and tearing at your monstrous
opponents every step of the way,
it feels absolutely fantastic. It’s an
expert modernisation of everything
that made Doom and Doom II instant
classics. It’s abundantly clear that
id went back for the drawing board
for this one, examined everything
that made the original Doom such a
seminal achievement, and went about
the important work of capturing that
in a fresh, modern guise. And they
nailed it. It’s one of my favourite firstperson shooters in a long, long time.
At its core, the Doom series is a fairly
simple thing about moving really fast
while shooting angry demons in the
face with cool guns. That’s exactly
what I wanted from this new Doom.
And that’s exactly what I got.
[ Dane Remendes ]
Would you buy it?
No, it’s terrible. Wait,
come back, I’m kidding!
I’d actually buy it several
times, just to throw
money at id and help
convince them that
making another Doom
in this style is the only
logical thing to do. Play it.
If you’re a fan of bloody,
action-packed firstperson shooters and long
for games that embrace
old-school FPS design,
you’ll love it.
The Score
9/10
Issue 39 | 2016 The OverClocker 41