It cannot be understated just how much of an important release Doom 2016 was. For a long while FPS or a lot of the games with shooting in them tend to revolve around hitscan weapons where you were forced to take damage and then spend a decent amount of time waiting for your health to regen. There were your outlier releases like Resistance 3 and The Darkness 2. Sunset Overdrive would have the same ideas Doom 2016 would bring regarding combat where you were always on the move. The main difference is that Doom 2016 would go on to be a massive success and would resurrect and at the same time rebrand the shooter of yester year as the "boomer shooter". Both this game and playing the original 1993 Doom would both spark my love for this genre where before I was lukewarm or indifferent it.
In spite of John Carmack's infamous quote of story in games is like story in porn(which the man himself would later go against with games like Doom 3 and Rage), Doom 2016 does make a geniune attempt at having one. To it's credit, it's moderately interesting in Samuel Hayden wants control over powers that he thinks he understands while Oliva Pearce is so crazy that the former almost comes off as reasonable. The main draw is that Doomguy while being a silent self insert for the player represents how the player feels in that he's just an angry and pissed off space marine who just wants to go in and kill demons. As a result, the player and the protagonist's needs are in line. The story never gets in the way too much and cutscenes are mainly just down time much like the Half Life series.
The main draw with Doom 2016 that everyone knows is the "push forward" combat. At this point, many players were very much used to the idea is that shooters give you flashes of aggression where you kill lots of enemies but then there is a moment of vunerablity where you wait for your health to regen. Doom 2016 makes you unlearn all of this. It's all about getting up close and personal and as the game would say, "rip and tear" into your enemies. Combat is about getting enemies into staggered stun states and doing a "glory kill" to get health back. Enemies also get up close and personal while also having their ranged moves be projectile rather than hitscan. This was also one of the games that brought up the discussion of what "hitscan" and "projectile" attacks even are to many. It also helps that the glory kills have a stylish yet aggressive flair to them and are quick enough to witness without the animations dragging on. Chainsaw can also be used to get ammo back too but this is only used on occasion.
This allows for combat to be an intense ballet of trying to avoid enemy attacks but if you get hit, instead of running away and hoping the enemies buzz off, now just get them into the stun state and get the health back. It's a game of being fast and aggressive at the same time. Creating the idea that you move so quick and nimble that enemies have a hard time even landing a blow on you.
It doesn't end there either. Doom 2016 does try to modernize the franchise. When doing things like this you got to borrow from similar franchises that attempt similiar ideas as a way to bring innovation. Doom 2016 does with both the horde shooting of Serious Sam and and the vertical arena design of Quake. The way Pinkies are reimagined almost feel like they were directly inspired by the former's Werebulls. If you had horde shootouts with large arenas with verticality and launch pads, Doom 2016 is it.
At the same time, the level design does have some weird inconsistencies. "The Forge" feels much more akin to a classic Doom level with it's more open and mazelike design where you hunt down various keycards to progression even the waypoint markers might not be of much help. The weird part is that the rest of the levels after don't do this and while there are keys to collect, it's noticeably more straightforward. That and because enemies are health and ammo pinatas, it does make for a lot of down time in between shootouts to not have much going on. Platforming is on the basic side and is mainly just finding anything green and going there.
There are some nice secrets but exploration to find ammo and health isn't prominent anymore.
I also wished that the player didn't have to choose between alt fires and it gave just one after you unlock it. What's better? A sniper mode or standing in place for the Guass Cannon? Would you prefer a grenade launcher or wasting more shotgun ammo?
A bigger issue after a certain point the game does start to loose steam. When you go to hell for the time the difficulty really starts to ramp up and the hordes get very tough to takedown. After getting the super shotgun and the pinkie demons get introduced, the game reaches it's limits with adding new ideas or throwing any shake ups. A lot of the game can feel interachangeable. It's still fun but it starts to loose steam.
Overall, 2016 modernized Doom better than anyone could've hoped for.
No comments:
Post a Comment