I never played the original Doom, so I was surprised to find that this classic shooter formula could feel so refreshing and new after 30 years. I very much enjoyed the purely aggressive gameplay, and while I usually prefer having a little more story in games, I could respect the decision to not get bogged down with too much writing. Besides, the Doom Slayer’s fiercely irreverent attitude towards Samuel Hayden and other major characters was very amusing.

Oh, and the music! I think at least half of this game’s experience was carried by its powerful metal soundtrack. A game like Doom that focuses on just one aspect of gameplay can feel repetitive after a while, but this soundtrack had a way of putting my brain in a trancelike state of flow with only a single directive: Rip and Tear. It was incredibly liberating to zip around the map, blasting demons while this intense battle music was thumping in my ears.

There were still some frustrating moments in the game, especially in the levels with excessive platforming and hoards of tankier enemies. Sometimes I didn’t feel much like a Doom Slayer but more like a fish in a barrel, especially as boss fights started to happen. So I ended up going back to the previous levels, tediously scouring the maps for secrets and challenges until I was fully upgraded. I know some people love hunting for secrets, but I wished gameplay upgrades weren’t so intertwined with those.

Despite the low points I still enjoyed Doom 2016 and appreciated its dedication to being a pure shooter first. Also the arcade mode was excellent. I still fire it up once in a while for some condensed action and stress relief. I’m so glad this game has led to the revival of classic shooters and I’m looking forward to trying more of them.

doom is cool man. heavy metal and blowing up demons with epic gun shooting, chainsaw action, and punching dudes hell yeah

i think this doom works because of the way it incentives aggression; yes there are powerups and healing and shields all over the shop but the most reliable way to stay alive is glory kills, which are the icing on top of the cake. precious i-frames and promised final death for undead demonic freakazoids is what makes glory kills awesome. you obliterate and annihilation and when its at its best it owns. great fun.

i do think that sometimes shooting by itself isnt massively satisfying, in that bullets making contact with the enemy doesnt feel that good? in other shoots you might just get a like, little ticking noise or a vibration or something to acknowledge it, a small visual or audio reward that makes shooting itself satisfying. doom doesnt have that, and maybe thats because landing shots isnt the point of doom, but i still think id have appreciated it. unfortunately most upgrades are also just boring. i dont even know how many praetor suit upgrades i had in the end. i think the only one i really cared about was reducing self immolation damage from grenades which is also an uninteresting upgrade. when i found new weapon drones i'd click randomly on what the upgrade would be because i didnt care all that much. at one point i had 22 weapon upgrade points because i didn't care or need anymore upgrades. i didnt bother with basically any of the rune challenges because they were tedious and gimmicky and the reward was often a rune i didnt care about. as soon as i had the rune that gave me shields on glory kills i was like "yep, satisfied with rune challenges now" and moved on with my life. i wish i could have also like, unequipped some of the weapons i didnt use like the combat shotgun or automatic rifle, because they clogged up my inventory and when scrolling through weapons made it unnecessarily long. i know i could've used the number keys but scrolling is more fun, isn't it? story is basically non-existant and thats fine, i thought samuel haydens voice was cool. didnt give a fuck when vega died and i think thats why doomguy is the best guy in doom.

it was shorter than i expected! dont have too much else to say about it. could've done with a dash thing like in cyberpunk, but i'm told thats in doom eternal, which i would play, except i hear its just worse than this one, and i dont think i liked this one quite enough to want to play it again

all that being said, all my complaints are super minor ones, and the good far outweighs the bad. doom!

As a kid I would play Doom constantly when I got home from school, alternating between that and minecraft. Many years later I went to a convention in town and they had a demo for this game up and I was absolutely in love. Bought it on release and was saddened by the fact that my PC couldnt run it... fast forward many more years to 2024 and FINALLY it came back up on my radar when I was looking to get back into playing singeplayer games again. I can say without a doubt this game is AMAZING, has me extremely excited to play the sequel. I could recommend this game to literally anybody, the Doom Slayer is too raw

First played on Switch, then again on Linux PC

I remember getting this on Switch because I was impressed with the graphics, and how it ran on such a small device. Then it became my favorite game, and also stress relief for my life's problems in upper middle school. I think the game meant too much for me, I looked too deep into it. I later on became a fan for more... normal reasons.

It's a really good FPS campaign. It revived DOOM. What more do I need to say. It really got me into boomer shooters too.