Saturday, May 4, 2024

Doom Eternal (PC) Review

Doom Eternal annoyed me to no end.

Its a very polished game, and it looks great. When the game gets going, its a lot of fun. Its a functional product, and it works as advertised. Soundtrack is excellent, and the action is hectic. Is Doom Eternal a polished game that runs well? Yes. There is nothing technically wrong with the game.

However, I cannot recommend this game, because I did not have fun playing it. For fans of the first game expecting similar gameplay, understand that in certain aspects, Doom Eternal is a VERY different game. My biggest complaint are design decisions that get in the way of me having fun.

Generally, to acquire ammo, you have to kill grunts with the chainsaw, but you have limited amount of ammo you can carry (even with all the upgrades), and because weapons share the same ammo pool, such as double barrel shotgun and combat shotgun, running out of ammo with one weapon means you are out of ammo with the other (this is the same as the first game), but what makes it worse is how you constantly keep running out of ammo, and you have to use the chainsaw to kill a grunt to get some precious ammo, which by the way doesn't always top up the ammo supply AND you have to wait excruciatingly long for chainsaw fuel to auto refill. Its so dumb. Why not let glory kills refill ammo? They had the perfect system all worked out in the last game. Why change it?

To further add to my irritation, there are LONG platforming sections. I don't understand this. Why? Who wanted this? Its so poorly done too, it feels goofy and out of place.

The final levels are an incredible culmination of all the irritating design choices into one perfect package. When I beat the final boss...I stared at the screen for a good 30 seconds, in a state of introspection, thinking to myself, how with some minor tweaks this game could have easily surpassed DOOM (2016) in every respect. Such a pity.

I really wish I enjoyed this game, but I didn't.