So, do you remember that piece I may have written about if we cared about Doom anymore? You don’t? Good! Because I didn’t write that piece; it was Jerry our other writer who wanted to frame me ‘cos he’s kind of a douche (not really). Anyway, so I pre-ordered Wolfenstein: The New Order like two years ago and finally I get a chance to play the Doom beta (being the soul reason I bought the New Order). But now everyone else can from next week! So, it was kinda pointless getting the New Order. Anyway, I played the beta and discovered for myself does the mighty FPS titan claw its way back into our hearts or should it be left in hell?
The Multiplayer has given me high hopes but also some troubling doubt. Just for the multiplayer that is. We didn’t get much in terms of game modes and in fact what we did get was a small fraction of the main multiplayer experience. That said I’ll go through my thoughts on what I experienced.
The Experience
The best way I can describe Doom’s multiplayer is a blend of Unreal Tournament and Halo with a crap ton of blood and guts thrown in for good measure. It’s fast, fluent and elegantly accessible for all types of players to integrate. For those, like me, multiplayer shooters are somewhat difficult to grasp due to their restrictions and more grounded approach to movement and such. I’m not rubbish, but I know I prefer and find games more comfortable with something that’s not strictly military based and doesn’t require a lot of discipline. Doom was easy to learn and simple to handle, so much so that within an hour, I felt like I could take on anyone. With its simple control scheme and fluent movement, you’ll enjoy traversing the environments and handling your guns. In addition, the worlds you are battling in were easy to navigate and look marvelous in detail, style and design.
What this new Doom, it presents multiplayer that may upset many, but at the same time brings in a tactical element by introducing two weapon loadouts and restricting pickups to power-ups, ammo and health. You can’t just simply pick up a gun at any given moment unlike in Halo or Unreal; you have to plan ahead and choose a two particular weapons before a round begins and when you respawn.
It’s more important when playing game modes such as Warzone where the control point moves across the map. What Doom brings is an interesting ideal, it allows players to either go gun crazy or better yet to develop tactics in a more profound way. You’ll learn to use your favourite weapons more effectively and thus gain a better understanding of what your good at. To ambush, snipe or just go balls crazy. But a vital component of gameplay remains by exploring the world for the health and ammo. This adds an aspect of intense survival where fighting for resources also becomes apparent during matches, not often seen in many online games.
Them BFGs!
You may notice that guns don’t often have the punch you may expect. Rockets won’t destroy your enemies with a single shot and the effects of the plasma rifle might seem extremely underwhelming. But it’s all to do with tactics and balancing to avoid everyone starting up with freaking Rocket launchers. But it also factors in for weapons such as the Plasma rifle which may deal low damage; the rate of fire is insane. So if you’ve got the upper hand and are behind someone with a plasma rifle, they’re pretty much screwed. But having an effective combo is vital to success as using plasma rifle to drain your opponent’s health down and finishing them off with a shotgun blast to the face, or a gruesome melee finisher is a popular approach.
Customization and Ranking up
The aspect of customization is strangely alluring and also extremely cheesy. Don’t get me wrong, I do love painting myself guns in metallic green with patches of bright neon pink and with a cobweb patterns tattooed all over my armour. It’s just weird seeing it in a Doom game. It’s good as players have their own identity but often it doesn’t matter as team death matches just puts players in either blue and white suits. No, not blue and red. That would be way too much like that other shooting game.
Another feature I felt was a strange touch for Doom is a concept called “Hacks” and sadly they were pretty underwhelming in the Beta. They have potential and quite possibly add a great amount of depth and strategy to gameplay, but what we got was a selection of very dull modifications. These Hacks trigger at the start of a player’s respawn and give a slight tactical advancement from armour plating to item respawn counters. But I get it, it’s balancing again but with the hack available, they were very minuscule in their presence and didn’t seem worthwhile to begin with.
I did like how the game doesn’t linger when showing off the highest scoring players, unlike Call of Duty Black Ops 3 which just stares at three guys as they dance and shake their money makers for up to 2 minutes. Like I care. Just let me kill more things! Doom just says, there you go, try better and let’s kill some more.
Progression and ranking up feels a little shallow as 95% of what you unlock is just cosmetics and overall the rank you have doesn’t amount to the skill you hold. I didn’t feel progression was entirely earned and most of the time, gaining a few kills in a match leveled me up. When I did do awesome kill streaks and obtain various “medals” for my efforts, these are surprisingly under played. The other 5% of unlocks are useful including guns and best of all, Demons! Although I only saw the revenant and to its credit, this was the only thing to keep me invested enough to progress further in rank, unlocking even more badass demons.
Final Thoughts
What the Doom beta offered was little insight to what the overall experience will be. I had hoped for more game modes to try out as we’ve all seen and played some form of death match and zone capture before. Yet certain elements do make them interesting, such as the demon possession and mobility aspect of Warzone. I hope this type of dynamic engineering is also within the other modes and that the progression and ranking system holds more vital rewards and bigger bonuses (which from trailers it looks like it does). But I’m always cautious from trailers and the Beta didn’t scratch my urge for Doom; it made me want more. So in a way it’s great to gear us up but at the same time, it could be a massive let down.
If so, then ….. Who cares about Doom anyway?
What? Oh yeah, I’m sure the Campaign will be awesome.
Lets just say, it isn’t going to be a Duke Nukem Forever.
Also, great news! The Doom Open Beta is out this week, from April the 15th till the 17th. Try out the beta and see how you like it?