DOOM Eternal - the sequel to the 2016 reboot - now with The Ancient Gods DLC

[Silly Germans]

The problem is FPS games have forgotten why they were fun. Doom 2016 already had this problem where they wouldn't just let you go around shooting, you had to melee and chainsaw. It's totally on rails. Then Eternal went even further in that direction. But I'd say the last FPS I played that felt "pure" was Painkiller, and that was decades ago. I guess the Far Cry games, while creatively bankrupt in every way still let you go around and do nothing but shoot. I'd appreciate them a lot more if they let you turn off the constant spam of story and cutscenes, though. Nothing modern comes close to the "now you're in the game, just go around shooting stuff" feel of Painkiller and original Doom era games.

Hard Reset from 2011 is similar to Painkiller and a pretty pure shooter. The only interruptions are very short animated comic like panels between two levels. Otherwise you are pretty much free to proceed at your leisure/ability.

 

[Mr. Pink]

The problem is FPS games have forgotten why they were fun. Doom 2016 already had this problem where they wouldn't just let you go around shooting, you had to melee and chainsaw. It's totally on rails. Then Eternal went even further in that direction. But I'd say the last FPS I played that felt "pure" was Painkiller, and that was decades ago. I guess the Far Cry games, while creatively bankrupt in every way still let you go around and do nothing but shoot. I'd appreciate them a lot more if they let you turn off the constant spam of story and cutscenes, though. Nothing modern comes close to the "now you're in the game, just go around shooting stuff" feel of Painkiller and original Doom era games.

Hard Reset from 2011 is similar to Painkiller and a pretty pure shooter. The only interruptions are very short animated comic like panels between two levels. Otherwise you are pretty much free to proceed at your leisure/ability.

Did they ever fix the enemies being bullet sponges thing? I played the demo and it really put me off from buying it.

 

[DalekFlay]

I remember being super excited for Hard Reset and then finding it painfully boring. I never tried Redux though, maybe that was improved. I'm not big on shooting with zero context or exploration though.

 

[JDR13]

Hard Reset is "ok". It tries to be a cyberpunk version of Serious Sam, but it's not on the same level.

 

[Silly Germans]

Did they ever fix the enemies being bullet sponges thing? I played the demo and it really put me off from buying it.

The bigger bots that charge you and especially the ones with rocket launchers have a lot of hit points. The smaller ones aren't sponges. It also depends on how you play it. You can dispatch enemies fairly quickly if you keep cycling weapons like the grenade launcher, the rocket launcher and the railgun. It will take a lot longer if you stick only to the default guns like the machine gun and the plasma gun. The gameplay is not exactly diversified. If you don't enjoy the first half hour of the game you probably shouldn't keep playing, the experience doesn't really change.

I remember being super excited for Hard Reset and then finding it painfully boring. I never tried Redux though, maybe that was improved. I'm not big on shooting with zero context or exploration though.

Half of my enjoyment of Hard Reset comes from the visuals and the atmosphere, without that bonus its a mediocre game but still not bad. I find it more enjoyable than Painkiller which bores me more quickly. It is a good game to play for half an hour or so, you can jump right in do some shooting. Its a easy game to quit and pick up again even if you had a long pause since you last played it.

Hard Reset is "ok". It tries to be a cyberpunk version of Serious Sam, but it's not on the same level.

Serious Sam is a title that i only play in local lan coop which makes the experience very different, i have never played it as a pure single player title. But have my doubts that it is notably better as single player title since it also is pretty repetitive. Hard Reset is also on a much smaller scale and with more confined environments, which results in a different feel to Serious Sam. You also have to use the secondary weapon modes on harder difficulty settings which something that Serious Sam doesn't feature. Its less straightforward due to this and little bit more hectic. You shouldn't stick to auto-fire with one weapon until you run out of ammo.

 

[JDR13]

Hard Reset is "ok". It tries to be a cyberpunk version of Serious Sam, but it's not on the same level.

Serious Sam is a title that i only play in local lan coop which makes the experience very different, i have never played it as a pure single player title. But have my doubts that it is notably better as single player title since it also is pretty repetitive. Hard Reset is also on a much smaller scale and with more confined environments, which results in a different feel to Serious Sam. You also have to use the secondary weapon modes on harder difficulty settings which something that Serious Sam doesn't feature. Its less straightforward due to this and little bit more hectic. You shouldn't stick to auto-fire with one weapon until you run out of ammo.

I didn't say they were identical, and yes, Serious Sam is better.

 

[Multidirectional]

Serious Sam is a title that i only play in local lan coop which makes the experience very different, i have never played it as a pure single player title. But have my doubts that it is notably better as single player title since it also is pretty repetitive.

It's sure as shit notably different in single player. I didn't get the appeal of co-oping it because respawns kill it for me. At least with people that I've played it, if we set them to limited amount we were sure to run out because of how often we died and setting them to infinite just makes it boring because it might as well be god mode at that point. Single player with frequent saving and reloading shitload of times is the only way I managed to get fun out Serious Sam games.

 

[OctavianRomulus]

I have no idea why people are gushing over the bassdrop-wubwubwubwub-jumpdafuckup-djentshit soundtrack. Or calling it metal, Jesus H Christ. Sounds like a Korn album with recent retardation sprinkled on top. It's the same (new) shit as the DA:O trailer with Marilyn fucking Manson was.

Overall, aesthetically the game is a bit of a hit and miss. When it gets it right it really gets it right but it has some meh parts too.

A lot of his tracks are forgettable (such as the overhyped metalhead choir) but his good ones are really good. For example, my mind keeps restructuring this song as a MIDI when I hear it and it really sounds like a Bobby Prince track. There is even a remix of Bye Bye American Pie in multiple tracks, including the one linked below. If the music has this effect, the I call it a successful Doom track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6K1tVbhHM4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-EOqxTj3kU&t

 

[Ash]

Your examples are still bland, generic, and I give them one giant MEH

 

[schru]

I'm not that monocled, so I like the music quite a bit. Never played Doom before or any classical shooter for that matter. I assume I should start with Doom, Quake and SS, maybe I am missing more?

Doom, Doom II, Star Wars: Dark Forces, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, Shadow Warrior (1997), Blood, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, Unreal, Sin, Half-Life. Serious Sams are a bit different and came later, actually, but they're also a lot of fun. There were quite a few other interesting ones in that period, but these are among the best shooters ever and they still hold up perfectly (I've played most of those for the first time only in the last several years).

Use these music packs for Dooms and Duke with source ports or use the Sound Canvas VA with DOSBox, it's what their music was composed on (some model variation aside): http://sc55.duke4.net/games.php#. SC VA is the best choice for Dark Forces outside acquiring the physical device.

In source ports like GZDoom monster movement patterns and triggering distances are all wrong without the compatibility settings set to strict. The game also looks wrong in renderers other than the software mode.

Make sure you have music working in Quake (a program called _inmm can fix it without using source ports) and play the software renderer version.

Use the OldUnreal patch for Unreal and disable MultiTexture in the advanced settings (accessible through the console), otherwise the game looks very wrong.

Don't play Half-Life: Source instead of the original version of Half-Life, Valve never fixed some problems with it.

Serious Sams HD are generally good, but the new engine doesn't support certain features the originals had.

 

[GhostCow]

I'm not that monocled, so I like the music quite a bit. Never played Doom before or any classical shooter for that matter. I assume I should start with Doom, Quake and SS, maybe I am missing more?

Doom, Doom II, Star Wars: Dark Forces, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, Shadow Warrior (1997), Blood, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, Unreal, Sin, Half-Life. Serious Sams are a bit different and came later, actually, but they're also a lot of fun. There were quite a few other interesting ones in that period, but these are among the best shooters ever and they still hold up perfectly (I've played most of those for the first time only in the last several years).

Don't forget Redneck Rampage. I'd love to see a remake or sequal.

 

[schru]

It's definitely fun, though it doesn't flow as well as the other three major Build games. If smaug gets into the above, there's a considerable number of other titles to consider.

 

[Ialda]

Eternal is significantly better than 2016 in every way, and that's coming from playing 2016 again right after Eternal.

Would have been better without the new, improved "Lore".

 

[Infinitron]

Watch the first glimpse of DOOM Eternal’s first campaign expansion, then see the full trailer reveal at Opening Night Live, August 27th at 2pm ET.

Your victory over Hell’s armies pulled humanity back from the edge of extinction, but it came at a cost. An imbalance of power in the heavens requires the true ruler of this universe to rise and set things right. Wage war across never-before-seen realms of the DOOM Universe and fight against new demons in your never-ending battle against the forces of evil.

 

[The Jester]

The idea of going to heaven sounds cool. Hopefully the final boss will be Jesus.

Congratulations, you have been chosen as a prophet

 

[DalekFlay]

Wonder if the DLC will work like Rage 2's, where you can only buy it directly from Bethesda.

 

[UserNamer]

So they have release dates for trailers now, that's crazy

Anyway I'm a doom eternal apologist and despite some cosmetic idiocy and more restricted level design I'd say the gameplay is very well designed and I see the way it forces you to constantly move and use all your tricks as a plus, can't imagine to going back to just shooting as some here are ptoposing

Other shooter feels bland to me and I love the movement mechanics and focus on them(though I wish you could run at max speed all the time) I love dashing and climbing around


eternal while different is roughly on the same league as the classic fpses to me. Would be cool to see it expanded upon with better level design at some point but I think making a linear doom eternal level costs roughly three times as it coated to make all the classic Id and build games.maybe it will be a good idea to stay on the same engine for a few years and focus solely on the gameplay

 

[Zeriel]

It's fine to have new mechanics and deeper melee. The problem is when you force people to play a certain way. Then it just feels like a rote "Simon says" exercise.

 

[UserNamer]

I have to say I agree with almost everything they did and I don't mind they force you to play aggressively and constantly moving around. The fact that you don't have to simply mindlessly blast enemies it's a plus in my book

On paper having to do melee executions and use the chainsaw to replenish health and ammo sounded retarded to me as well. I gave the game a chance during lockdown and I was glad I did. While it still sound retarded I appreciate they put there these mechanics to force you to play in close distance and as aggressively as possible. I love that it is a game that is structured around constantly moving around and changing movement direction (or not just pressing strafe right or left) and constantly using all your abilities. You can chose to speed up execution animations anyway

Its stills dynamic game so I can't really agree with the sentiment that it is bad that it is forcing you into a playstyle. It's for the best. It's not an RPG so I don't care that you basically have it to play the way it is designed to be played. You can have some personalisation in term of which weapons and mod to use

Maybe an hotline Miami approach would have been better where you get a higher score if you play the correct way (balls to the walls) and if you play the wrong way ie by being cautious and stealthy you get the lowest possible score and the game calls you a coward. But anyway I don't mind that much and I strongly believe that if you actually were able to run and gun everything without any other thought involved it would have been an inferior game

 

[DalekFlay]

Its stills dynamic game so I can't really agree with the sentiment that it is bad that it is forcing you into a playstyle. It's for the best. It's not an RPG so I don't care that you basically have it to play the way it is designed to be played. You can have some personalisation in term of which weapons and mod to use

Maybe an hotline Miami approach would have been better where you get a higher score if you play the correct way (balls to the walls) and if you play the wrong way ie by being cautious and stealthy you get the lowest possible score and the game calls you a coward. But anyway I don't mind that much and I strongly believe that if you actually were able to run and gun everything without any other thought involved it would have been an inferior game

For me the problem isn't the game forcing you to keep moving and play run and gun, the problem is the game being designed around visual stimulus cues which require the same responses every time. It's like a Pavlovian training device, training you to bark or sit when prompted and punishing deviation. I didn't feel like I was making any decisions as a player, I always felt like I was doing what the developers demanded I do. For some I'm sure this is not an issue at all, and I'm not saying FPS games offer the choices RPGs do or anything, but I dunno... for me it just kinda bugged me. Also it got really repetitive by the end.

 

[UserNamer]

I turned off the automatic fatality highlight I think that helped. I see what you mean now.

 

[vortex]

Old school look modes

 

[Infinitron]

 

[OctavianRomulus]

It looks good but it needs less linear level design.

A good secret is like stripping. You want to build anticipation, show the good stuff from different angles and different moments in the level. Make it feel inaccessible but only just for the moment. Let the player give up on it and then tease him again with it in another part of the level, perhaps when you return to that area but maybe from above or another hallway overlooking the previous one. Dangle it in front of him, make him see how that new gun would have made that fight a whole lot easier...and maybe if he is observant enough you let him have the good stuff. Be cheeky about it and maybe even communicate that to the player somehow, like you know how much he wants it.

I like the "all you can eat junk food" approach in Eternal but as they say, hunger is often the best spice. If you get a girl without trying you won't value her as much as if she plays hard to get, teases you and feigns indifference. Doom could use some of that. Make guns the objects of desire!

That's how I design my own levels at least.

 

[JDR13]

Interestingly enough, this expansion is a standalone game.