I don´t like FPS. Apart from a few exceptions, I´ve never enjoyed that type of gameplay, yet when DOOM released on Switch I wasted no time to play it. I´d seen the amazing praise the game had got and some reviews which highlighted the arcadey gameplay and how everything in the game was so "gamey". One thing I absolutely loathe is when a game hurts its gameplay to prioritize realism or story, so learning that the game was so shamelessly about PLAYING was an instant win in my book. Even though I had done my homework and went in prepared, the game surpassed everything I expected.
This is going to be a lengthy text, so I´ve organized it in smaller sections:
THE PLAYER: MOVEMENT AND WEAPONS
Usually in shooter games players can perform two main actions: move and attack. Let´s see how DOOM manages both skill groups:
THE ENEMIES: WII WOULD LIKE TO PLAY!
As amazing as the player systems are, they would be worth nothing if the game didn´t present situations where they could be fully used. Enemies are an integral piece of the game that allows this. DOOM´s enemies are designed in such a way that each of them presents new gameplay oportunities. Just to name a few:
The differences in these behaviours force the player to act in different ways agains tthem. Even just changing the number of enemies can alter the player´s tactics: facing 2 Hell Knights is not the same as facing a single one: the player must take into account the slow firing rate of the weapons able to stop them on their tracks, so focusing on one will leave him open to the other. Mixing different types also create new gameplay situations: a bunch of Imps shooting from afar and 2 Pinkies feels completely different if you just add a Cacodemon. As the game advances, you become a better player and encounters are accordingly scaled up, Imps adopt the role of the walking health crates that possessed soldiers once did, so that in a lot of encounters they´re more valuable to be kept alive until you need a health boost. In a way they remind me of the weaker undeads of Dark Souls: an enemy that is intimidating at the start of the game but that you learn to get rid of more and more efficiently as you play the game. However they still pack a punch, so if you don´t treat them with enough respect they could cause you trouble. Mark brown did an excellent video on the original DOOM´s enemy variation which is appliable to this one, be sure to check it out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuOObGjCA7Q
A very important point in DOOM 2016 that wasn´t so developed in the original is how well the enemies work with the different weapons: Hell Knights and Pinkies are easier if you stun them with the assault rifle´s secondary shot to stop their charges before dealing damage with a stronger weapon; Cacodemons can be stunlocked to death with the chaingun, Imps can easily be set up for a Glory Kill with the normal shotgun or just killed with the super shotgun, Summoners´ high speed can be dealt with thanks to the rocket launcher´s seeker missiles (a direct hit will set them up for a Glory Kill so this was clearly intentional)...Weapons and enemies are pieces of a puzzle that can connect in many different ways, presenting new and evolving gameplay situations: the player must constantly move, evaluate the available resources (ammo, health, armor and powerUps), the enemies and decide the better weapon and target for every moment. Then, after every action is performed, the scenery is updated and the loop restarts: A Hell Knight dies, but now two Imps are shooting from afar; A Cacodemon dies, but another one has sneaked up behind the player; A Pinky is preparing a charge, but the player is low on health and there´s a nearby Imp ready to be Glory Killed. There are always many decissions to take, but there´s no single correct answer: the system allows for player expression and freedom. There are many ways to take on each gameplay problem. The game even encourages this with the weapon upgrade system and the level challenges. The weapon upgrade challenges are specially well-thought, as they teach you how to make the most of each weapon while forcing you to explore other ways to play the game. The level combat challenges teach you about cool stuff that you could already do since the very beginning of the game, but that you didn´t know was there.
THE LEVELS: SHOOTING IS ONLY HALF THE FUN
Level deisgn in DOOM addresses 3 different aspects:
Exploration:
DOOM level design is so good that it turned this meme:
into this:
Levels sprawl in all directions, verticality is masterfully used, there are many secrets hidden, there´s non-linearity by using a key-lock system...there´s even platforming! I swear that there were some moments when I was platforming while trying to wrap my head around the map about how to get to a secret that I felt like I was playing a Metroid Prime game. Obviously this is not the focus of the game, but it´s a very strong point nonetheless. In a game focused around combat it´s really praiseworthy that the devs went the extra mile to make "the rest" of the game so good. To the point that it´s the main driving force that´s made me replay all the levels until I had found everything. That´s another great thing about the game: collectibles are really useful. You can upgrade your suit, your weapons, your capabilities...even combat is used in this system and I love that the game is just straight about all of it and just lets you know that there is all this stuff to find in every level which will improve your capabilities as a demon slayer, instead of trying to come up with some sort of realistic explanation that would´ve forced the devs to tone down the systems somehow. I love finding the little Doom guys and having a retro tune play when I do so or when I find the entrance to a classic map, which are raw homages to the original games.
Arenas:
But DOOM is ultimately a game about combat and the level design takes this into consideration as well. Combat takes place in enclosed arenas, designed in such a way that they encourage movement. There are usually many health, armor and ammo pickups spread around each arena, as well as powerful power ups that can turn around any encounter in mere seconds. Everything feeds into the combat loop:
Encounters:
Like the rest of the game systems, level design has even more layers as well: the encounter design can be understood like part of the level design, can´t it? Encounters in DOOM have a clear structure: they usually start with a number of enemies that keeps ascending until halfway when the biggest threats appear (btw, this is usually the point in which you want to use the power up laying somewhere in the arena). Sometimes it´s a linear ramp and things just keep on escalating to a big finale, others there more an introduction-development-conclusion structure. These changes in structure are very nice and help encounters feel different. It´s also very nicely done how all challenges seem to have a clear goal: even though there are many different enemy types at a set moment, each challenge usually tries to make a specific type of enemy or enemy combination the center of encounter, with the rest being just there to help move the player around or to not allow him to focus on the goal so much and give it time to do it´s thing before the player takes it down (though usually once taken down an amped-up version will take it´s place, like 2 Barons of Heall spawning when you kill a lonely one). It´s also noteworthy that at times the game seems to just throw everything at you (even though there´s clearly an underlying structure) but everything is ultimately balanced out via the player´s huge arsenal, the ammo-armor-health refills and the power ups lying around. Even the level challenges point in the answer to some encounters, like asking you to use explosive barrels and filling the arena with them, or getting a number of kills with the BFG while throwing at you a dozen of enemies and leaving some BFG ammo on the arena. Reading the encounter structure, the collectibles, the level challenges and the arena structure itself will usually give you the answer to get through the trickiest part of each encounter.
THE SETTING: TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!
The last part I want to touch is the setting. By this I reffer to all the external and internal systems that bring the rest of the game systems together. Some of them are very straightforward, like the physical setting (Mars in the future and hell) or the character choice (badass space marine found in a tomb in hell guarded by demons). The game constantly feels like it´s trying to one up itself in all aspects. The player is constantly gaining new weapons, attack methods, movement options, more health/armpor/ammo...and the demons are getting new and stronger types. The encounters themselves are longer, harder, with more enemies. Glory Kills just have you brutalizing 3 meter high demons, the chainsaw kills them in the most gory way imaginable, the BFG makes demon blood and pieces rain...Even bosses one-up themselves: kill the Cyber Demon to be transported to Hell and watch him revive stronger than before. Kill one Guardian and two will appear next. As the game story progresses you learn how impossibly badass your character is and the game plays its part in presenting you with more and more complex scenarios to second that notion.
One detail that absolutely sells this is the last animation in the game. You see how Doom Guy is surrounded in a mountain of Imps with one of them grabbing his arm, as a callback to the original game´s cover. I remember how I always saw that cover and thought that the guy was done. Yet the game plays a short animation where Doom Guy just jumps, takes the Imp who´s grabbing him into the air and blows him in a million pieces with his shotgun. Doom guy wasn´t trapped there with a hunderd demons: the demons were trapped there with him and were just desperately trying to take him down.
However, at the same time, the whole game feels incredibly menacing. Walking through the blood covered corridors of an abandoned space station gave me huge Dead Space vibes. You´re a badass, but leave your guard down for a second and even an Imp can kill you. There´s always this feeling that a Hell Knight could jump in front of you in a tight corridor at any moment.
At the same time, this game doesn´t tell you that you´re a badass, it makes you work for it, so you feel like you earn it when the game says that Doom Guy (and you, by extension) are the worst calamity Hell has ever seen. I died a lot of times, but ultimately I killed all the demons that crossed my path in the most brutal possible ways, I rightfully earned my position as a fuckin´space marine badass who kills demons in the thousands and enjoys it. The basic info is presented in diary entries, but it´s ultimately expressed by gameplay. No matter how many times a game gives me a QTE to "press A to become awesome", it won´t be half as powerful as letting me do the awesome stuff by myself. And DOOM never runs out of awesome stuff for you to do.
FINAL WORDS
I can´t finish this analysis without mentioning a very important and negative aspect of the game: bugs. The Switch version (don´t know about the rest) has some nasty audio bugs. It seems to only happen in 5 or 6 levels through the middle of the game (maybe it only happens in the Hell levels?) and then does away like it came, but is inexcusable nonetheless. There´s no way Bethesda was unaware of this, so they deciding to ship the game with these bugs is a big fuck you to the consumers. The game even crashed on me once. The game is fantasic, but I won´t be buying any Bethesda game day-one or at full price as long as they keep with their track of buggy games.
That said, DOOM is an awesome game that will satisfy anyone who enjoys games built on the most pure, frantic and challenging gameplay, even if (like myself) they usually don´t enjoy FPS games.
This is going to be a lengthy text, so I´ve organized it in smaller sections:
- The player: Movement and weapons
- The enemies: Wii would like to play!
- The levels: Shooting is only half the fun
- The setting: To infinity and beyond!
- Final words
THE PLAYER: MOVEMENT AND WEAPONS
Usually in shooter games players can perform two main actions: move and attack. Let´s see how DOOM manages both skill groups:
- Movement: Shooter games focus mainly on offensive skills, but some games try to put more weight on movement. In the last years we´ve seen stuff like the liberating parkour of Titanfall, or the superb combination of shooting and movement mechanics of Splatoon. DOOM doesn´t go that far, in fact the movement options are fairly limited (walk, jump and double jump). Yeah, you can also crouch but that gets litle use during combat. You can grab ledges too, but that´s an automatic action so it´s not a real distinct movement option either. However, it´s how these abbilities are used that make movement such an important part of DOOM´s gameplay. Enemies will always chase the player and try to overwhelm him, so constantly moving is the most basic of the strategies that the player must learn to survive. And when doing so, the player will discover how much freedom he actually has: It´s really easy to blaze from one end of an arena to the opposite one, while at the same time using the verticality of the level. Movement is simple, yet allows many options: it´s the basic on which the rest of the gameplay is built and it´s a very solid foundation.
- Attacking: Attacking can be done in 2 main differentiated ways: melee and ranged. Each of them offer a lot of depth:
- Melee: The player can perform 2 types of melee attacks:
- Normal melee attack: A melee attack, which is specially useful when the enemy has received some damage, resulting in a glory kill. Glory kills make enemies drop health, armor and sometimes even ammo. But most of all, they are incredibly satisfying and spectacular to watch. They are also quick and there exist many variations depending on the enemy and the part of the body where the attack is performed, which helps in making them not feel repetitive. In fact they achieve the opposite result: they feel incredibly empowering and provide a short pause in the frantic action which is really welcome to catch a breath and plan the next step. It also gives combat another layer of depth, as it will make players prioritize glory kills when low on health and watch weak enemies as walking health crates that are more valuable kept alive than blown in pieces with a grenade. Some powerups also allow the player to gain speed when performing a glory kill or to perform glory kills from a distance, hugely impacting the player´s movement ans providing even more options.
- Chainsaw: Chainsawing can instantly kill most enemies and make them drop loads of ammo. This provides another layer of depth to the combat, as chainsaw ammo is not very common to come by, so it´s usually better to first use up all the normal ammo and then use the chainsaw to get a full reload for all weapons. Also, getting rid of a tough enemy in one hit can turn around an encounter, though the strongest enemies will use more chainsaw ammo. It´s a great system that balances itself, but it´s even better when glory kills and normal (ranged) attacks are thrown into the mix, as the player must balance them all as well as his current resources.
- Ranged: Ranged attacks are the usual way shooters do combat and it already says something that there´s so much stuff to discuss about DOOM´s gameplay before touching ranged combat. Ranged attacks are determined by weapons. DOOM´s weapons aren´t very original, in fact all of them are variations of the same archetype with different parameters: the super shotgun has power, slow firing rate and wide but short range, the assault rifle is fast but requires more precission, the chaingun makes you vulnerable at the beginning but then is really powerful, the rocket launcher is slow and powerful but can be deadly for the player if used in close quarters...On top of this, each weapon has 2 alternate firing modes which double down on the weapons´ strongest points, but at the same time alter the way they are used. The assault rifle´s stun shot is amazing against aggressive enemies, the rocket launcher´s seeker missiles can help with enemies which move fast, the Gauss rifle´s sniper shot can deal huge damage to a single enemy from a big distance...Grenades and the BFG are the icing on the cake, last resort options for when everything else fails or to create a small pause in the middle of the fast paced combat encounters.
- Melee: The player can perform 2 types of melee attacks:
THE ENEMIES: WII WOULD LIKE TO PLAY!
As amazing as the player systems are, they would be worth nothing if the game didn´t present situations where they could be fully used. Enemies are an integral piece of the game that allows this. DOOM´s enemies are designed in such a way that each of them presents new gameplay oportunities. Just to name a few:
- Imps: Fast and mobile, can attack from a distance or rush to the player for a melee strike.
- Hell Knights: Will charge towards the player and chase him around all the arena. They can perform huge leaps that also serve them to avoid the players attacks. If they manage to close the distance they can be deadly.
- Cacodemon: Can freely fly anywhere, attack from long range or deal massive damage with melee attacks.
- Pinkies: An even more extreme version of Hell Knights but with a really critical difference: Pinkies sport hard frontal armor, so the common tactic or overwhelming the Hell Knights as they run straight towards the player will be useless with them. Instead, provoking them and then stunning them and attacking from the side is a better way to proceed.
The differences in these behaviours force the player to act in different ways agains tthem. Even just changing the number of enemies can alter the player´s tactics: facing 2 Hell Knights is not the same as facing a single one: the player must take into account the slow firing rate of the weapons able to stop them on their tracks, so focusing on one will leave him open to the other. Mixing different types also create new gameplay situations: a bunch of Imps shooting from afar and 2 Pinkies feels completely different if you just add a Cacodemon. As the game advances, you become a better player and encounters are accordingly scaled up, Imps adopt the role of the walking health crates that possessed soldiers once did, so that in a lot of encounters they´re more valuable to be kept alive until you need a health boost. In a way they remind me of the weaker undeads of Dark Souls: an enemy that is intimidating at the start of the game but that you learn to get rid of more and more efficiently as you play the game. However they still pack a punch, so if you don´t treat them with enough respect they could cause you trouble. Mark brown did an excellent video on the original DOOM´s enemy variation which is appliable to this one, be sure to check it out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuOObGjCA7Q
A very important point in DOOM 2016 that wasn´t so developed in the original is how well the enemies work with the different weapons: Hell Knights and Pinkies are easier if you stun them with the assault rifle´s secondary shot to stop their charges before dealing damage with a stronger weapon; Cacodemons can be stunlocked to death with the chaingun, Imps can easily be set up for a Glory Kill with the normal shotgun or just killed with the super shotgun, Summoners´ high speed can be dealt with thanks to the rocket launcher´s seeker missiles (a direct hit will set them up for a Glory Kill so this was clearly intentional)...Weapons and enemies are pieces of a puzzle that can connect in many different ways, presenting new and evolving gameplay situations: the player must constantly move, evaluate the available resources (ammo, health, armor and powerUps), the enemies and decide the better weapon and target for every moment. Then, after every action is performed, the scenery is updated and the loop restarts: A Hell Knight dies, but now two Imps are shooting from afar; A Cacodemon dies, but another one has sneaked up behind the player; A Pinky is preparing a charge, but the player is low on health and there´s a nearby Imp ready to be Glory Killed. There are always many decissions to take, but there´s no single correct answer: the system allows for player expression and freedom. There are many ways to take on each gameplay problem. The game even encourages this with the weapon upgrade system and the level challenges. The weapon upgrade challenges are specially well-thought, as they teach you how to make the most of each weapon while forcing you to explore other ways to play the game. The level combat challenges teach you about cool stuff that you could already do since the very beginning of the game, but that you didn´t know was there.
THE LEVELS: SHOOTING IS ONLY HALF THE FUN
Level deisgn in DOOM addresses 3 different aspects:
- Exploration: How the player traverses the levels themselves and what activities can he do.
- Arenas: How the level physically shapes combat.
- Encounters: How each combat instance develops.
Exploration:
DOOM level design is so good that it turned this meme:
into this:
Levels sprawl in all directions, verticality is masterfully used, there are many secrets hidden, there´s non-linearity by using a key-lock system...there´s even platforming! I swear that there were some moments when I was platforming while trying to wrap my head around the map about how to get to a secret that I felt like I was playing a Metroid Prime game. Obviously this is not the focus of the game, but it´s a very strong point nonetheless. In a game focused around combat it´s really praiseworthy that the devs went the extra mile to make "the rest" of the game so good. To the point that it´s the main driving force that´s made me replay all the levels until I had found everything. That´s another great thing about the game: collectibles are really useful. You can upgrade your suit, your weapons, your capabilities...even combat is used in this system and I love that the game is just straight about all of it and just lets you know that there is all this stuff to find in every level which will improve your capabilities as a demon slayer, instead of trying to come up with some sort of realistic explanation that would´ve forced the devs to tone down the systems somehow. I love finding the little Doom guys and having a retro tune play when I do so or when I find the entrance to a classic map, which are raw homages to the original games.
Arenas:
But DOOM is ultimately a game about combat and the level design takes this into consideration as well. Combat takes place in enclosed arenas, designed in such a way that they encourage movement. There are usually many health, armor and ammo pickups spread around each arena, as well as powerful power ups that can turn around any encounter in mere seconds. Everything feeds into the combat loop:
- The enemies converge on the player so he must move to avoid getting surrounded.
- The level design allows for many fast traversal options to put distance between the player and the enemies, but only for a short time.
- The level design also allows for interesting enemy and power up placement which propos movement challenges to get to them.
- Health, ammo, armor and power ups encourage moving around all the arena and exploring as you fight. There were many times where I got overwhelmed in an encounter, only to later discover that there had been a berserker power up sitting there all along which would´ve helped me to get through the hardest parts.
Encounters:
Like the rest of the game systems, level design has even more layers as well: the encounter design can be understood like part of the level design, can´t it? Encounters in DOOM have a clear structure: they usually start with a number of enemies that keeps ascending until halfway when the biggest threats appear (btw, this is usually the point in which you want to use the power up laying somewhere in the arena). Sometimes it´s a linear ramp and things just keep on escalating to a big finale, others there more an introduction-development-conclusion structure. These changes in structure are very nice and help encounters feel different. It´s also very nicely done how all challenges seem to have a clear goal: even though there are many different enemy types at a set moment, each challenge usually tries to make a specific type of enemy or enemy combination the center of encounter, with the rest being just there to help move the player around or to not allow him to focus on the goal so much and give it time to do it´s thing before the player takes it down (though usually once taken down an amped-up version will take it´s place, like 2 Barons of Heall spawning when you kill a lonely one). It´s also noteworthy that at times the game seems to just throw everything at you (even though there´s clearly an underlying structure) but everything is ultimately balanced out via the player´s huge arsenal, the ammo-armor-health refills and the power ups lying around. Even the level challenges point in the answer to some encounters, like asking you to use explosive barrels and filling the arena with them, or getting a number of kills with the BFG while throwing at you a dozen of enemies and leaving some BFG ammo on the arena. Reading the encounter structure, the collectibles, the level challenges and the arena structure itself will usually give you the answer to get through the trickiest part of each encounter.
THE SETTING: TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!
The last part I want to touch is the setting. By this I reffer to all the external and internal systems that bring the rest of the game systems together. Some of them are very straightforward, like the physical setting (Mars in the future and hell) or the character choice (badass space marine found in a tomb in hell guarded by demons). The game constantly feels like it´s trying to one up itself in all aspects. The player is constantly gaining new weapons, attack methods, movement options, more health/armpor/ammo...and the demons are getting new and stronger types. The encounters themselves are longer, harder, with more enemies. Glory Kills just have you brutalizing 3 meter high demons, the chainsaw kills them in the most gory way imaginable, the BFG makes demon blood and pieces rain...Even bosses one-up themselves: kill the Cyber Demon to be transported to Hell and watch him revive stronger than before. Kill one Guardian and two will appear next. As the game story progresses you learn how impossibly badass your character is and the game plays its part in presenting you with more and more complex scenarios to second that notion.
One detail that absolutely sells this is the last animation in the game. You see how Doom Guy is surrounded in a mountain of Imps with one of them grabbing his arm, as a callback to the original game´s cover. I remember how I always saw that cover and thought that the guy was done. Yet the game plays a short animation where Doom Guy just jumps, takes the Imp who´s grabbing him into the air and blows him in a million pieces with his shotgun. Doom guy wasn´t trapped there with a hunderd demons: the demons were trapped there with him and were just desperately trying to take him down.
However, at the same time, the whole game feels incredibly menacing. Walking through the blood covered corridors of an abandoned space station gave me huge Dead Space vibes. You´re a badass, but leave your guard down for a second and even an Imp can kill you. There´s always this feeling that a Hell Knight could jump in front of you in a tight corridor at any moment.
At the same time, this game doesn´t tell you that you´re a badass, it makes you work for it, so you feel like you earn it when the game says that Doom Guy (and you, by extension) are the worst calamity Hell has ever seen. I died a lot of times, but ultimately I killed all the demons that crossed my path in the most brutal possible ways, I rightfully earned my position as a fuckin´space marine badass who kills demons in the thousands and enjoys it. The basic info is presented in diary entries, but it´s ultimately expressed by gameplay. No matter how many times a game gives me a QTE to "press A to become awesome", it won´t be half as powerful as letting me do the awesome stuff by myself. And DOOM never runs out of awesome stuff for you to do.
FINAL WORDS
I can´t finish this analysis without mentioning a very important and negative aspect of the game: bugs. The Switch version (don´t know about the rest) has some nasty audio bugs. It seems to only happen in 5 or 6 levels through the middle of the game (maybe it only happens in the Hell levels?) and then does away like it came, but is inexcusable nonetheless. There´s no way Bethesda was unaware of this, so they deciding to ship the game with these bugs is a big fuck you to the consumers. The game even crashed on me once. The game is fantasic, but I won´t be buying any Bethesda game day-one or at full price as long as they keep with their track of buggy games.
That said, DOOM is an awesome game that will satisfy anyone who enjoys games built on the most pure, frantic and challenging gameplay, even if (like myself) they usually don´t enjoy FPS games.
.
