Wicked Good Game Reviews -- Doom!

Hi everyone hope you're doing well, welcome to my review of Doom! If you're not familiar with the Doom franchise it's one of the most significant and influential titles in video game history. Way back in 1993 the original Doom was released and it was one of the first games to use the first person shooter gameplay style. It's also is credited with making the genre popular and for many years after it's release any first person shooter game was called a "Doom clone", much like a "Dark Souls clone" today. The game created a genre all it's own that had yet to be officially named, but became very popular and had many companies making their own type of similar game. Over the years there have only been two official sequels, Doom 2 Hell On Earth in 1994, and Doom 3 in 2004. Then in 2016 the franchise was rebooted, and we got the new Doom, technically the fourth official title in the series. Since it's being ported over to the Nintendo Switch very soon, I thought it would be a good time to talk about it for anyone thinking about picking it up on there.

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Doom is developed by id software and published by Bethesda, the company behind the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series. Believe it or not development for this game started way back in 2007. It was not going to be a reboot at that time though and was supposed to be more like Doom 2, where it mostly took place on Earth. The game would remain in "development hell" for quite a while, until id totally scrapped what they had and began work on the reboot that we finally got. That decision wasn't made until 2013 though, so that's when the actual development for this one started. Where Doom 3 took a more survival horror route, for the new one id wanted to make something very close to the original, only completely updated for modern consoles. Something that looked gorgeous and detailed, but with that fast paced run and gun gameplay style. What we finally got was exactly what the franchise needed, a game that catered to old school fans and newcomers alike.

At the beginning of Doom you awake on a slab of stone, chained down unable to move. Suddenly you hear the sounds of some creature coming towards you and break out of the shackles killing the threat. It puts you right into the action from the very start and rarely ever lets up through the entire game. After breaking out from your restraints you quickly find the famous green and black Praetor Suit a couple of guns and begin your journey to find out what's going on here.
It turns out you're in a research facility on Mars, owned by the Union Aerospace Corporation. In this facility, researchers attempted to draw energy from hell using something called the, Argent Tower, to solve the energy crisis on Earth. The Argent Tower opens a portal to Hell, where it siphons power from, and allows entry to the evil realm. This company has made many trips to Hell where they have brought back demons to study in captivity on Mars. On one of their expeditions down there, they came across a sarcophagus with the Doom Slayer, the character you play as, and his suit, that the demons sealed away many years ago. Something goes wrong and now demons are coming through the portal onto Mars, destroying the research facility. In a last ditch effort, the head of the company opens up the sarcophagus letting out the Slayer and that's where the game begins.

The story really isn't the main attraction of Doom though, it's all about the gameplay. Right from the start the game moves at a fast pace, first throwing small hoards of enemies at you. Then the further you get the bigger and faster the hoards become. The enemy variety is great in this game, always giving you new demons to fight. At first you start off on the surface of Mars on the research facility fighting off smaller demons with relative ease. Eventually you wind up in Hell where the demons get much more intimidating and a lot harder to kill. Towards the end of the game you even encounter some pretty memorable boss battles, some that took me a few tries to take down.
Luckily you get a pretty impressive arsenal to deal with all these monsters. Starting off with the classic pistol and shotgun setup, to eventually getting about a dozen different guns all the way up to the iconic, BFG. All of these guns can be upgraded depending on what ones you like most. All guns also have two different functions giving you even more options. In addition to just shooting you also have a melee mechanic. After you inflict some damage to an enemy they will flash blue, at that time if you press in on the right stick, you perform a special melee kill that earns you some health. Or if you use your chainsaw to hack down a demon, that will earn you some ammo, giving you multiple ways to stay in the fight. The combination of all these mechanics make for a very fast paced fluid combat system, that is incredibly addicting and fun.

There's no cover system in Doom, nor is there rechargeable health. Instead you have to keep moving and use the space of the wide open areas, as well as the narrow corridors to your advantage. Exploration is also key in this game, as there are many secret areas and hidden rooms to find. Some of these will lead you to collectibles, but some have new weapons to discover or an upgrade for your suit, making it worth your while to search every nook and cranny of Doom's maps.
During my playthrough of this I never felt bored or bogged down with story exposition. If anything I was overwhelmed at times with the never ending hordes of demons that got increasingly harder and harder. But the huge variety in enemies and weapons, as well as the awesome heavy metal soundtrack that plays whenever the action starts, kept me engaged the whole way through. If you haven't got around to playing this yet I highly suggest picking it up. It's been out for about a year now so the price should be pretty low. Or if you own a Nintendo Switch, there's a port coming soon that you can try on there. I give Doom a score of:

B+