BIGGINS REVIEWS: DOOM Multiplayer Beta

Warning this game may cause seizures: DOOOOOMMMMM!

Well here we are again, now I’ve got to do a Doom video and of course it’s the centre of controversy which means whatever I say is gonna be used against me by both sides of the back seat game developer war between the PC master race and the console chumps. If I wanted to give my opinion about something I knew was gonna get shafted for, I’d hang a giant banner of what I think of Deadpool outside of my house and see how long the double glazing can withstand the torrent of belligerent opinions and human shit.

That’s fine though, I’ve been advised I need to stay clear of all that so I’m gonna try and keep my shit together throughout the course of this video and if anything that strays too far away from impressions of the actual game and into the pit of human misery in the Steam reviews, it will likely be edited out which is complete bull-

There actually isn’t too much to say about the game mechanically that isn’t immediately apparent. If you’ve played a bit of Halo and you’ve played Unreal tournament, you’re gonna have a pretty good idea about how all this works. Despite what the some of the really enlightened reviews on Steam will tell you, Doom distinguishes itself from other shooters on the market as it eschews a lot of the hallmarks of the modern FPS with sights set squarely on recapturing the kind of hyperbolic running and gunning from back in the gold old days. Cover based shooting? Bin. Regenerating health? Bin. Hitboxing? Bin. Sprint button? Bin. We’re going back to the days of controlling a heavily armed fridge on roller skates, fighting over pickups, ammo crates and health containers and we’ll leave it up to you whether or not that’s a good idea.

For the faults the game has, it’s nailed the mobility. Player characters move absurdly fast, with very little weapon sway which means you can pull off some insane kill streaks on the fly. This iteration of Doom is the first to incorporate vaulting and mantling into the game and it really works, it is so easy to navigate the map’s verticality to try and reach powers ups or wrong foot pursuing assholes. The maps have attracted some flak from armchair critics but honestly they incorporate this new addition to the game’s movement system pretty well and do a decent job of squirrelling the pick-ups away into out of sight nooks or precariously hovering over bottomless pits. Takes a while to get your eye in though which can be pretty humiliating.

From the amount I’ve played this weekend, I can honestly say that movement is your greatest weapon in this game however sometimes staying still can be a great asset. My signature move was something I coined the Chicago Two-Step where a player catches you out with a long range weapon, you disappear behind a corner with a shotgun looking as though you’re just running away and then…

Were I to complain about some things, and I will, it’s that there are certain inclusions in the game that in my opinion don’t make much sense when considering the game kind of game feel id Software are going for. Did you know you can crouch in this game? You can. Do you know why you can crouch in this game? Me neither. There’s very little cover in the game and it doesn’t narrow your weapon spread so why bother? I wondered if it was to help with Sniping but I didn’t notice a difference. Here’s a little snippet of my experiences with the Sniper Rifle in Doom.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’ve been playing a lot of shooters lately, which is making me twitchy as shit – whenever me and my girlfriend bump into another in the hall I nearly lay her the fuck out which has cost me a few steak dinners. The upside is I should be pretty snappy with my reflexes but I couldn’t hit shit with this gun. I’m more than willing to accept the accusation that I am just a dribbling idiot when it comes to sniping and I am willing to do because it’s an evidenced fact. But here’s my point, when it’s so difficult to hit a moving target with the sniper rifle (which needs to be charged to be effective by the way) and the fully charged round isn’t a one shot kill (which it isn’t by the way) then why the fuck would you ever bother to use it? Odds are you need to stand still to line up your shot at which point I hope you’ve picked out a nice casket because you are gonna get rinsed, my man. Make the charged shot of the vortex rifle be a one shot kill, ID – if only so that the jittery freaks who can actually get a kill streak with it have got something to talk about at parties.

I can’t talk about the next bit without adding a disclaimer; if you are fan of the original Doom multiplayer then you are gonna be pissed off that such a religious experience has been marred by the heresy of the new Doom’s customisation options. Essentially, new Doom has loadouts. Fucking gasp right? Oh no, I guess we better boycott the only new arena shooter to come out in nearly ten fucking years. Say hello to an eternity of COD’s and Halo’s because that’s all you’ll be getting after this tanks.

So you can choose specific loadouts for your character which means the bulk of the games most powerful arsenal is available to you from the moment you spawn. The upside to this is that new players who don’t know where the most powerful weapon pickups are don’t get rinsed over and over again by experienced players who just camp around their favourite weapons spawning point. The downside admittedly is that if there is less secrets and pickups for a player to find out about then that sets the multiplayer skill ceiling – at least for the Beta – pretty low. It’s hard to become pro-leet at this game. Problematically for Doom, there’s other design elements at play that stop this from ever really becoming an eSports hopefully. Weapon balance is an issue (aforementioned sniper rifle problems, shotgun is just a bit too powerful in this type of game) but also you’ve got the randomly spawning demon rune which turns you into basically the earthly manifestation of hatred itself and guarantees a few insta-gibs.

Also, the melee execution glory kills, whilst satisfying in on one duels, lock you into a prolonged kill animation with a player’s corpse which leaves you vulnerable to surrounding players. The problem is that the execution just happens if you melee an opponent whose health is low enough whether you want to or not This creates a problem where you actually just want to finish off a heavily wounded player in a 2 on 1 but you get stuck in these execution animations and you lose a fight you could possible have survived. Technically the player’s body flashes when they are ‘executable’ so if you want to avoid getting stuck in the animation then you should stick to just gunning them down but good luck trying to identify that during the clusterfuck of motion and blood in a close quarters fight. I don’t like my clutch options being limited for the sake of a bit of flair and i don’t think the competitive scene will either.

Honestly, I can understand why folk are a bit pissed about the loadouts but the reality is this game is a pretty hard sell in today’s market. The last Doom game came out in 2004 – that means someone who was only five years old back then is of age to legally play this latest release. Whilst the age of the average gamer is increasing every year, I imagine developers and publishers are hesitant to make a game that deviates so extensively from the established norms of the modern FPS without including one or two familiarities in there to give new players unfamiliar with the franchise a decent hook. Once you get over whatever perceived offense you may be struggling to reconcile in yourself, the game is actually a blast. At least the customisation options are pretty good and it gives you something to do during matchmaking.

I mean, fuck it, I had a lot of fun with it. It’s just a brainless good time. I got some serious catharsis out of some of the duels and streaks I managed and even my stupid wizened old mug cracked a smile during some of the more mental moments.

So if i needed to provided a reasonable and conclusive summary to help assuage all the conflict; pull the stick out your arse and just have a good time. It’s not perfect but if we help to support a genre of fps that hasn’t got a lot of love recently then we can help assuage fears among the industry geeks that this genre isn’t the profit whale we know it could be and someday we’ll get the arena shooter we want. Who knows you, you might even have a good time by accident you joyless, dour-faced cunt.

DOOM will be available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.