Welcome to our CHEATfactor Game Review of DOOM. We review the game and then factor in how the available cheats affect the overall game experience. For better or worse, our reviews will help you decide whether or not to use cheats when playing the game.
I found out about DOOM much the same way that most kids found out about Porn; in a friend's dark basement far from the eyes of disapproving parents. I had been a Nintendo kid growing up so the extent of the video game violence little nine year old me had seen was pretty much the blinking that would happen when Link would connect with the Master Sword. But this, this was different. This was new and raw. This was something my parents would be pissed if they saw me playing at that age. DOOM was sort of my gateway drug into a lot shooters and more advanced, mature games in general. It's for that reason that I waited with bated breath for the new version of DOOM, with high but tempered expectations. Now that the game is out and I've been playing DOOM, I don't want to stop playing DOOM. It's a fun and visceral throwback to a time gone by in a genre that I love. This is DOOM for a new age but somehow it's also back to basics. You've played this game before for sure, but DOOM has a way of making everything feel like it's own.
Much like previous iterations of the shooter, DOOM has a storyline, but you don't really need to follow it. Here's what you need to know; there's been an outbreak of demon-thingies on Mars that need to be shot and guess who's got a shiny new shotgun. Maybe that's selling things a bit short as there are more than a few interesting turns to be found in the game's campaign but it's absolutely nothing that you'll miss if you skip absolutely every cutscene in the game. The good news is that the developers seem to know that and didn't waste much time with them. The game even starts off pretty quickly with you firing a laser type gun at your first set of demons. Not too much after that and you're already in your combat suit revving up chainsaws and marveling at what the insides of demons really looks like. I've got to commend the developers on that, I love story in games but sometimes it takes so long to actually play but Bethesda made sure that DOOM wasted absolutely no time getting fans to where they've waited to be for so long.
If you take absolutely anything from this review know this, DOOM feels like it should. You're wandering through tight corridors in firefights with a ton of overpowered Demons. There are a few modern touches thrown in but the key is that this new version of DOOM is an extremely tight feeling shooter. If I had to compare it to something it would be the Wolfenstein remake released a few years ago; with both games Bethesda has taken the core elements of what makes both franchises so special and tweaked them just enough so they're more modern but still feel like they should. In fact, much like Wolfenstein before it DOOM has several hidden levels taken directly from the original game and the mechanics still feel great. DOOM understands why after nearly twenty years DOOM is still revered as one of the cornerstones as the first person shooter genre.
No shooter is better than the quality of it's weapons and luckily this is also something that DOOM excels in, just as it always has. You'll start the game with a measly later type gun but it's not long until you're given the game's trademark shotgun which if you're not already sensing a theme here, feels exactly as it should. You'll be able to experiment with different guns throughout the campaign and each one is upgradeable with different tech. The shotgun for example can become modded to shoot three quick shots to deal a ton of damage, fire explosive shots or a number of different effects; all which can be easily switched out for one another. I had a lot of fun trying different challenges in the game with differently modded weapons and seeing how I fared. On everything but the easiest difficulty DOOM packs a punch and will kill you before you know what happened if you're not paying attention (DOOM is unabashedly old school and makes you collect medkits instead of auto generating health).
With how strong DOOM's shooter mechanics are, one thing I did not expect to love as much as I did was the game's melee attack system. You can hit enemies with the business end of your weapon as you'd expect and you can also use your chainsaw but if you time it right and get in close enough you can perform a glory kill, which is pretty much DOOM in all of it's gory glory. This is what you've probably seen in trailers and ads for DOOM, where you violently attack an enemy by punching straight through his head or chest, curb stomp them, beat them to death with their own arm or a number of different attacks but it's got a lot more depth than you'd think. If you're able to perform a glory kill your enemy will be guaranteed to drop health, which creates a unique and interesting risk VS reward system, do you finish the kill from your safe distance or do you go in for the glory kill and recover precious health. This risk VS reward system is surprisingly prevalent in the new DOOM as even using the chainsaw guarantees your enemies will ammo, the bigger the demon you cut up; the more ammo they'll drop.
What this all creates then is one hell of a shooter experience. DOOM is frantic and fast paced and if you don't learn to juggle the game's different types of attacks confidently, you're going to die…a lot. DOOM is at it's best when you're tossing grenades at a horde of enemies, while shooting your modded weapons at the next wave while quickly moving in for a series of glory kills that will make your mom squeamish. It may be a predictable formula; kill one group of enemies to advance, rinse and repeat but it's one hell of a fun experience that manages to create it's own identity while paying tribute to it's storied past. Seriously, just go play DOOM.
