In little over a week I completed the campaign of Doom (PS4) and I had a whale of a time with it. The game is relatively short (maybe 12hours) but it never overstays its welcome but this is a key factor of this fantastic game. Its balanced in such a way that every fight, boss encounter and level is such that just before it became tedious it ended. The plot is close to a retelling of the first Doom, taking control of the ambiguous hero (presumably from Doom & Doom 2) it was mere seconds before I was killing my first demons, unrecognisable from the footsoldiers of old but it was a couple of minutes before I fought the more familiar imps. I then died, a lot. The action is fast enough that death didn't feel so much a penalty, more of a chance to hone my skills in murdering the legions of hell. Early on without much prompting I was taught about the new glory kill system which kills enemies in gory, imaginative ways and how by doing this I got health bonuses which were essential to progressing. As much as this seems like a game with a reverence for its past it adds new features in creative ways. The chainsaw is now reduced to a short fuel supply, but using it helps build up ammunition reserves for other weapons, getting me out of tight spots on a couple of occasions. Certain scenarios do seem like retellings of things that happened in the first game such as the Hell Knight encounter from the end of act one, these nods to the games past don't feel tacked on, instead make the game feel likes its crafted by people who loved the originals and also understood what made them great. For as little plot as there is in the game (humans are using hell for an energy source it goes wrong) it's told in such an earnest tone that its funny without trying too hard. Having a silent protagonist helped me fill in the blanks to what my character was thinking throughout, sometimes when he was punching elevator buttons and smashing tubes it didn't take too much imagination. As I got deeper into the game, old foes continued to appear, pretty much all the demons from the original two games are here (minus two by my count) favourites of mine such as the Pinky Demon and the Cacodemon return with much more "charming" character design than the realism that was attempted in Doom 3 and the game bounces between Hell and Mars toward the end in such a way that the environments always felt fresh and cool to explore.
The only slight complaint I had with it at all was that by seemingly avoiding the horror tropes of Doom 3 its not frightening at all in its bombastic approach. My memories of playing Doom 2 as a 13 year old was an underlying sense of fear, as comical as it seems now compared to today's games, the lighting and sound work in the game was terrifying at times. This reboot of Doom has decided to go another way and admittedly this way is a lot more fun. I played a bit of the multi-player and enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would too.
Doom isn't anything new, it has medipacks, yellow keys and zombies but in the week it took me to complete it felt like one of the most original games I've played in a long time, I'll certainly be playing through it again at some point. Finally the ending of the game is left in such a way that I can't wait to play the next game (if it ever comes).
My hours spent in Pokemon Yellow is now over thirty hours. I'd say I don't know how that's happened in such a short space of time but I do, traipsing back and forth fighting bikers, swimmers and young trainers to get my Tauros to an acceptable level and he's still floundering in the low 30s. It's bordered on frustrating at time, especially fighting the multitude of poison attacks at the moment but I'm still way into my Pokemon. What's surprised me the most is that there is much more of a conventional game in there (and an impressive amount for a gameboy cartridge) the plot is deeper, Team Rocket are up to something and it continually adds new things that I wasn't expecting such as bicycles and fast travelling. Still really enjoying it basically.
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