nu doom feels like a refinement of what neu wolf accomplished in a number of ways, i think. that, or it’s just the flipside of what these sort of games can do with narrative, establishment of character, etc. b.j. has conversations with people; doom guy slayer punches screens aside. looking back at the wolfensteins and doom of the early '90s, it’s not like there’s a huge difference between the scope and nuance of their stories and characterizations, but it’s interesting that in the 2010s there’s such a gulf between their respective approaches. they’re both first person shooters with huge guns and big beefy action, but the doom slayer doesn’t have time for romance, guilt, humor, or dialogue — he’s an elemental force of vengeance in a world stripped of its humanity, while b.j. is a man surrounded by people, doing the things he does out of, hypothetically, love. at the end of the day, i mean.
they’re both fucking fantastic games, i think. especially looking at these games coming along after rage — which i don’t think is a terrible game, just one that lacks the focus neu wolf and nu doom wield — it’s fun, being excited about idsoft games again.
If there’s one particular complaint I have about nu DOOM’s narrative, it’s that it eventually takes priority over Doomguy’s path of destruction. You can argue that it had to eventually make Doomguy sit down for a cutscene and put the super shotty away, in order to make a logical series of events that could lead to a sequel. But this game started out with a character who came from a old game whose initial plot was thrown away in development because it was too complicated, and got in the way of the unbridled violence, had him wake up to a a suspicious voice trying to cut a deal with him and rationalize and complicate the sins of man, and he throws the monitor away because no! Hamfisted plots detract from the fun! Forget it! Rip and tear!
Actually, now that I’m thinking about it: Nu DOOM has three antagonistic forces. On the gameplay level, there’s the demons, obviously. On the setting level, there’s late capitalism and its complete disregard for humanity. And on the third level, narrative is the antagonist. At several points throughout the game, Doomguy, representing the player, is set back by a “greater narrative” trying to take precedence over the context. Granted, that’s just an interpretation, but I feel like it would behoove the sequel to ramp up to Gurren Lagann levels of “Half Life was wrong” anti-narrative shenanigans.
Like, don’t get me wrong, I love the setting and the mythos of DOOM, it’s super great. But nu DOOM’s intro seems very very much in response to the widespread disapproval of DOOM 3.
clearly I have a lot of opinions about this game
btw did you guys know there’s a snapmap recreation of hamlet? it’s really funny.
The last few posts here have been delightful. Neu wolf is an impressive piece of 80’s action style alt-future schlock and I wish more people appreciated it as such. All the poured concrete architecture
I interpreted Doomguy’s trashing the talking screen as a declaration by ID software that there would be zero “story” in this game, only rip and tear, and I was really disappointed when the talking head came back.
That being said the narrative was pretty OK in the end. Although when it comes down to it, it was carried by the animation design on the female cultist character, not the script. I think the same story could’ve been told almost wordlessly if they had tried
Neufenstein is so fucking good. It’s weird to attribute its goodness to id though, since it was developed by Machinegames which is mostly the people from old Starbreeze. It’s absolutely a Starbreeze game.
I attempted to play Starbound with a pal and we both thought it was pretty bad after 10 hours or so. The main quests are some of the most boring things I’ve ever done in a game, made me really question what I’m doing with my life, and the other stuff felt kinda like work.
I think I need these games about collecting and building stuff to be really good looking, and Starbound is pretty ugly to me. Some equipments make it look like it was cobbled together with assets from other games, like in Mugen or something, I dunno.
Also, it ran pretty slowly on my computer, apparently it’s not optimized for Radeon GPUs.
Neu wolf is baller and the only gripe I have with it is the constant pressing of a button to pick up shit. Like armor and ammo. Why can’t I just run over the stuff and pick it up automatically. It’s not like I’m going to pass on anything. It’s just a nuisance.
Loving all the Nu Doom love itt. I really have to keep playing it but:
I’m back on that grind, y’all. Playing FFXIV again. I’m so enjoying it, it’s surreal. It’s just a giant compilation of check lists. It always gives me something to do and I can play it literally all day long. I’m at a point in life where I can admit that a big part of what makes videogames attractive to me is the sense of accomplishment and progress. A false sense of that, I should say, because in actuality you’re getting nowhere in life. It fills a void. A lack of progression in my real life. And in the game I’m always progressing at something, unlocking something, learning something, gaining something. It’s like working out: the videogame. That includes a lot of tedium of course but that’s part of what makes it so engaging; forcing yourself to overcome it to get to where you want to go.
I think now I’m offcially tired of having a handler lead me around by the ear in games, I could only deal with 30 minutes or so of Zombi or however it’s styled. I liked the two-stage swing for melee combat, though.
Had a feeling the game wasn’t for me so I can scratch it off the backlog. Luckily it was just a PS+ download.
I finally got back to Doom and ended up finishing it in one sitting. It’s really good! It’s odd to me that the Nu Doom topic consensus seemed to be that the back half of that game wasn’t as good because I enjoyed the multi-layered combat arenas and having all my weapons/mods unlocked way more than the beginning of the game.
Gonna have to agree with Rice that it should have had a score attack mode. I’m probably done with it for right now, but I’d play the heck out of it if there was a mode where numbers popped out of things.
There are two reasons I think the back half of Nu-Doom (everything after Cyberdemon) was worse. One, it’s too easy. I bet you stopped dying much at the end, right? That’s down to your late-game powerups being OP and the enemy AIs not knowing how to do anything but stand around and shoot where you were in those wide open arenas. Secondly, it’s just the same thing over and over and it forgets about having exploration or at least varied arena types.
I think the game needed to be a bit stingier with the powerups overall. Something’s off about how awash you become in power points to the extent of not even bothering to spend them all. It makes the late game too easy, it erases the sense of meaningful choice and commitment in the tech tree, and it in retrospect makes the early-game exploration and achievement hunting feel like a waste of time.
Jokes on you, the last half of the game was me going ‘Jesus that fight was hard, why was it so hard?’ and then noticing the berserk power up I missed over and over again
it’s probably bad if i admit that i just love nu doom for being an absurd power fantasy and that this justifies the perceived decrease in challenge toward the end. (though i’d say it’s still fully engaging, you’re just less likely to die. it can still happen.) i for one am glad that this isn’t too much of a perks tree or spec commitment thing, like an action rpg (though i did hop back into earlier levels to hunt for secrets, demon’s souls-style and i guess i would be ok with it going further in that direction), and that instead it simply demonstrates the ramping up of the doom slayer’s might via arcadey power-ups. >=| it’s just, like, a kind of quintessentially fun video game thing, maybe? not that video games should or have to be this, but it can be kind of sublime when they are. also, you know, we can play on difficulties higher than hurt me plenty, and i don’t think we’d be saying all the same things then.
There were a few times where I figured I should have been playing on a harder difficulty. Though, that fight after the second(?) tram ride is a hell of a thing on any difficulty. Very small space with just about every enemy type up to that point.
Don’t know if I’m in the minority about this, but I was really pleased when the game turned out to have traditional boss fights. I thought they were really well balanced and even required you to use your verbset in new ways. Environmental damage, sweeping attacks, being targeted, etc. It was nice for the game to further cement its dedication to being a capital-V Videogame, even if these types of bosses weren’t identical to the older DOOMs.
