I'm certainly biased here, but playing this game I was amazed by just how much it did feel like a proper sequel to the franchise, yet how much of it just made me want to replay DOOM 2016 for the fifth time. It was inspiring seeing how much that game did in fact take notes from this one: the plot, the UAC facilities, Hell's architecture, some demon designs; yup, it started here. Even the damn Soul Cube thing, when you're not saving it for the first Archville/Hell Knight you see, using it for healing might as well be a Glory Kill.

The ideas here are great, and I will forever respect wanting to aim for a bit slower paced game with a higher focus on atmosphere. I think it fits, these aspects were in no way absent in the first Doom, they're just focused on harder here. Perhaps too hard, and I'm not saying that because I often have to whip out the flashlight to see shit - that's how it's clearly meant to be, otherwise I'd be playing BFG Edition instead (hell naw). But when the game seems so fucking AFRAID to stop trying to spook you even though your growing arsenal is making the average life expectancy of every demon lower and lower, so it keeps throwing imps and those new demons that no one remembers by name, that's when the game just gets boring. When I have an imp leap at me for the fiftieth time, I am not spooked - I'm annoyed.

Annoyed is what this game does to me way too many times for its own good. It does manage to peak - around the last third or so. And even then, theres some stuff that will never go away. It's clear this game was designed for tighter places, so you will only rarely have encounters with more than three enemies on the screen at once, often less. As a result, something like the BFG or Rocket Launcher saw less use than I'd remotely wish them to. I often ended up using the shotgun, which - okay, no, it's far from the worst weapon I've handled in a videogame. The issue is that it's like a huge blueball. It can be powerful if you really kiss your enemies with it, and it is often a great, quick response to a lot of enemies, but just a few centimeters of distance, and the spread can easily feel atrocious. That's why it's annoying. And the enemies just ramp up way too slow, the game is so damn insistent on never giving up on using imps everywhere, even though by 2nd half of the game, you can dispose a horde of them in seconds, and there are several enemies that can create way more interesting scenarios. Pinkies are so damn scary in this game, they take a while to kill, they hit hard, they never stop coming at you, and they're yuge, and yet, I don't think they ever used them more than 20 times.

The plot is... there. I already said this is one of the things DOOM 2016 copies, but that game still wisely had its story beats that felt important. It was rather blunt, even if did the cardinal sin of interrupting you a few times. Here, everything felt like it happened in the background, and you're just unraveling it through bits and logs. Not a bad approach on paper, but nothing here (except perhaps the ancient race stuff) felt remotely compelling enough to justify this. I found it so funny how long the game tried to be a little "nudge nudge" about something being wrong with the UAC (there's a fucking hillarious audio log about section Delta getting so mentally ill that the rest of the UAC made a slur for them), and then I come back from Hell and it's suddenly: HERE'S MAMA'S RECIPE FOR THE IDEAL SUMMONING RITUAL. I mean... lol.

Speaking of Hell, it looks cool, sure. Probably best looking Hell in the franchise. Too bad it lasts like... less than an hour. It's such a great peak of the game; everything you did up to this point is suddenly twisted: your weapons are gone, the areas are all distorted, the loading screen has no comforting visual or information... it felt weird to come back to Mars so quickly after that. The buried temple came close to it, but it was too little, too late. Oh yeah, I really like how you get unlimited stamina in Hell, so they can then throw scenarios at you where you really need that. See, this game can be clever at times. But then at other times... it does something so dumb that I feel like the game decided to just start going on autopilot. Like the final boss... you give me so much to prepare for it, and then its just hitting it with the Soul Cube four times? Did they really think I need this much ammo to just kill those ads around the arena a few times to charge it? What a fucking letdown. And how exactly does that suddenly close the hell portal? What in hell even happened? Were they planning the DLC from the beginning?

I'm certainly biased here, but playing this game I was amazed by just how much it did feel like a proper sequel to the franchise, yet how much of it just made me want to replay DOOM 2016 for the fifth time. It was inspiring seeing how much that game did in fact take notes from this one: the plot, the UAC facilities, Hell's architecture, some demon designs; yup, it started here. Even the damn Soul Cube thing, when you're not saving it for the first Archville/Hell Knight you see, using it for healing might as well be a Glory Kill.

The ideas here are great, and I will forever respect wanting to aim for a bit slower paced game with a higher focus on atmosphere. I think it fits, these aspects were in no way absent in the first Doom, they're just focused on harder here. Perhaps too hard, and I'm not saying that because I often have to whip out the flashlight to see shit - that's how it's clearly meant to be, otherwise I'd be playing BFG Edition instead (hell naw). But when the game seems so fucking AFRAID to stop trying to spook you even though your growing arsenal is making the average life expectancy of every demon lower and lower, so it keeps throwing imps and those new demons that no one remembers by name, that's when the game just gets boring. When I have an imp leap at me for the fiftieth time, I am not spooked - I'm annoyed.

Annoyed is what this game does to me way too many times for its own good. It does manage to peak - around the last third or so. And even then, theres some stuff that will never go away. It's clear this game was designed for tighter places, so you will only rarely have encounters with more than three enemies on the screen at once, often less. As a result, something like the BFG or Rocket Launcher saw less use than I'd remotely wish them to. I often ended up using the shotgun, which - okay, no, it's far from the worst weapon I've handled in a videogame. The issue is that it's like a huge blueball. It can be powerful if you really kiss your enemies with it, and it is often a great, quick response to a lot of enemies, but just a few centimeters of distance, and the spread can easily feel atrocious. That's why it's annoying. And the enemies just ramp up way too slow, the game is so damn insistent on never giving up on using imps everywhere, even though by 2nd half of the game, you can dispose a horde of them in seconds, and there are several enemies that can create way more interesting scenarios. Pinkies are so damn scary in this game, they take a while to kill, they hit hard, they never stop coming at you, and they're yuge, and yet, I don't think they ever used them more than 20 times.

The plot is... there. I already said this is one of the things DOOM 2016 copies, but that game still wisely had its story beats that felt important. It was rather blunt, even if did the cardinal sin of interrupting you a few times. Here, everything felt like it happened in the background, and you're just unraveling it through bits and logs. Not a bad approach on paper, but nothing here (except perhaps the ancient race stuff) felt remotely compelling enough to justify this. I found it so funny how long the game tried to be a little "nudge nudge" about something being wrong with the UAC (there's a fucking hillarious audio log about section Delta getting so mentally ill that the rest of the UAC made a slur for them), and then I come back from Hell and it's suddenly: HERE'S MAMA'S RECIPE FOR THE IDEAL SUMMONING RITUAL. I mean... lol.

Speaking of Hell, it looks cool, sure. Probably best looking Hell in the franchise. Too bad it lasts like... less than an hour. It's such a great peak of the game; everything you did up to this point is suddenly twisted: your weapons are gone, the areas are all distorted, the loading screen has no comforting visual or information... it felt weird to come back to Mars so quickly after that. The buried temple came close to it, but it was too little, too late. Oh yeah, I really like how you get unlimited stamina in Hell, so they can then throw scenarios at you where you really need that. See, this game can be clever at times. But then at other times... it does something so dumb that I feel like the game decided to just start going on autopilot. Like the final boss... you give me so much to prepare for it, and then its just hitting it with the Soul Cube four times? Did they really think I need this much ammo to just kill those ads around the arena a few times to charge it? What a fucking letdown. And how exactly does that suddenly close the hell portal? What in hell even happened? Were they planning the DLC from the beginning?

I'm certainly biased here, but playing this game I was amazed by just how much it did feel like a proper sequel to the franchise, yet how much of it just made me want to replay DOOM 2016 for the fifth time. It was inspiring seeing how much that game did in fact take notes from this one: the plot, the UAC facilities, Hell's architecture, some demon designs; yup, it started here. Even the damn Soul Cube thing, when you're not saving it for the first Archville/Hell Knight you see, using it for healing might as well be a Glory Kill.

The ideas here are great, and I will forever respect wanting to aim for a bit slower paced game with a higher focus on atmosphere. I think it fits, these aspects were in no way absent in the first Doom, they're just focused on harder here. Perhaps too hard, and I'm not saying that because I often have to whip out the flashlight to see shit - that's how it's clearly meant to be, otherwise I'd be playing BFG Edition instead (hell naw). But when the game seems so fucking AFRAID to stop trying to spook you even though your growing arsenal is making the average life expectancy of every demon lower and lower, so it keeps throwing imps and those new demons that no one remembers by name, that's when the game just gets boring. When I have an imp leap at me for the fiftieth time, I am not spooked - I'm annoyed.

Annoyed is what this game does to me way too many times for its own good. It does manage to peak - around the last third or so. And even then, theres some stuff that will never go away. It's clear this game was designed for tighter places, so you will only rarely have encounters with more than three enemies on the screen at once, often less. As a result, something like the BFG or Rocket Launcher saw less use than I'd remotely wish them to. I often ended up using the shotgun, which - okay, no, it's far from the worst weapon I've handled in a videogame. The issue is that it's like a huge blueball. It can be powerful if you really kiss your enemies with it, and it is often a great, quick response to a lot of enemies, but just a few centimeters of distance, and the spread can easily feel atrocious. That's why it's annoying. And the enemies just ramp up way too slow, the game is so damn insistent on never giving up on using imps everywhere, even though by 2nd half of the game, you can dispose a horde of them in seconds, and there are several enemies that can create way more interesting scenarios. Pinkies are so damn scary in this game, they take a while to kill, they hit hard, they never stop coming at you, and they're yuge, and yet, I don't think they ever used them more than 20 times.

The plot is... there. I already said this is one of the things DOOM 2016 copies, but that game still wisely had its story beats that felt important. It was rather blunt, even if did the cardinal sin of interrupting you a few times. Here, everything felt like it happened in the background, and you're just unraveling it through bits and logs. Not a bad approach on paper, but nothing here (except perhaps the ancient race stuff) felt remotely compelling enough to justify this. I found it so funny how long the game tried to be a little "nudge nudge" about something being wrong with the UAC (there's a fucking hillarious audio log about section Delta getting so mentally ill that the rest of the UAC made a slur for them), and then I come back from Hell and it's suddenly: HERE'S MAMA'S RECIPE FOR THE IDEAL SUMMONING RITUAL. I mean... lol.

Speaking of Hell, it looks cool, sure. Probably best looking Hell in the franchise. Too bad it lasts like... less than an hour. It's such a great peak of the game; everything you did up to this point is suddenly twisted: your weapons are gone, the areas are all distorted, the loading screen has no comforting visual or information... it felt weird to come back to Mars so quickly after that. The buried temple came close to it, but it was too little, too late. Oh yeah, I really like how you get unlimited stamina in Hell, so they can then throw scenarios at you where you really need that. See, this game can be clever at times. But then at other times... it does something so dumb that I feel like the game decided to just start going on autopilot. Like the final boss... you give me so much to prepare for it, and then its just hitting it with the Soul Cube four times? Did they really think I need this much ammo to just kill those ads around the arena a few times to charge it? What a fucking letdown. And how exactly does that suddenly close the hell portal? What in hell even happened? Were they planning the DLC from the beginning?

I'm certainly biased here, but playing this game I was amazed by just how much it did feel like a proper sequel to the franchise, yet how much of it just made me want to replay DOOM 2016 for the fifth time. It was inspiring seeing how much that game did in fact take notes from this one: the plot, the UAC facilities, Hell's architecture, some demon designs; yup, it started here. Even the damn Soul Cube thing, when you're not saving it for the first Archville/Hell Knight you see, using it for healing might as well be a Glory Kill.

The ideas here are great, and I will forever respect wanting to aim for a bit slower paced game with a higher focus on atmosphere. I think it fits, these aspects were in no way absent in the first Doom, they're just focused on harder here. Perhaps too hard, and I'm not saying that because I often have to whip out the flashlight to see shit - that's how it's clearly meant to be, otherwise I'd be playing BFG Edition instead (hell naw). But when the game seems so fucking AFRAID to stop trying to spook you even though your growing arsenal is making the average life expectancy of every demon lower and lower, so it keeps throwing imps and those new demons that no one remembers by name, that's when the game just gets boring. When I have an imp leap at me for the fiftieth time, I am not spooked - I'm annoyed.

Annoyed is what this game does to me way too many times for its own good. It does manage to peak - around the last third or so. And even then, theres some stuff that will never go away. It's clear this game was designed for tighter places, so you will only rarely have encounters with more than three enemies on the screen at once, often less. As a result, something like the BFG or Rocket Launcher saw less use than I'd remotely wish them to. I often ended up using the shotgun, which - okay, no, it's far from the worst weapon I've handled in a videogame. The issue is that it's like a huge blueball. It can be powerful if you really kiss your enemies with it, and it is often a great, quick response to a lot of enemies, but just a few centimeters of distance, and the spread can easily feel atrocious. That's why it's annoying. And the enemies just ramp up way too slow, the game is so damn insistent on never giving up on using imps everywhere, even though by 2nd half of the game, you can dispose a horde of them in seconds, and there are several enemies that can create way more interesting scenarios. Pinkies are so damn scary in this game, they take a while to kill, they hit hard, they never stop coming at you, and they're yuge, and yet, I don't think they ever used them more than 20 times.

The plot is... there. I already said this is one of the things DOOM 2016 copies, but that game still wisely had its story beats that felt important. It was rather blunt, even if did the cardinal sin of interrupting you a few times. Here, everything felt like it happened in the background, and you're just unraveling it through bits and logs. Not a bad approach on paper, but nothing here (except perhaps the ancient race stuff) felt remotely compelling enough to justify this. I found it so funny how long the game tried to be a little "nudge nudge" about something being wrong with the UAC (there's a fucking hillarious audio log about section Delta getting so mentally ill that the rest of the UAC made a slur for them), and then I come back from Hell and it's suddenly: HERE'S MAMA'S RECIPE FOR THE IDEAL SUMMONING RITUAL. I mean... lol.

Speaking of Hell, it looks cool, sure. Probably best looking Hell in the franchise. Too bad it lasts like... less than an hour. It's such a great peak of the game; everything you did up to this point is suddenly twisted: your weapons are gone, the areas are all distorted, the loading screen has no comforting visual or information... it felt weird to come back to Mars so quickly after that. The buried temple came close to it, but it was too little, too late. Oh yeah, I really like how you get unlimited stamina in Hell, so they can then throw scenarios at you where you really need that. See, this game can be clever at times. But then at other times... it does something so dumb that I feel like the game decided to just start going on autopilot. Like the final boss... you give me so much to prepare for it, and then its just hitting it with the Soul Cube four times? Did they really think I need this much ammo to just kill those ads around the arena a few times to charge it? What a fucking letdown. And how exactly does that suddenly close the hell portal? What in hell even happened? Were they planning the DLC from the beginning?

I'm certainly biased here, but playing this game I was amazed by just how much it did feel like a proper sequel to the franchise, yet how much of it just made me want to replay DOOM 2016 for the fifth time. It was inspiring seeing how much that game did in fact take notes from this one: the plot, the UAC facilities, Hell's architecture, some demon designs; yup, it started here. Even the damn Soul Cube thing, when you're not saving it for the first Archville/Hell Knight you see, using it for healing might as well be a Glory Kill.

The ideas here are great, and I will forever respect wanting to aim for a bit slower paced game with a higher focus on atmosphere. I think it fits, these aspects were in no way absent in the first Doom, they're just focused on harder here. Perhaps too hard, and I'm not saying that because I often have to whip out the flashlight to see shit - that's how it's clearly meant to be, otherwise I'd be playing BFG Edition instead (hell naw). But when the game seems so fucking AFRAID to stop trying to spook you even though your growing arsenal is making the average life expectancy of every demon lower and lower, so it keeps throwing imps and those new demons that no one remembers by name, that's when the game just gets boring. When I have an imp leap at me for the fiftieth time, I am not spooked - I'm annoyed.

Annoyed is what this game does to me way too many times for its own good. It does manage to peak - around the last third or so. And even then, theres some stuff that will never go away. It's clear this game was designed for tighter places, so you will only rarely have encounters with more than three enemies on the screen at once, often less. As a result, something like the BFG or Rocket Launcher saw less use than I'd remotely wish them to. I often ended up using the shotgun, which - okay, no, it's far from the worst weapon I've handled in a videogame. The issue is that it's like a huge blueball. It can be powerful if you really kiss your enemies with it, and it is often a great, quick response to a lot of enemies, but just a few centimeters of distance, and the spread can easily feel atrocious. That's why it's annoying. And the enemies just ramp up way too slow, the game is so damn insistent on never giving up on using imps everywhere, even though by 2nd half of the game, you can dispose a horde of them in seconds, and there are several enemies that can create way more interesting scenarios. Pinkies are so damn scary in this game, they take a while to kill, they hit hard, they never stop coming at you, and they're yuge, and yet, I don't think they ever used them more than 20 times.

The plot is... there. I already said this is one of the things DOOM 2016 copies, but that game still wisely had its story beats that felt important. It was rather blunt, even if did the cardinal sin of interrupting you a few times. Here, everything felt like it happened in the background, and you're just unraveling it through bits and logs. Not a bad approach on paper, but nothing here (except perhaps the ancient race stuff) felt remotely compelling enough to justify this. I found it so funny how long the game tried to be a little "nudge nudge" about something being wrong with the UAC (there's a fucking hillarious audio log about section Delta getting so mentally ill that the rest of the UAC made a slur for them), and then I come back from Hell and it's suddenly: HERE'S MAMA'S RECIPE FOR THE IDEAL SUMMONING RITUAL. I mean... lol.

Speaking of Hell, it looks cool, sure. Probably best looking Hell in the franchise. Too bad it lasts like... less than an hour. It's such a great peak of the game; everything you did up to this point is suddenly twisted: your weapons are gone, the areas are all distorted, the loading screen has no comforting visual or information... it felt weird to come back to Mars so quickly after that. The buried temple came close to it, but it was too little, too late. Oh yeah, I really like how you get unlimited stamina in Hell, so they can then throw scenarios at you where you really need that. See, this game can be clever at times. But then at other times... it does something so dumb that I feel like the game decided to just start going on autopilot. Like the final boss... you give me so much to prepare for it, and then its just hitting it with the Soul Cube four times? Did they really think I need this much ammo to just kill those ads around the arena a few times to charge it? What a fucking letdown. And how exactly does that suddenly close the hell portal? What in hell even happened? Were they planning the DLC from the beginning?

I'm certainly biased here, but playing this game I was amazed by just how much it did feel like a proper sequel to the franchise, yet how much of it just made me want to replay DOOM 2016 for the fifth time. It was inspiring seeing how much that game did in fact take notes from this one: the plot, the UAC facilities, Hell's architecture, some demon designs; yup, it started here. Even the damn Soul Cube thing, when you're not saving it for the first Archville/Hell Knight you see, using it for healing might as well be a Glory Kill.

The ideas here are great, and I will forever respect wanting to aim for a bit slower paced game with a higher focus on atmosphere. I think it fits, these aspects were in no way absent in the first Doom, they're just focused on harder here. Perhaps too hard, and I'm not saying that because I often have to whip out the flashlight to see shit - that's how it's clearly meant to be, otherwise I'd be playing BFG Edition instead (hell naw). But when the game seems so fucking AFRAID to stop trying to spook you even though your growing arsenal is making the average life expectancy of every demon lower and lower, so it keeps throwing imps and those new demons that no one remembers by name, that's when the game just gets boring. When I have an imp leap at me for the fiftieth time, I am not spooked - I'm annoyed.

Annoyed is what this game does to me way too many times for its own good. It does manage to peak - around the last third or so. And even then, theres some stuff that will never go away. It's clear this game was designed for tighter places, so you will only rarely have encounters with more than three enemies on the screen at once, often less. As a result, something like the BFG or Rocket Launcher saw less use than I'd remotely wish them to. I often ended up using the shotgun, which - okay, no, it's far from the worst weapon I've handled in a videogame. The issue is that it's like a huge blueball. It can be powerful if you really kiss your enemies with it, and it is often a great, quick response to a lot of enemies, but just a few centimeters of distance, and the spread can easily feel atrocious. That's why it's annoying. And the enemies just ramp up way too slow, the game is so damn insistent on never giving up on using imps everywhere, even though by 2nd half of the game, you can dispose a horde of them in seconds, and there are several enemies that can create way more interesting scenarios. Pinkies are so damn scary in this game, they take a while to kill, they hit hard, they never stop coming at you, and they're yuge, and yet, I don't think they ever used them more than 20 times.

The plot is... there. I already said this is one of the things DOOM 2016 copies, but that game still wisely had its story beats that felt important. It was rather blunt, even if did the cardinal sin of interrupting you a few times. Here, everything felt like it happened in the background, and you're just unraveling it through bits and logs. Not a bad approach on paper, but nothing here (except perhaps the ancient race stuff) felt remotely compelling enough to justify this. I found it so funny how long the game tried to be a little "nudge nudge" about something being wrong with the UAC (there's a fucking hillarious audio log about section Delta getting so mentally ill that the rest of the UAC made a slur for them), and then I come back from Hell and it's suddenly: HERE'S MAMA'S RECIPE FOR THE IDEAL SUMMONING RITUAL. I mean... lol.

Speaking of Hell, it looks cool, sure. Probably best looking Hell in the franchise. Too bad it lasts like... less than an hour. It's such a great peak of the game; everything you did up to this point is suddenly twisted: your weapons are gone, the areas are all distorted, the loading screen has no comforting visual or information... it felt weird to come back to Mars so quickly after that. The buried temple came close to it, but it was too little, too late. Oh yeah, I really like how you get unlimited stamina in Hell, so they can then throw scenarios at you where you really need that. See, this game can be clever at times. But then at other times... it does something so dumb that I feel like the game decided to just start going on autopilot. Like the final boss... you give me so much to prepare for it, and then its just hitting it with the Soul Cube four times? Did they really think I need this much ammo to just kill those ads around the arena a few times to charge it? What a fucking letdown. And how exactly does that suddenly close the hell portal? What in hell even happened? Were they planning the DLC from the beginning?

I'm certainly biased here, but playing this game I was amazed by just how much it did feel like a proper sequel to the franchise, yet how much of it just made me want to replay DOOM 2016 for the fifth time. It was inspiring seeing how much that game did in fact take notes from this one: the plot, the UAC facilities, Hell's architecture, some demon designs; yup, it started here. Even the damn Soul Cube thing, when you're not saving it for the first Archville/Hell Knight you see, using it for healing might as well be a Glory Kill.

The ideas here are great, and I will forever respect wanting to aim for a bit slower paced game with a higher focus on atmosphere. I think it fits, these aspects were in no way absent in the first Doom, they're just focused on harder here. Perhaps too hard, and I'm not saying that because I often have to whip out the flashlight to see shit - that's how it's clearly meant to be, otherwise I'd be playing BFG Edition instead (hell naw). But when the game seems so fucking AFRAID to stop trying to spook you even though your growing arsenal is making the average life expectancy of every demon lower and lower, so it keeps throwing imps and those new demons that no one remembers by name, that's when the game just gets boring. When I have an imp leap at me for the fiftieth time, I am not spooked - I'm annoyed.

Annoyed is what this game does to me way too many times for its own good. It does manage to peak - around the last third or so. And even then, theres some stuff that will never go away. It's clear this game was designed for tighter places, so you will only rarely have encounters with more than three enemies on the screen at once, often less. As a result, something like the BFG or Rocket Launcher saw less use than I'd remotely wish them to. I often ended up using the shotgun, which - okay, no, it's far from the worst weapon I've handled in a videogame. The issue is that it's like a huge blueball. It can be powerful if you really kiss your enemies with it, and it is often a great, quick response to a lot of enemies, but just a few centimeters of distance, and the spread can easily feel atrocious. That's why it's annoying. And the enemies just ramp up way too slow, the game is so damn insistent on never giving up on using imps everywhere, even though by 2nd half of the game, you can dispose a horde of them in seconds, and there are several enemies that can create way more interesting scenarios. Pinkies are so damn scary in this game, they take a while to kill, they hit hard, they never stop coming at you, and they're yuge, and yet, I don't think they ever used them more than 20 times.

The plot is... there. I already said this is one of the things DOOM 2016 copies, but that game still wisely had its story beats that felt important. It was rather blunt, even if did the cardinal sin of interrupting you a few times. Here, everything felt like it happened in the background, and you're just unraveling it through bits and logs. Not a bad approach on paper, but nothing here (except perhaps the ancient race stuff) felt remotely compelling enough to justify this. I found it so funny how long the game tried to be a little "nudge nudge" about something being wrong with the UAC (there's a fucking hillarious audio log about section Delta getting so mentally ill that the rest of the UAC made a slur for them), and then I come back from Hell and it's suddenly: HERE'S MAMA'S RECIPE FOR THE IDEAL SUMMONING RITUAL. I mean... lol.

Speaking of Hell, it looks cool, sure. Probably best looking Hell in the franchise. Too bad it lasts like... less than an hour. It's such a great peak of the game; everything you did up to this point is suddenly twisted: your weapons are gone, the areas are all distorted, the loading screen has no comforting visual or information... it felt weird to come back to Mars so quickly after that. The buried temple came close to it, but it was too little, too late. Oh yeah, I really like how you get unlimited stamina in Hell, so they can then throw scenarios at you where you really need that. See, this game can be clever at times. But then at other times... it does something so dumb that I feel like the game decided to just start going on autopilot. Like the final boss... you give me so much to prepare for it, and then its just hitting it with the Soul Cube four times? Did they really think I need this much ammo to just kill those ads around the arena a few times to charge it? What a fucking letdown. And how exactly does that suddenly close the hell portal? What in hell even happened? Were they planning the DLC from the beginning?

I'm certainly biased here, but playing this game I was amazed by just how much it did feel like a proper sequel to the franchise, yet how much of it just made me want to replay DOOM 2016 for the fifth time. It was inspiring seeing how much that game did in fact take notes from this one: the plot, the UAC facilities, Hell's architecture, some demon designs; yup, it started here. Even the damn Soul Cube thing, when you're not saving it for the first Archville/Hell Knight you see, using it for healing might as well be a Glory Kill.

The ideas here are great, and I will forever respect wanting to aim for a bit slower paced game with a higher focus on atmosphere. I think it fits, these aspects were in no way absent in the first Doom, they're just focused on harder here. Perhaps too hard, and I'm not saying that because I often have to whip out the flashlight to see shit - that's how it's clearly meant to be, otherwise I'd be playing BFG Edition instead (hell naw). But when the game seems so fucking AFRAID to stop trying to spook you even though your growing arsenal is making the average life expectancy of every demon lower and lower, so it keeps throwing imps and those new demons that no one remembers by name, that's when the game just gets boring. When I have an imp leap at me for the fiftieth time, I am not spooked - I'm annoyed.

Annoyed is what this game does to me way too many times for its own good. It does manage to peak - around the last third or so. And even then, theres some stuff that will never go away. It's clear this game was designed for tighter places, so you will only rarely have encounters with more than three enemies on the screen at once, often less. As a result, something like the BFG or Rocket Launcher saw less use than I'd remotely wish them to. I often ended up using the shotgun, which - okay, no, it's far from the worst weapon I've handled in a videogame. The issue is that it's like a huge blueball. It can be powerful if you really kiss your enemies with it, and it is often a great, quick response to a lot of enemies, but just a few centimeters of distance, and the spread can easily feel atrocious. That's why it's annoying. And the enemies just ramp up way too slow, the game is so damn insistent on never giving up on using imps everywhere, even though by 2nd half of the game, you can dispose a horde of them in seconds, and there are several enemies that can create way more interesting scenarios. Pinkies are so damn scary in this game, they take a while to kill, they hit hard, they never stop coming at you, and they're yuge, and yet, I don't think they ever used them more than 20 times.

The plot is... there. I already said this is one of the things DOOM 2016 copies, but that game still wisely had its story beats that felt important. It was rather blunt, even if did the cardinal sin of interrupting you a few times. Here, everything felt like it happened in the background, and you're just unraveling it through bits and logs. Not a bad approach on paper, but nothing here (except perhaps the ancient race stuff) felt remotely compelling enough to justify this. I found it so funny how long the game tried to be a little "nudge nudge" about something being wrong with the UAC (there's a fucking hillarious audio log about section Delta getting so mentally ill that the rest of the UAC made a slur for them), and then I come back from Hell and it's suddenly: HERE'S MAMA'S RECIPE FOR THE IDEAL SUMMONING RITUAL. I mean... lol.

Speaking of Hell, it looks cool, sure. Probably best looking Hell in the franchise. Too bad it lasts like... less than an hour. It's such a great peak of the game; everything you did up to this point is suddenly twisted: your weapons are gone, the areas are all distorted, the loading screen has no comforting visual or information... it felt weird to come back to Mars so quickly after that. The buried temple came close to it, but it was too little, too late. Oh yeah, I really like how you get unlimited stamina in Hell, so they can then throw scenarios at you where you really need that. See, this game can be clever at times. But then at other times... it does something so dumb that I feel like the game decided to just start going on autopilot. Like the final boss... you give me so much to prepare for it, and then its just hitting it with the Soul Cube four times? Did they really think I need this much ammo to just kill those ads around the arena a few times to charge it? What a fucking letdown. And how exactly does that suddenly close the hell portal? What in hell even happened? Were they planning the DLC from the beginning?

I'm certainly biased here, but playing this game I was amazed by just how much it did feel like a proper sequel to the franchise, yet how much of it just made me want to replay DOOM 2016 for the fifth time. It was inspiring seeing how much that game did in fact take notes from this one: the plot, the UAC facilities, Hell's architecture, some demon designs; yup, it started here. Even the damn Soul Cube thing, when you're not saving it for the first Archville/Hell Knight you see, using it for healing might as well be a Glory Kill.

The ideas here are great, and I will forever respect wanting to aim for a bit slower paced game with a higher focus on atmosphere. I think it fits, these aspects were in no way absent in the first Doom, they're just focused on harder here. Perhaps too hard, and I'm not saying that because I often have to whip out the flashlight to see shit - that's how it's clearly meant to be, otherwise I'd be playing BFG Edition instead (hell naw). But when the game seems so fucking AFRAID to stop trying to spook you even though your growing arsenal is making the average life expectancy of every demon lower and lower, so it keeps throwing imps and those new demons that no one remembers by name, that's when the game just gets boring. When I have an imp leap at me for the fiftieth time, I am not spooked - I'm annoyed.

Annoyed is what this game does to me way too many times for its own good. It does manage to peak - around the last third or so. And even then, theres some stuff that will never go away. It's clear this game was designed for tighter places, so you will only rarely have encounters with more than three enemies on the screen at once, often less. As a result, something like the BFG or Rocket Launcher saw less use than I'd remotely wish them to. I often ended up using the shotgun, which - okay, no, it's far from the worst weapon I've handled in a videogame. The issue is that it's like a huge blueball. It can be powerful if you really kiss your enemies with it, and it is often a great, quick response to a lot of enemies, but just a few centimeters of distance, and the spread can easily feel atrocious. That's why it's annoying. And the enemies just ramp up way too slow, the game is so damn insistent on never giving up on using imps everywhere, even though by 2nd half of the game, you can dispose a horde of them in seconds, and there are several enemies that can create way more interesting scenarios. Pinkies are so damn scary in this game, they take a while to kill, they hit hard, they never stop coming at you, and they're yuge, and yet, I don't think they ever used them more than 20 times.

The plot is... there. I already said this is one of the things DOOM 2016 copies, but that game still wisely had its story beats that felt important. It was rather blunt, even if did the cardinal sin of interrupting you a few times. Here, everything felt like it happened in the background, and you're just unraveling it through bits and logs. Not a bad approach on paper, but nothing here (except perhaps the ancient race stuff) felt remotely compelling enough to justify this. I found it so funny how long the game tried to be a little "nudge nudge" about something being wrong with the UAC (there's a fucking hillarious audio log about section Delta getting so mentally ill that the rest of the UAC made a slur for them), and then I come back from Hell and it's suddenly: HERE'S MAMA'S RECIPE FOR THE IDEAL SUMMONING RITUAL. I mean... lol.

Speaking of Hell, it looks cool, sure. Probably best looking Hell in the franchise. Too bad it lasts like... less than an hour. It's such a great peak of the game; everything you did up to this point is suddenly twisted: your weapons are gone, the areas are all distorted, the loading screen has no comforting visual or information... it felt weird to come back to Mars so quickly after that. The buried temple came close to it, but it was too little, too late. Oh yeah, I really like how you get unlimited stamina in Hell, so they can then throw scenarios at you where you really need that. See, this game can be clever at times. But then at other times... it does something so dumb that I feel like the game decided to just start going on autopilot. Like the final boss... you give me so much to prepare for it, and then its just hitting it with the Soul Cube four times? Did they really think I need this much ammo to just kill those ads around the arena a few times to charge it? What a fucking letdown. And how exactly does that suddenly close the hell portal? What in hell even happened? Were they planning the DLC from the beginning?

I'm certainly biased here, but playing this game I was amazed by just how much it did feel like a proper sequel to the franchise, yet how much of it just made me want to replay DOOM 2016 for the fifth time. It was inspiring seeing how much that game did in fact take notes from this one: the plot, the UAC facilities, Hell's architecture, some demon designs; yup, it started here. Even the damn Soul Cube thing, when you're not saving it for the first Archville/Hell Knight you see, using it for healing might as well be a Glory Kill.

The ideas here are great, and I will forever respect wanting to aim for a bit slower paced game with a higher focus on atmosphere. I think it fits, these aspects were in no way absent in the first Doom, they're just focused on harder here. Perhaps too hard, and I'm not saying that because I often have to whip out the flashlight to see shit - that's how it's clearly meant to be, otherwise I'd be playing BFG Edition instead (hell naw). But when the game seems so fucking AFRAID to stop trying to spook you even though your growing arsenal is making the average life expectancy of every demon lower and lower, so it keeps throwing imps and those new demons that no one remembers by name, that's when the game just gets boring. When I have an imp leap at me for the fiftieth time, I am not spooked - I'm annoyed.

Annoyed is what this game does to me way too many times for its own good. It does manage to peak - around the last third or so. And even then, theres some stuff that will never go away. It's clear this game was designed for tighter places, so you will only rarely have encounters with more than three enemies on the screen at once, often less. As a result, something like the BFG or Rocket Launcher saw less use than I'd remotely wish them to. I often ended up using the shotgun, which - okay, no, it's far from the worst weapon I've handled in a videogame. The issue is that it's like a huge blueball. It can be powerful if you really kiss your enemies with it, and it is often a great, quick response to a lot of enemies, but just a few centimeters of distance, and the spread can easily feel atrocious. That's why it's annoying. And the enemies just ramp up way too slow, the game is so damn insistent on never giving up on using imps everywhere, even though by 2nd half of the game, you can dispose a horde of them in seconds, and there are several enemies that can create way more interesting scenarios. Pinkies are so damn scary in this game, they take a while to kill, they hit hard, they never stop coming at you, and they're yuge, and yet, I don't think they ever used them more than 20 times.

The plot is... there. I already said this is one of the things DOOM 2016 copies, but that game still wisely had its story beats that felt important. It was rather blunt, even if did the cardinal sin of interrupting you a few times. Here, everything felt like it happened in the background, and you're just unraveling it through bits and logs. Not a bad approach on paper, but nothing here (except perhaps the ancient race stuff) felt remotely compelling enough to justify this. I found it so funny how long the game tried to be a little "nudge nudge" about something being wrong with the UAC (there's a fucking hillarious audio log about section Delta getting so mentally ill that the rest of the UAC made a slur for them), and then I come back from Hell and it's suddenly: HERE'S MAMA'S RECIPE FOR THE IDEAL SUMMONING RITUAL. I mean... lol.

Speaking of Hell, it looks cool, sure. Probably best looking Hell in the franchise. Too bad it lasts like... less than an hour. It's such a great peak of the game; everything you did up to this point is suddenly twisted: your weapons are gone, the areas are all distorted, the loading screen has no comforting visual or information... it felt weird to come back to Mars so quickly after that. The buried temple came close to it, but it was too little, too late. Oh yeah, I really like how you get unlimited stamina in Hell, so they can then throw scenarios at you where you really need that. See, this game can be clever at times. But then at other times... it does something so dumb that I feel like the game decided to just start going on autopilot. Like the final boss... you give me so much to prepare for it, and then its just hitting it with the Soul Cube four times? Did they really think I need this much ammo to just kill those ads around the arena a few times to charge it? What a fucking letdown. And how exactly does that suddenly close the hell portal? What in hell even happened? Were they planning the DLC from the beginning?