(IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a review for the extra chapter introduced in The Ultimate Doom: Thy Flesh Consumed. If you want to read my opinions on the base game and my in-depth thoughts on the original three episodes, you can check my review here. )

''Hey, remember how for Doom we made a really cool artwork that manages to represent the game and look quite good?''

''Yeah, why?''

''What if, and hear me out on this, for The Ultimate Doom... we put a funny looking smiling demon?''


And that's the story of how someone made the single best decision in the entirety of ID Software's existence.

Before I even played DOOM, one statement that was echoed a lot by people when talking about and even some friends of mine was how the only really good episode was the first one, ''Knee-Deep in the Dead'', and the next two, ‘’The Shores of Hell’’ and ‘’Inferno’’, where kind a bit of a downgrade at best and a dip in quality at worst, and after beating the game myself, while that's a sentiment I'm totally able to understand, it's not one that I share at all. ''Knee-Deep in the Dead'' is indeed an outstanding first chapter, it doesn’t stop at simply establishing the basis for the rest of the game, it also goes above and beyond and delivers some spectacular level design; I totally get the love for it, specially since it’s probably the chapter that the most people have played, but I just can’t get enough of both ‘’The Shores of Hell’’ and ‘’Inferno’’, the former explores what the first episode set and expands on it in brand new interesting ways, and the latter experiments with brand new ideas that result in really challenging and interesting maps. The only thing I can really say that the two last chapters fail in comparison to the first is both the feeling of surprise (which is kind of inevitable) and the bosses (turns out that two Hell Barons are way better final bosses that one that can one-shot you and the giant enemy spider), because otherwise they are all on par when it comes to greatness. So, suffices to say that after finishing the game, I really wouldn’t have any complains if there was even more of it, and when I realized that The Ultimate Doom included a totally brand new episode, let’s just say… I acted appropriately…


Thy Flesh Consumed didn’t need to exist, the original game was perfectly fine on its own and while of course more of it is always fine, that necessity was kinda filled by Doom II, which came out just a year after the original, but still, they did it, yet another year after, the re-release under the ‘’Ultimate’’ banner included a brand new 9-map episode, and it set in being one and one thing only: both a way to connect better DOOM with Doom II and to give players harder, more challenging almost purely combat focused levels. On paper, that’s a fire idea, not only it experiments on yet another layer that DOOM’s formula can have, not only it's a really nice addition to an otherwise two-year old game that gives it a bit more life as it finally released on a physical retail format, but also, if it had the same level quality as the three original chapters, we could be witnessing a even greater package that was already excellent… but you probably can imagine where I’m going with all this…



Thy Flesh Consumed is, for all intends and purposes, competent, and I wanna make that clear; it doesn’t devaluate the overall game by any stretch of the imagination and having even more content is nothing to scoff at, but still… I cannot but wish it tried to not do more, but that it made things differently. As I said, it’s a collection of more challenging maps, and it’s not like DOOM was a walk in the park in the first place, but the idea of more difficult level is a prospect that I think few would dislike, and my problem isn’t that at it’s basis it’s pretty much just that, but rather the execution. The first three maps are hell on earth (pun VERY intended), while in this episode you get your fulll arsenal much sooner than in any previous part, it’s still takes some time for you to be fully arm, double if you miss some secrets, and when in the first time, at which point you’ll only have the shotgun and the gatling and very little ammo, you get thrown hordes upon hordes of Imps, Pinkies, Specters and even a Hell Baron thrown in for good measure.. you might start seeing the problem. That alongside the incredibly claustrophobic level design, filled to the brim with narrow passages and poison pits, and you get a map that’s way more frustrating than anything else, which it’s a sentiment that also goes for M2 and M3.Things do get better M4 onwards, some challenges are very interesting and there are segments here and there can be fun… but that’s only a select few. Overall, I just get this overall feeling of… apathy, nothing on these maps really speaks to me aside of those few stellar moments of pure satisfaction, and in some aspects it just feels like they went ‘’Random bullshit, go!’’ with the enemy placement, none feels particular inspired; it’s as if the ingenuity of the first game was almost completely gone, like they forgot why they decided to do certain things or to not include certain stuff, ‘cause even if M4 to M8 aren’t as consistently tedious as the previously three maps, the dark maze full of invisible pinkies, rooms full of enemies opening on your back and the entire second half of M6… well, made me react appropriately..

It’s just a bunch weird decisions that sometimes borderline the absurd, like, the final boss on this is even more anticlimactic and weird than the final boss of the original, which it’s kind of an accomplishment considering they are the same boss! And do you know the worst part? That the only reason I’m able to say all of this and be this flabbergasted is because not only the three previous episodes are fantastic, but because I still had my fun with this collection of maps; this new addition really has some fun moments and surprises, but I can’t say in good conscience it was an experience I’d be glad to go back to: it is done, I’m fine with it, but I very much doubt I’ll be revisiting it. It’s fine to ask for perfection on my end, it’s fine to try to make some extremely impressive challenges, it’s even fine to do a bit of trolling to the player if you want! But ''Thy Flesh Consumed'' crosses certain lines that do not make it ‘’the hardest DOOM experience, but just the more tedious one.

It’s a shame that this will be now the black sheep of the episodes for me, ‘cause I really, REALLY wanted to love it as hard as I love the rest of the game, but in the end, too many things stopped it from achieving that level of greatness, at least for me. But hey, it’s very much still DOOM, and I at least got to partially avenge Daisy, so it was all worth it.

There is one more thing I have yet to do before I’m fully done with the original DOOM, one last rodeo brought by one of the makers of the game ,but for now, I just have one last thing to say… PLEASE ID Software do the funny demon in the cover more PLEASE; you kinda did it with Doom 3 ’s expansion and Doom VR, but still, I need MORE!

Not much to say here, it's Doom. I have to admit that I'm not very good at it, oftentimes I just like to switch on god mode and all weapons and just zone out, which is made fun simply by the labyrinthine level design and the rhythm of the gunplay itself. God mode in COD for example wouldn't be nearly as interesting, the focus there is on a Michael Bay-esque overwhelming of the senses, wherein the popping in and out of cover amidst a hail of gunfire provides the central tension and rhythm; remove that tension and you have nothing. Doom's is based on movement and the haunted house-style enemy placement and level design which facilitates a need for the player to maintain 360 degree awareness, thus greater attention is paid by the player to the environment itself, item placement, etc. Just very engrossing, all things considered. Oftentimes though I'd switch on God Mode because the game reeks of artificial difficulty by way of just throwing waves of enemies at you when you're low on ammo and health, thus incentivizing save scumming and after a while the gameplay does begin to feel a bit repetitive. I'm ultimately more interested in playing Doom 2 which based on people on here's reactions is the superior game all in all.

As someone who loves FPS games in general (or tries to, despite my right wrist disagreeing with it sometimes), I felt like I should play this eventually. I just never got around to it, but I figured it 30-year anniversary was the perfect time to hop on. The original version of DOOM released like 6 months after I was born, too.

Level design can be annoying, and I've never fucked too heavily with old ass FPS because I like actually aiming at what I want to shoot instead of just shooting in the general direction of enemies, but it was a pretty fun game nonetheless.

Game's surprisingly easy most of the time, too, save a few spikes (dark areas with the mostly-invisible enemies are pretty cheeky). But Episode 4 sure was some shit in that first stage...

Anyway, if they hordes of Hell didn't wanna get fucking owned, they shouldn't have stockpilled so many shotguns.

It’s hard to say anything about Doom that hasn’t already been said before. It’s astonishing how well this game has aged. Coupled with how easy it is to mod, as well as the abundance of fan produced content, it truly makes this title an absolute timeless classic. The enemy types, the visual style and the music are all really charming, and capture the best of the 90s’ energy. Your arsenal of weapons (pistol aside) are all purposeful and serve you incredibly well. Aside from a couple of iffy levels, the first three episodes that comprise classic Doom are generally fantastic, and if you have any appreciation for the FPS genre, should be considered a must-play.

Ultimate Doom, however, adds an additional fourth episode: Thy Flesh Consumed. You can honestly stop playing the game once you’ve completed the first three episodes and still consider the game finished. The fourth episode is needlessly difficult, with claustrophobic levels that feel deliberately cheap and unfair. Most people who play Doom skip it, and you can’t really blame them.

Still holds up. Amazingly, there's a certain space DOOM and its first sequel occupy that can never be replaced, no matter how many DOOM clones have been released since.

DOOM is one of the most quintessential video games, and quaint as it might seem in the face of how FPSes have grown from it, there's a reason why you'd want to try running DOOM on everything. There's just something intrinsically satisfying to its high-octane action, mowing down the legions of the damned with a trusty shotgun. DOOM's one of those few games where I basically expect anyone would have a good time playing it (assuming you don't take issue with the gore and demons, naturally).

I go back and forth on whether I prefer the first or second game. I generally side with the first, more symbolically to represent what DOOM was and is as a cultural phenomenon. But there are other reasons to prefer the first game, too. There's a stronger sense of pacing here, since DOOM still wants you to work for your power trip. It says a lot that the BFG 9000 - maybe the most likely thing you'd know about DOOM if you haven't played it - is tucked away in 'Inferno', the base game's final campaign. Levels are generally more atmospheric and based on settings, which gives more of a sense of place - it's fun to see the environment shift from clear sci-fi trappings on the Phobos base to the nightmarish Hell, decorated in skin and bones. This is all helped with the intermission screens; it's very video game-y, but I always love tracking progress on overworld maps. And for as much fun as the levels get in DOOM II, nothing hits as hard as the 'Tower of Babel' and your first run-in with the terrible Cyberdemon.

I don't love the Spider Mastermind, admittedly. She always feels like a step down from the Cyberdemon. In a way I think it's even cooler that the Cyberdemon is Vader to the Spider Mastermind's Palpatine, but I dunno - dodging projectile rockets feels like more of a test of player skill than dodging hitscan chainguns.

Since this review is about Ultimate DOOM, specifically, I should comment on 'Thy Flesh Consumed'. It's okay; you can tell this was made after DOOM II, since the high-concept levels feel more in line with the sequel than with this game. I think reusing the Cyberdemon here dilutes the effect of it in 'Tower of Babel', particularly the jumpscare Cyberdemon in 'Perfect Hatred'. Speaking of - and I recongize this is more on me than anyone else, but it bears mention - 'Perfect Hatred' was when I learned you could run in DOOM, since that skill had never been required to that point. Sort of a frustrating moment. But heck, I'll never say no to more DOOM.

Note: I gave the base game a five star review, seminal hit that it was, and obviously as a whole this game is worth five stars because it contains the entire base game. But I'm giving this score simply as a review of the additional chapter (Thy Flesh Consumed).

Doom is fantastic but is only as good as its levels, and while the levels in the expansion are very interesting and experimental, they also feel unpolished and rather ill-suited to the engine. Having plenty of vertically-oriented sections without vertical mouselook capability, and platforming sections without the ability to jump smacks of artificial difficulty. But perhaps the thing that most detracts from the experience is the paucity of health packs. Take a game that's miserly with its health bonuses in which you can save anywhere, and you end up incentivizing save-scumming.

It definitely had its moments, but was noticeably weaker as an experience than the original Doom.

Note: The base Doom '93 is a total classic for a good reason, it's a genuinely great game, however, this review is focused exclusively on the additional episode that the Ultimate Doom added.

After having gotten through the 3 main acts in this, I was looking forward to a bit more with the special episode 4 that was added to Ultimate Doom, but immediately upon starting it up, I quickly realised why they didn't originally add this. To say that this was a step down from the rest of the game would be a huge understatement, and it all comes down to the level design. At its core, you've still got a game that feels fun to control and has great atmosphere, but the issue is that now everything surrounding it is so heavily flawed. The first stage is a prime example of this to me, feeling like something a 12 year old would think of making, supplementing interesting and balanced difficulty for unapologetic enemy spam and heavily reduced resources to the point where you'll practically be out of everything by the end of a stage if you play super carefully.

After having hit a wall with level 2 I just decided to go back on an easier difficult setting and try again, but even ignoring the issues with blatantly awful spam, the layouts tend to just be very uninspired anyway for the most part at the best of times. After hitting the stage that forced the player to keep running over damaging ground while trying to figure out where they were meant to go, I just realised that it really wasn't worth continuing so I dropped it. A bit of a shame considering how fun most of the main game was, but this feels closer to a bad mod than it does an official piece of content for this.

Este año esperaba cualquier cosa menos acabar enamorándome tanto de este videojuego, una experiencia de pesadilla mientras destruyes todo lo que parezca moverse, un juego que se regodea y explota al máximo su hyper-violencia, su brutalidad, su propia estética o limitaciones.

Una estética única refleja el propio infierno, los niveles son laberintos, pasillos, campos de batallas, lugares que se siente artificiales creados para que los pasee un jugador, pero eso es precisamente lo que lo vuelve enorme, construye el infierno solo para que sea explorado por un jugador, no le importa si es realista, si no tiene ningún sentido como son cada uno de sus niveles, si no que abraza su propia naturaleza para crear un entorno que solo existe en este medio, un infierno de pixeles.
Y precisamente por esto los niveles se sienten vivos, son un elemento vivo lleno de secretos, pasillos, puertas, llaves que encontrar, trampas y enemigos, el propio entorno se convierte en otro enemigo al que derrotar, un elemento vivo al que debemos superar para poder seguir en nuestro descenso a los infiernos.

Este juego es enorme y me parece completamente normal que sea tan importante en la historia del videojuego, porque es único, completamente genuino y tan libre para crear su propio mundo en este medio de una manera que pocas veces se verán.

NOTE: This review and score is only for new episode 4, i gave original three episodes 8 out of 10

DOOM is an old game, but it still holds up today. If you can adapt to gameplay once you will like the game. Level design is pretty great too, enemy placement is very good and nothing is really that hard. BUT HOLY FUCK WHAT IS WRONG WITH EPISODE 4

First of all i REALLY HATE the art design of levels. They feel so dull and uninspired. Level designs are pretty bad too, sometimes it feels too small, sometimes it feels way to large. Original 3 eps is perfect in scaling the maps - but ep 4 is very weak. And enemy placement is a sick joke. Look i am not the pro gamer 69 xxx but still i can stand the all the difficult bs, but not in ep 4. Bad level design combined with stupid enemy placement, game gets really hard.

Other than its bad sides still it is DOOM. Ep 4 really drags down the score but still play the game, especially first 3 eps.

ENG: The Ultimate Doom is an expansion which adds a new episode: Thy Flesh Consumed. And it's... regular. I can't say I didn't enjoy it (that's why I give it 3 stars) but the drop in quality is very noticeable. I also want to clarify that this rating goes exclusively for episode 4. To the original Doom I gave 5 stars, as you can see in my review: https://www.backloggd.com/u/Nico77A/review/424408/ 😉

ESP: The Ultimate Doom es una expansión la cual agrega un nuevo episodio: Thy Flesh Consumed. Y es... regular. No puedo decir que no lo disfrute (por eso le pongo 3 estrellas) pero es muy notable el bajón de calidad. También quiero aclarar que esta calificación va exclusivamente para el episodio 4. Al Doom original le di 5 estrellas, como se puede ver en mi review: https://www.backloggd.com/u/Nico77A/review/424408/ 😉

A day after finishing Inferno, i started playing Thy Flesh Consumed. I have mixed feelings about it.

Some people seem to hate this fourth episode, and many tend to agree on it being the most difficult of the whole series (at least for the 90's games). I feel like this is kind of a mixed bag: Some really bad levels, some forgettable ones, and a few that are truly masterpieces.

E4M1 is easily the most awful map i've played in the series so far. Like there's no design at all, it's just monster randomly teleporting in a very small space, and you dealing with little ammo and health packs. Then there's E4M2, which is considered by many as the most dificult level on this episode, and is for sure hated by many. I personally think it's a fantastic map, one of the best in the game. The lack of horizontal space is cleverly compensated by it's verticality, and overall is both equally challenging and pleasant. E4M3, as a map with a huge open space and enemy fire coming from every direction, it's actually better than many maps on Inferno, in my opinion. E4M4 and E4M5, i actually can't remember anything about them. E4M6 was actually the map that gave me the biggest trouble: It's almost impossible, given it's location, to beat the cyberdemon at the end without using the only invulnerability item available in this map. It's actually a good map, but like the first two levels, it's challenge is also about being resourceful. E4M7 and E4M8 were actually pretty enjoyable, and i actually feel like this last one was actually the best final map out of the four episodes.