10 days until DOOM!

Fluent said:

There is so much game-y stuff in RDR. I mean, it was an interesting game for awhile, for sure, but after you've seen the 50th wagon theft, the 100th guy tied up being dragged by an angry gang, the 150th lady being harassed in the bar, etc. etc., it certainly is very much game-y.

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The way you describe it, it sounds like what some would just label as simple and repetitive elements, not necessarily as gamey - I'm not doubting these elements are gamey, I'm just saying I'm not surprised if it wouldn't be something most reviewers would label as such in their articles

Speaking of RDR, the first game was very enjoyable. I would highly recommend it to fans of westerns, just be aware it probably will feel a bit dated and janky by today's standards. Sadly it seems Sony has removed it from PSN.

Game-y or not, I enjoyed it when it first came out. It was fun to do most of the activities once or twice, and I liked exploring the wilderness (and sometimes stepping on a snake. DEAD )

Many ways to die in that game, all of which are quite fun to find out.

Are there still very well-hidden blue/silver spheres to find that boost health immensely?
Yeah, there are some hidden on the big arena maps (I often only found them after the battles, annoyingly…). The invulnerability globe is back as well, and bezerk.

I'm not a fan of many of the arena-style bits I saw, with monsters constantly spawning all over. Nor did I find any of the traditional space station levels very engaging at all.
The spawning enemies was my main remaining gripe when I finished the campaign. I loved the way in the original Doom that enemies were often launched at you through traps (eg, when you picked up the key card and the lights went off and the walls all opened so the cacodemons could pour in). There are still moments like that in the new Doom, but there is also a reliance on the big arena areas with loads of respawns as you say. I found I could live with this because the gameplay was so engaging and the different enemy types were so fun to play against, but yeah this is one thing they could do better in the next one I think.

The hell levels did not look nearly as good to me as the originals. Not even close. I mean, nostalgia or not, the original Doom games, to me, had incredible level design for the most part.
Doom had great level design. Dooom II in particular for me, I think - some of the sprawling city levels were great. And the feeling of "aahhhhhh crap" at the very first sight of Barrels of Fun of course. The new game's levels are actually well designed I think, but just not quite as memorable. There are a couple of Hell levels where there is a central hub with colour locked doors you need to work out how to open which I thought were pitched very well in particular… there was bit of exploration to try and work out how to open them etc.

I am glad to hear they have a lot of secrets. Are there secret walls? Timing puzzles? Multiple exits in some levels that lead to secret levels?
Almost certainly… as I said, I didn't find many of them. I hear from the internet that there are secret levels though… on my next playthrough I'm going to be a bit more thorough and try and find them.

It is different to Doom (and yeah the speed/jumping around is a bit more Quakey) but captures some of the elements really well. For me, I'm just delighted to have a new FPS that doesn't involve sneaking around and doing silent takedowns - it's great to get back to a fast game where stuff is exploding in your face all the time.

jaes said:

Gore/horror/grit doesn't necessarily equal a serious atmosphere, it also depends on other elements. It's not that I totally dismiss that the games had a serious element to them, just that I didn't think it was dominant.

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It was pretty much the entire theme.

You seem determined that it wasn't though, so I won't try to change your mind about that.

jaes said:

I've spotted it in AC: Black Flag, and since Ubi like to use a formula for most of their main titles, I'm not surpprised if it's present in Far Cry. I played the first 10 hours of GTAIV and didn't see much gamey stuff. Saints Row… not surprised because of it's over-the-top nature. For RDR I've skimmed reviews, not wanting to read spoilers, and don't recall any mention of gamey stuff - but to the defense of the reviewers, it's not always important to mention these things in a review.

I just have to take your word for it that it's a common thing, I just haven't come by a lot of it.

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It's been a popular trend for quite some time so I'm surprised you haven't seen more than you claim. Personally, I don't think you're missing out on much since I'm not a big fan of those types of games myself, but I'm in the minority there.

Pongo said:

Doom had great level design. Dooom II in particular for me, I think - some of the sprawling city levels were great. And the feeling of "aahhhhhh crap" at the very first sight of Barrels of Fun of course. The new game's levels are actually well designed I think, but just not quite as memorable. There are a couple of Hell levels where there is a central hub with colour locked doors you need to work out how to open which I thought were pitched very well in particular… there was bit of exploration to try and work out how to open them etc.

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I agree that the original games had great level design for their time. It was made even better by the fact that there so few comparable games back then. I think it's a lot harder to create levels that stand out now because there are so many more games.

I'm still only about halfway through the new game, but I agree that the levels are very well designed. They're actually a lot better than I was expecting and a significant step up from id's last game (RAGE).

Fluent said:

Warning - Salty original Doom fan incoming!

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What about id software?

Sure, Carmacks moved on but they're still using his tech, enhanced, vulkan version soon. Meanwhile, Romero was gonna use Unreal4 for his Blackroom kickstarter. That's not very idsoftware! Why didn't the real id decide to make an FPS out of the Unreal Tournament template? Cos they're fucking pros! Have a little faith.

Anyway, I've played 40 hours. Won it on Ultra-violence, got to level 3 on Ultra-nightmare (you get 1 life only and leave a named tombstone that everyone can see on the ground where you died), as a Planetside2 player I don't like the boring multiplayer, I had a good look at the Snapmap and made a co-op map with a custom scripted victory, wave events, mini bosses.

Verdict is, its good! It's just right. Blows DOOM3 away. Excellent level design full of secrets and eastereggs. Heaps of replay value for a singleplayer campaign because the encounters are fun enough to master. Gameplay is awesome.

I don't think its an abomination at all. I reckon they've made a legit good doom game and also thrown in a generic multiplayer game and a co-op-building-user-contenty-mod-doom-sandbox game too.

Here's a picture of the music from the Cyber Demon boss fight. https://i.imgur.com/r4Ielsk.png

JDR13 said:

It was pretty much the entire theme.

You seem determined that it wasn't though, so I won't try to change your mind about that.

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Subjects like this is all about perception; in this case of the games as well as the word 'serious' in this particular context. There's no right and wrong, and it's not impossible we agree more than what appears to be the case

A couple of questions to those currently playing:

1) Are there any musical references or nods to the soundtracks from the original games?

(E1M8 still brings the shivers! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlBgN7edLs0)
I guess I could try listening to this; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuhnPeYhC-s but would probably prefer to experience it in the game...

2) Any level design features remind you of any classic doom maps?
3) Does the shotgun have enough of that quintessential doom impact and feel?

I suspect I'll wait longer yet before making a decision when to buy, but reading the feedback of players (on this thread no less) has been useful.

Pessimeister said:

A couple of questions to those currently playing:

1) Are there any musical references or nods to the soundtracks from the original games?

(E1M8 still brings the shivers! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlBgN7edLs0)
I guess I could try listening to this; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuhnPeYhC-s but would probably prefer to experience it in the game…

2) Any level design features remind you of any classic doom maps?
3) Does the shotgun have enough of that quintessential doom impact and feel?

I suspect I'll wait longer yet before making a decision when to buy, but reading the feedback of players (on this thread no less) has been useful.

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1) Yes

2) Some yes, like finding keycards that match the same colored doors, and the way some things are hidden. It's kind of hard to compare the actual levels though due to the vast difference in the engines.

3) Oh yes. It's a huge improvement over the shotgun in Doom 3.

I don't know what's wrong with me but I don't get all the hype about Doom 4. At best a weak version of some Serious Sam, certainly not Doom nor Doom 2.

For levels size (the price is very few levels) and secrets design, ok a good effort, they tried get back to the sources.

Other than that the game abuse of spawning, it's mainly series of arena combats, the game fatality system is just making more poor the gameplay by pushing to a single unique approach.

The only ambushes I saw was enter the arena push the trigger, the doors close and kill them all. Both Doom and Doom 2 was much more than that, but it seems the new generation remind or quote only that.

For sure a pro let's play of Doom 2 could let this feeling from a player rushing all along. But Doom 1&2 was allowing much more.

Are there traditional-style ambushes in the new Doom?

One of the greatest features of the original Doom games was the unexpected ambushes and surprises. Step past some invisible trigger, wall opens up, monsters pour out, etc. Or the ceiling starts randomly moving and trying to crush you, etc.

Those were also scary moments in that game. Pressing a switch in some dark hallway could scare the crap out of you when you heard the loud noise of a wall opening and having demons right in your face.

There's now a free demo: http://store.steampowered.com/app/379720

Tried it this evening; didn't really like it that much unfortunately. It's drifted much too far into the science-fiction elements of the aesthetics and even in the feel of the weapons for my tastes. Plus the whole hit "F" glory kills nonsense with bursting health everywhere. Yuck, not for me.

I really didn't care for the overly familiar "been there done that" environments nor for the soft industrial-electronica soundtrack; just didn't have enough impact for me. Simply put, it didn't feel "primitive" enough or have that essential doomy primal quality that I was looking for.

I did get a chuckle out of picking up the marine doll though.

Edit:
It's a 6 gig download, for those curious.