Doom 2016 Review
Beaten On: 1.19.22
Hours Played: 12 hrs
Difficulty: Hurt Me Plenty
Rating: 9.3/10
Is Doom something I even need to intro..? I guess I better…
Doom (2016) is Id and Bethesda’s reboot of the classic series by John Carmack. It was relatively well received, with an average score of 85, with a sequel following 4 years later.
For me, Doom (2016) was my first experience with the series, at least playing it, and it’s honestly such a unique experience. So much so, that it’s almost worth playing for that alone. Thankfully, the game is more than just a unique experience; it’s a beautiful and fun shooter with a consistent identity.
The game starts you off in a room with a handful of enemies and your fists, and quickly gives you your iconic armor and a pistol that I was still using in the endgame. Throughout the first level, there’s not much story to speak of, aside from some environmental cutscenes, and some exposition from a couple characters.
I don’t want to talk about the game level by level, so let’s talk about the story, which is arguably one of the weakest points of the game, but one that I still found very compelling. Without getting into major spoiler territory, a portal between Hell and a Mars colony has been opened after an expedition to recover something. Later in the game you discover that something was you, the Doomslayer; a unique being if immense power, uniquely suited to defeat the denizens of hell. There are other story beats I’m skipping, but I think that’s a good enough primer.
And like I said, the story is one of the weaker points of the game, but I still really enjoyed it. I think a big part of that is how the story is told; there are very few areas of the game where they take control away from you, and largely, it’s up to you to seek out lore and exposition beyond maybe an intro or outro cutscene in each level. Beyond the storytelling itself, the story just felt immersive. The gameplay kind of compels you to, well, rip and tear, and through the story they give a reason for that gameplay and I kind of felt a sense of pride for who I was playing as.
Before we get into the meat and potatoes of the game, I want to mention one more element, and that’s the art and design. I was actually shocked at how good the game looked, I mean the game came out 6 years ago and it looks better than some new games that have come out recently. There were definitely some textures you could pick out when you got close, but nothing that you’d notice during gameplay. And the lighting and environments themselves are just so atmospheric, especially in hell, it really adds to the overall immersion and at times, tension of the game.
Beyond the art and lighting, the last design element I want to highlight is the design of the levels themselves. There are a lot of hidden areas and secrets in every level, and that gives you a great reason to explore, which leads to enemy encounters and lore you would have missed otherwise. And that’s just the secrets, the main areas of the levels are great as well, with lots of height and circular arenas that lend themselves to jumping and strafing movement, which feels amazing combined with the core gameplay loop. Sprinkle in some circular level design to round everything out, and most of the levels felt fun and fresh, while giving you an opportunity to get familiar with where the walls and ledges were, which again, lends itself to the core gameplay, allowing you to maneuver backwards a lot of the time.
Finally, let’s talk about what Doom is actually known for: frantic encounters and gunplay. And I’ll be honest, I did love this game, but on Hurt Me Plenty difficulty, the combat rarely felt frantic or challenging, which is a big disappointment. That’s partially my own fault, since I just assumed it was a difficulty above normal, though in hindsight it’s obvious it’s not. Given the chance to play it for the first time again, I’d definitely have chosen a higher difficulty.
Despite that blunder, though, the gameplay loop is still super solid. The gunplay feels good, and more importantly the guns feel powerful and weighty, especially after you’ve gotten some levels in your weapon mods. And the devs also did a good job of making the weapons feel useful. I mean, of course you can run through the whole game with the super shotgun and chainsaw for ammo, but the demons you fought did lend themselves to being killed by specific weapons, even the pistol which when upgraded could one shot a lot of the smaller enemies. And briefly, before I move on from the guns, lets me mention the weapon mods; most guns have two of them, giving you two unique alt fire abilities, like cluster grenades for the shotgun, or micro-missles for the assault rifle. They all had their own unique challenges to level them up, and most of them had situational uses, like being able to stun enemies with the plasma rifle, or detonating rockets mid flight. They did a good job of mixing up the gameplay loop, and being useful all the same.
The last combat element I want to mention is the glory kills, melee attacks you can perform when an enemy gets critically low on health. Glory kills, and the chainsaw, are really interesting mechanics, and I think they add depth to the combat, and it feels immersive by making you self-sufficient. They also look cool as hell, obviously, that’s the point. I also really appreciated the fact that they worked it into the story; there’s a story type totem in Hell that describes the Doom Slayer as being able to gain power from killing demons, and I take that to mean that’s how you get health and ammo from your kills.
I think I mentioned it already, but I was super surprised with just how good Doom (2016) was. I had no idea what to expect going in, having never played any of the original Doom’s, but I’m definitely going to play Doom Eternal at some point, and this game was good enough, I may even try out some classic Doom.
- Zack
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