Game was a ton of fun up until you leave Hell. As the levels progressed from the beginning of the game it slowly opened up the battlefields to more diverse and interestingly designed arenas and the levels themselves got more open with lots of back and forth exploration to find secrets and keys and stuff. But after hell you return to the Mars base and it feels like the level design regresses back to more confined spaces and it’s just not as interesting anymore. I’m on the level after you get the BFG. Do things open up again?
You do go back to Hell after two or three more levels of not-Hell. I don’t know if it improves any more beyond that because that’s the level I’m up to and I haven’t finished it yet. Warning though, you have to fight a cyber-demon in a small area before you can get back to the Hell levels as kind of a boss encounter that isn’t really that interesting or fun. So just push forward and watch out for that, it should be the level after you get the BFG.
edit-A walkthrough tells me that, including the level I’m on now (Titan’s Realm), I have four more levels (and two or three more boss fights ugh) before the end of the game. I’m going to try and push through and finish the game soon. I was having a good time with it at the beginning but it’s kind of wearing out its welcome with me at the moment.
The level design from now on will definitely remain worse. After you get the BFG, the next hell area (Titan’s Realm) is very large arenas reminiscent of Quake 3 maps. But it’s actually the worst level in the game in my opinion. The enemy AI can’t do anything challenging in those excessively open spaces and it basically devolves into Serious Sam mindless circlestrafing. Also, although the levels become larger, they never get back to the exploration or backtracking of the early game, it’s just arena after arena.
Also, the upgrade system starts to show cracks, since Doomguy fully loaded with multiple weapon masteries and rune synergies and so on is simply overpowered and nothing the game throws at you feels threatening anymore.
There’s no doubt you’re past the best parts of the game. Still, it won’t take long to finish from where you are, and there are still 4 or 5 great setpieces in between the uninspiring stuff, so I recommend completing the game anyway.
The demo for this really won me over. So I bought it a couple of days ago. I’ve been playing around with different difficulty levels and collecting all the collectibles and finding all the secrets in the first four levels. I haven’t progressed beyond that. I’ve spent around 10 hours doing that and I had a good time. I really like the first two levels but the third is a real pain for me. I want to learn the levels and play around in them but I just don’t like how big and open level 3 is. I’m afraid all following levels are going to go in that direction. I’m okay with this game being an arena shooter but the level design just doesn’t sit that well with me.
I also don’t want to collect THAT much stuff and upgrade so many things. In a way I just wish for a “New Game +” save and play that. Just play with everything that’s in there right away than to play half way through a level, go on YouTube, find a secrets guide and backtrack everything to find what’s to find so I can upgrade everything to where it’s supposed to be. But then, having everything unlocked/upgraded probably breaks the balance of the game.
I really don’t know what I’m going to do with this game. It’s a bit of a shame because I find the actual 15 sec slice of gunplay gameplay very enjoyable. It’s a really good core. It’s not DOOM but it’s something.
The original had all these novelty maps, where you’d, for example, find a whole room full of cyber demons (or barons of hell, I don’t know what they were called) and they’d all be standing there facing away from you, like they were in a classroom or listening to a presentation and you could bust in and ruin their shit. Weird little situations. Challenges. And this game doesn’t have that. Closest you get are probably the rune trials but I haven’t seen more than two of those just yet.
I can’t agree with what’s been said about the soundtrack itt; I’m listening to it right now and it does hold up alone. And together with the gameplay it’s just magic. It’s that 90s feel of shooting shit to cool music that I’ve certainly been missing. And instead of one-liners you’ve got glory kills and the occasional cool Doom Marine animation.
I don’t know guys. I think I’ll keep playing it.
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The Foundry’s the only level like that. It gets a bit more linear again afterwards.
There’s no reason to feel forced to systematically collect all the secrets. You’ll get pretty much everything and become OP regardless, it’s just a question of doing it earlier or later. I recommend being careful to find the new weapon mod bots since there’s only one per level, but other than that, do what you feel.
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are we playing the same game? what I heard of the soundtrack of the demo sounded like muddy generic videogame garbage. just like low pass filtered drum and bass bullshit with some fake guitars slapped on top. is there something wrong with the audio settings on my ps4??
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Are the nondescript metal guitar chugs in this game procedurally generated/triggered in some way?
A tiny bit, there is a sound effect when you Ultimate Visceral Glorious Murder that seems to align with and alter the music, but that’s all I can think of. Maybe there’s something for powerups as well but I have no specific recollection. Otherwise it’s just the usual transitions between “currently in a battle music” and “not”.
As the levels go on they get more and more linear until the last couple are basically hallways with a few large rooms breaking them up.
I finished this last week and thought it was enjoyable enough. Not enough though to go back and find all the secrets and get all the upgrades and stuff that I missed. Credits sequence is pretty cool. Final boss was a spider-mastermind and it was an okay fight but it would have been better if after the fight the level opened back up into a giant endless-looking hellscape and you had to fight five more along with dozens of all the other enemies/bosses you’d fought up to that point.
As it is though the game never quite does that. It’s always just confined to large-ish to small combat arenas and it never throws more than a certain number of enemies at you (though they’re always varied, but after a while it’s all the same variety in the same kinds of arenas). I wish idtech 6 was capable of rendering the same numbers of enemies that idtech 1 was.
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Thanks for the info. I’m just torn about finding the secrets and ignoring them. I wouldn’t say it’s fun looking for them but it is engaging. I’m 'miring the level design in this regard. Like how much is hidden in there, how much thought went into secret areas. I think more care went into making intricate maps than making playable maps. Or at least the guys and gals in charge of the former were more successful than the latter. In a way I’m really digging that because the original games had a lot of thought put into secrets as well. But this game certainly improves on how you can find them. It’s not hidden entrances in regular looking walls anymore. Exploration in this game is actually quite engaging. I didn’t expect that, certainly
Well sorry you don’t like muddy generic videogame music. I do! I think we’re hearing the same thing, I’m just into it and you’re not, that’s all. What else would you have wanted for this?
I wish that too, about the number of enemies. I wish they would have just stuck with the originals’ basic gameplay loop. Why can’t my shotgun be accurate for more than 6 feet? Why can’t I kill three imps with one super shotty blast? (you actually might be able to do that, need to try this again) And have like 6 more standing there, plus some zombie Marines, plus two chain gun zombie Marines, who are shooting each other across the map? I have to play what, 3 maps of Doom II to get to that. Why can’t I have it with 2016 graphics and glory kills? What was the big issue, seriously? Why can’t I have canned animations that look as good and satisfying as the ones in the original games? I don’t want rag doll deaths! Ever! Especially not in a fucking Doom game. Now they do have some standard canned animations like for glory kills and exploding barrels. Like I know for sure the imps go through an animation where their torso is sliced like by samurai sword and the top part just slides off after they get hit with a barrel explosion. But I want more of that. In the original games you made an instant connection with your target. The shotgun was hitscan, like in this game, but as soon as you pulled the trigger you got a reaction from your target. You’d get a pain animation or a death animation. Right away. There was a direct connection. I don’t feel this anymore with modern shooters and someone has to bring it back.
The stagger is a nice mechanic in this but it’s no pain animation (the little animation that would keep certain enemies from firing if you used the right weapons, like the chain gun on the cacodemon).
What I DO like and have to commend the development team on is that there are no more enemies with hitscan weapons. That is super cool. Because now you can dodge everything if you’ve got the skills. It’s become more of a bullet hell shooter and that is nice.
But then I also miss that there are no more zombie Marines. They were actually my favorite enemies in Doom II. The three variations of them. Wish they would have put them in the game…
The new imps are cool though. Like someone else already said, they’re like the best fps enemies in a looong time. They’ve got great AI and they’re amazingly fun to fight.
So what we need are mod makers, again. I want a proper pistol, first. None of that energy weapon crap that they give you. It needs to shoot bullets and it needs to sound good. Original Doom didn’t have a single weapon that sucked and neither should this. Then I need a quick save and quick load. I don’t need save games but just a quick save in addition to the check points would be good. And, well, then everything else I talked about. Who do I need to patreon and kickstart for this…
catchy, atmospheric midi metal like the original doom soundtrack obv
I never liked the atmospheric tracks of the original, actually. I mean they were passable and alright for the atmosphere the game was going for (Doom 2016 isn’t going for the same thing.) I was always more for the tracks that were ripped from Pantera, Slayer and the like
I would also take that
So I started playing this and
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My DOOM experience:
First half of the game: I’m going to find all the secrets and scour the levels and take my time
Second half of the game: RIP AND TEAR
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I do love the ripping AND the tearing!
this game owns bones and i just wish they had single player stuff on the way or that the snapmap feature wasn’t so horribly prohibitive. at least we can probably assume they’ll be making a sequel. but man, for real, the ripping and the tearing and the heavy metal blasting… i can’t think of too many games that felt like this. i don’t want to call it “cinematic” and plenty of games now ramp up the music while action is happening, but this was just one hell of a vibe. the atmospheric nin-like music was dope as heck, too. everything about it was just… yesss. i never would’ve thought the id software of today could have pulled this off.
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The Vulkan patch came out today
The game already ran well, but now it runs better. Betterer. Like, I’m getting an extra 30-40 fps at any given moment over OpenGL (counterpoint: AMD card).
Time to fail at super ultra nightmare all day
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