Doom E starts off quite good but becomes tiring & tedious very quickly. I will just say now that Doom was a hard act to follow. It had an addictive balance like no other. The balance is not here at all. It's harder, faster, longer, less atmospheric, & even the story is an over-bloated mess of Cult-clichés. Once the upgrades are out the way, & you have another second half a game to wade through in precisely the same manner as the first, it becomes frustratingly frenetic. Every level is far too long, battles always involve waves of many enemies which increases predictably each time, & the weapons are set to kill particular enemies is particular ways. If you do not kill them in the way the Developer has premeditated; you die quicker. This takes away all the fun of the original - where every gun was an over-powered cannon of devastation.
The Devs seem to think that Challenge, equals, enjoyment. Even on Easy, it is a frantic mess, where everything bombards you if you stop moving, & by getting stuck on any of the surroundings results in your demise. This makes for a game, not of skill, but of luck.
The graphics: are large, colourful, & detailed. Probably what they concentrated on the most. Yet the touch-screens & on-screen data pads have once again reverted to squint-inducing thumbnails. The Guns & pickups are bright & treat you like an idiot. (The first game did it better!) The environments are nice when bright & open, but soon revert to corridors, alcoves & lift-shafts. Many don't feel like Doom in any sense, because all of the Religious ramifications they see fit to shove down our throats constantly.
The Story: It's daft! Call me simple! But Doom guy always seemed like a modest soldier down on his luck; sticking UP for his species, to me. A guy so neglected by society & Military hierarchy, he didn't even have a name. He busted out of confinement, got himself a gun, & had no alternative but to become a badass to defend his outpost! Now, they want to turn him into another 'Dr Who' Jesus Christ saviour figure. It takes away ALL your intrigue; knowing that everything you do has been ordained & is your destiny. I don't want to play in this universe anymore. It's stuffy, irrational, superstitious, & ostentatious. It totally bogs the game down for the sake of trying to make sense of a totally implausible situation. Just because you CAN achieve something, doesn't mean you SHOULD do it. If you are in control of your skill & technique, you are thus liberated from it. But here, the technique is in control of the game's structure.
The Audio is a mixed bag. Some sounds are an improvement such as the Aslt Rifle, whereas the Ballista is so underwhelming that you hardly notice it upon releasing the trigger! You knew when The Gauss Cannon fired! BOOM! The music is a disaster. A total calamity. There is no quality control. There are a few standout tracks in the game that are indeed very good, if strictly suited to this universe of carnage! But apart from the fact they are truncated, they are all re-engineered & mixed badly - fatiguing you, due to the Loudness Compression of already loud music. There are times where I had no alternative but to turn off the music in the options menu! Repeating a single phrase over & over offers nothing creative & is an insult to all those composers who over-composed to fit every possible situation. There are a lot of tracks which seem to be more 'sound fx' than music. These grate on you so bad, it just sours the experience. I liked the energy in more aggressive tracks during combat, because it makes sense. But when you are just trying to wade through all the mundane jumping routes, you just want something mellifluous & expansive. Something which adds to the atmosphere & represents the eerie empty expanse of space. These areas require intelligent & introspective cues, because they last a lot longer than the 6 minute waves of enemies. Doom understood this & didn't need to keep leaning on Metal to add energy. In fact, if I recall, the music even responded to your play style during combat by becoming more vigorous with every kill. The music was a careful fit to the environment: A hybrid of synthetic, digital & performance stems - which gave it a very genre-defiant & characteristic edge over Doom E - Which just relies on Metal/Djent guitar licks, Dumbstep LFOs, & buried drum kits. Although I completed this game, I have no desire to return. A strange reaction, considering the original had the opposite effect & kept me coming back for another playthrough. There is just so much wrong with how this game was built, that it begs the question of competence. The entire game is now segregated & laid out into wave-bars in the top right hand corner - letting you know exactly how far you are, how many more waves, unique areas, etc. you have left; removing any connection to the world, & to the discovery. It tells you right at the start! Doom2016 felt like a journey, with exploration, & a narrative being created as you progress. It reminds me of Gears of War Judgement - where they forced the Wave system into the main story campaign. You'd be constantly concentrating on perfect scores, head shots, & other pointless gimmicks when I should just be enjoying the experience. DoomE is exactly the same. You'll get to the end of a typically protracted level, just to be faced with a "You SUCK!" score board of missed secrets, failed challenges, incomplete waves, & "The Princess is in Another Castle". Speaking of which, there is a Castle hanging in orbit that is now your main base. I have no idea why. As far as I can make out, it's just padding, a place for fan fiction, a few upgrades locked behind more upgrades & demonstrates further how the Devs want to make games that their peers are making. To get away from Doom. The combat in superior games is always addictive. Here, it is a chore. A chore with trumped up stipulations which demands you to forgo your enjoyment, to play how they want you to play. They obviously came to the same conclusion, because instead of resolving the issues, they deemed fit to add a pointless jumping traversal system, to break up the monotony & lethargy. Most people have stated that they like the jumping puzzles, but what do you expecte when the main combat is so tedious?! It only gets worse as the game drags on. And before you know it, you'll be jumping through hoops - literally. It's a perfect metaphor for DoomE sadly.
Multiplayer! HA! There's no point me commenting on the Multiplayer because such a thing today does not exist. It's groups of kids, endlessly death matching in a goldfish bowl with no purpose. "OH You killed me. OH I killed you" - Rinse & repeat. I doubt the Devs have any love of social gaming what so ever these days what with the bilge they porn off as multi-player. Until I can toss any friend a pad & he can share in the experience of the main story, I shan't even bother taking notice of multi-player options.
DoomE is an aesthetic statement & a failed experiment of "more is better". And I warn anybody who loved the predecessor not to expect more of what you liked about the first. It's a rushed mess of the wrong ideas for the sake of being different. But I ask the valid question... If you're making so many changes to progress far away from the original formula, what was so bad about it in the first place?
The Devs seem to think that Challenge, equals, enjoyment. Even on Easy, it is a frantic mess, where everything bombards you if you stop moving, & by getting stuck on any of the surroundings results in your demise. This makes for a game, not of skill, but of luck.
The graphics: are large, colourful, & detailed. Probably what they concentrated on the most. Yet the touch-screens & on-screen data pads have once again reverted to squint-inducing thumbnails. The Guns & pickups are bright & treat you like an idiot. (The first game did it better!) The environments are nice when bright & open, but soon revert to corridors, alcoves & lift-shafts. Many don't feel like Doom in any sense, because all of the Religious ramifications they see fit to shove down our throats constantly.
The Story: It's daft! Call me simple! But Doom guy always seemed like a modest soldier down on his luck; sticking UP for his species, to me. A guy so neglected by society & Military hierarchy, he didn't even have a name. He busted out of confinement, got himself a gun, & had no alternative but to become a badass to defend his outpost! Now, they want to turn him into another 'Dr Who' Jesus Christ saviour figure. It takes away ALL your intrigue; knowing that everything you do has been ordained & is your destiny. I don't want to play in this universe anymore. It's stuffy, irrational, superstitious, & ostentatious. It totally bogs the game down for the sake of trying to make sense of a totally implausible situation. Just because you CAN achieve something, doesn't mean you SHOULD do it. If you are in control of your skill & technique, you are thus liberated from it. But here, the technique is in control of the game's structure.
The Audio is a mixed bag. Some sounds are an improvement such as the Aslt Rifle, whereas the Ballista is so underwhelming that you hardly notice it upon releasing the trigger! You knew when The Gauss Cannon fired! BOOM! The music is a disaster. A total calamity. There is no quality control. There are a few standout tracks in the game that are indeed very good, if strictly suited to this universe of carnage! But apart from the fact they are truncated, they are all re-engineered & mixed badly - fatiguing you, due to the Loudness Compression of already loud music. There are times where I had no alternative but to turn off the music in the options menu! Repeating a single phrase over & over offers nothing creative & is an insult to all those composers who over-composed to fit every possible situation. There are a lot of tracks which seem to be more 'sound fx' than music. These grate on you so bad, it just sours the experience. I liked the energy in more aggressive tracks during combat, because it makes sense. But when you are just trying to wade through all the mundane jumping routes, you just want something mellifluous & expansive. Something which adds to the atmosphere & represents the eerie empty expanse of space. These areas require intelligent & introspective cues, because they last a lot longer than the 6 minute waves of enemies. Doom understood this & didn't need to keep leaning on Metal to add energy. In fact, if I recall, the music even responded to your play style during combat by becoming more vigorous with every kill. The music was a careful fit to the environment: A hybrid of synthetic, digital & performance stems - which gave it a very genre-defiant & characteristic edge over Doom E - Which just relies on Metal/Djent guitar licks, Dumbstep LFOs, & buried drum kits. Although I completed this game, I have no desire to return. A strange reaction, considering the original had the opposite effect & kept me coming back for another playthrough. There is just so much wrong with how this game was built, that it begs the question of competence. The entire game is now segregated & laid out into wave-bars in the top right hand corner - letting you know exactly how far you are, how many more waves, unique areas, etc. you have left; removing any connection to the world, & to the discovery. It tells you right at the start! Doom2016 felt like a journey, with exploration, & a narrative being created as you progress. It reminds me of Gears of War Judgement - where they forced the Wave system into the main story campaign. You'd be constantly concentrating on perfect scores, head shots, & other pointless gimmicks when I should just be enjoying the experience. DoomE is exactly the same. You'll get to the end of a typically protracted level, just to be faced with a "You SUCK!" score board of missed secrets, failed challenges, incomplete waves, & "The Princess is in Another Castle". Speaking of which, there is a Castle hanging in orbit that is now your main base. I have no idea why. As far as I can make out, it's just padding, a place for fan fiction, a few upgrades locked behind more upgrades & demonstrates further how the Devs want to make games that their peers are making. To get away from Doom. The combat in superior games is always addictive. Here, it is a chore. A chore with trumped up stipulations which demands you to forgo your enjoyment, to play how they want you to play. They obviously came to the same conclusion, because instead of resolving the issues, they deemed fit to add a pointless jumping traversal system, to break up the monotony & lethargy. Most people have stated that they like the jumping puzzles, but what do you expecte when the main combat is so tedious?! It only gets worse as the game drags on. And before you know it, you'll be jumping through hoops - literally. It's a perfect metaphor for DoomE sadly.
Multiplayer! HA! There's no point me commenting on the Multiplayer because such a thing today does not exist. It's groups of kids, endlessly death matching in a goldfish bowl with no purpose. "OH You killed me. OH I killed you" - Rinse & repeat. I doubt the Devs have any love of social gaming what so ever these days what with the bilge they porn off as multi-player. Until I can toss any friend a pad & he can share in the experience of the main story, I shan't even bother taking notice of multi-player options.
DoomE is an aesthetic statement & a failed experiment of "more is better". And I warn anybody who loved the predecessor not to expect more of what you liked about the first. It's a rushed mess of the wrong ideas for the sake of being different. But I ask the valid question... If you're making so many changes to progress far away from the original formula, what was so bad about it in the first place?