Every week I’m finding a new remaster and it’s getting…. Boring I think is the word I’m looking for. I know the AAA industry is greedy, I know they are out of ideas but some games are timeless classics and should not be disturbed. No one asked for Quake champions which ruins the pure skill based gameplay Quake and Unreal Tournament introduced way back with “Heros”.

I’m not saying all reboots are bad but I want to ask every developer who is rebooting a classic one question: Do you love the game you are remaking? If not then please stop and think of the fond memories you’re going to ruin. If you did love the original and are rebuilding it to give it a modern edge then by all means please continue your work, GRIP needs company in this area.

I wonder on which side DOOM lies: the cash grab or a caring rebuild?

Story:

A research facility on Mars has found the answer to the energy problems on Earth, a new source of energy they have called Argent energy. The source of this energy? HELL! That is not a metaphor, the energy is actually being stolen from Hell via a doorway called the Argent tower.

The problem with doorways is that when they are closed no one can cross them but when they are wide open they don’t only let one particular thing through, they let everything through, including stuff that you don’t want to let in. Guess what decides to walk in the door from hell besides Argent energy? Yep, demons. They were invited in by one of the scientists who obviously doesn’t own a dictionary and associated demons with enlightened souls.

When it comes through your door, unless you want some more, I think you better call… Gho… wait! Wrong line! A marine has been sleeping on Mars for thousands of years and wakes up when the demons invade to send them back to where they came from, that marine is the DOOM marine.

It’s DOOM, if you want anything even resembling a coherent story grab another ID game called Wolfenstein.

Graphics:

The graphic engine is something else. It can create some really stunning effects like dust storms that you sit and stare at as they swirl or just blow in the wind, light patters that simply dance around but look like someone spent hours touching them up, a great large world with enemies throwing incredibly detailed shots at you all the while using Vulkan and keeping your frame rates at unbelievably high levels.

The engine being insane as it is, doesn’t get to show off it talents. As with all modern shooters the world is given a colour theme and made to use it everywhere with all other colours sparingly used to show off a different point of interest. The problem with using just one theme is that every area looks mostly the same and while DOOM looks different indoors and out you can’t tell if you’ve been to the area before. I’m directionally challenged in life anyway, this is not helping me in the least.

Sound:

The musical score has an extremely nice metal theme to it. The score fits perfectly when you’re in the middle of these huge fights and really gets your adrenaline pumping. It is amazing to say the least.

The weapons sound about right though I think the rocket launcher and the explosions should be a little louder but I guess they are muffled by the suit on purpose so that the user doesn’t go deaf after his thousandth explosion so not too sure about this. The heavy machine gun’s micro missiles too sound like they are being shot from an air gun though you can see their fire trails so maybe someone in the audio team needs to be hit a little.

The demons on the other hand seem to have a single sound each and that is them screaming. While it lets you know they are around they make it when they see you, when they attack and when they die which is different compared to me who goes: “hey” when I see you, DIE! When I attack and “Well…. Shit” when I’m about to die, what I’m trying to say is some variety would have been nice.

Gameplay:

Before we get to the gameplay I want to point out that it takes 2 minutes to get in game from the time you click the icon out of which more than 30 seconds are taken by company logos.

DOOM and in turn it’s full family share a very simple concept that the original family member started: Here is room, here are way too many enemies and here are way too many bullets. It’s simple and it works. The gameplay is fast and frantic where you have to make sure that the demons return to hell faster than you do and there is very little as fulfilling as getting out of a huge battle that ended you twice before but this time you hardly got touched now that the force is with you. On that note I would suggest the “Hurt me plenty” difficulty or higher, I actually started on a lower difficulty and was ready to give the game a 6 because I thought it had lost its touch.

The early levels are easily a big let-down with extremely easy combat even on higher difficulties and great gaps between each fight so you start to wonder if the full game is going to be like that and probably put it off at level 3 because it’s been soo boring so far and that is what happened to me. This review was supposed to go out a week ago but since I couldn’t be arsed to play the game a bit more it got held till I decided to try the game again.

The main problem DOOM has is that it tries to do some new things and while I have no problem with innovation some of these new additions make the game worse especially the secrets. The secrets are either little things hidden around the level like armour or ammo but could also be easily cool stuff like weapon upgrades, character upgrades or armour upgrades. While I do like the concepts of exploring, DOOM tries too hard to tie them into the game by giving out upgrade points for weapons when you find enough secrets. Eventually you stop trying to find them and just collect them if you cross them which will make you feel tons better about the game. The secrets are made worse by the map which is just plain bad at helping with the secret hunting.

A new mechanic that aids the standard shooty mechanics are glory kills, which can be performed on enemies when they are low on health in order to get health, bullets or armor. While nice to look at the first few times they get boring and really mess with the flow of the arena combat, the worst part of them is that they have no feeling, they are quick and bland but they make you wonder that if the DOOM marine can do these things so easily why is any level a challenge.

Another new part and this one I actually like is level challenges which make you do a few things in each level and rewards you with a weapon upgrade point when you do them. There are also weapon challenges which you get to unlock the last upgrade for a weapon mod. These while needing to be done don’t make you go completely out of the way to do and in some cases you might do them by complete accident.

I would write up the multiplayer here but I haven’t been able to connect to a server so I played with bots and all I can say is that the multiplayer stays true to the classics unlike Quake.

Conclusion:

While DOOM still has a lot of the core values that made the family famous it does fall occasionally and the difficulty levels feel that they are not as gruelling as their equals in the older DOOM games.

I would still recommend the game at either $40 or INR 1500, not at the full price Bethesda thinks it’s worth on the condition you can get between 60 to 90 FPS out of it else go to 20 and INR 700.

Final Score: 7/10