Introduction:

Some people have asked me what I think of the beta and its hard to say for me in one sentence. I’m not the type of person to write games on or off over one thing that I like or dislike. I have to take a look at all aspects as one and consider. So as I said my cheers and set my self up for another FPS weekend! I was ready for some DOOM I even cut the lights!

Launching the game/Menu:

Launching the game the first time I had troubles and the game was stuck at 00%. I had to switch my video settings to set my Nvidia card as the default when launching Doom. After trying hard to find the answer this is partially a windows problem actually. When reaching the menu you are greeted with nice music that seems fitting for a DOOM environment and the main menu that looks rather organized with multiplayer and single player as there own choices. It seems if you choose multiplayer it opens its own separate main menu for it. The mp menu had quite a few things including a customize your character. I just made mine look like the classic DOOM marine. It also has hack modules, one example of a hack module is you will spawn with hints on your screen telling you where the pick ups are with a count down telling you when they will respawn. Hack modules also die out shortly after there activated.

Options/Settings:

The options and settings seemed to be okay and easy to navigate, it had all the basics in there. One thing that sticks out is there was no adjustable fov in there. I think that’s something they will eventually have but just didn’t have quite right yet. Some people found a way to change it anyway. You could change your resolutions in the video settings for me they ranged from 1280 x 720 as the lowest and 1920 x 1080 for the highest. I chose to play with 720 actually even know on 1080 it seemed to run okay for me. It was just more consistent with the 720 resolution. Another thing I would like to point out is I didn’t notice a more defined mouse control setting. It had one adjustable scale for all around mouse speed rather then the vertical/horizontal. I personally like to have my horizontal faster then my vertical. To my knowledge I was unable to control them in a singular fashion. When you are all ready to go with your settings you just hit “find a match” on the menu then choose the mode you wish to play. It will throw you into one, or you can set up parties with friends and do invites.

Game Modes:

There were two game modes available in the beta. They consisted of Team Death Match and Warpath. I was ripping and tearing like there was no tomorrow in the Team death match and Warpath modes. Team death match is self explanatory but the Warpath mode is something else. In basic explanation it is a king of the hill mode except the hill moves in different directions causing the players to move with the control point. This makes for some very crazy attacks by the other team and can be a blast on either side at that point.

Gameplay:

Once you get in game, that is where the magic happens. The first impression on the beta was a good one there is a lot of action I mean it gets pretty crazy out there. There is rockets flying from all directions, grenades dropping in, demons soaring, lasers, colorful blasts, and lets not forget with some shotgun blasts dumping on top. The game gets wild especially if its a full game and this is pretty reminiscent to old school fps games at times. There is no soft locks and its all free aim which is also a good thing that it requires some sort of skill. When you go to battle with another player its pretty much like old school games when you jump around in a circle and outsmart your enemy while trying to kill each other and there is nothing wrong with that to me. This game has something else interesting and that’s the wall climbing to reach higher places which in return makes learning the maps layouts quite fun. Just jump up near a ledge and you will pull your self right up and use them to help outsmart your enemies. I find this fun and strategic. As I was running in the levels I began to notice more routes and ways to take force on your enemies with a surprise. Using the load outs you can customize your weapons to work with your play style. If you like to stalk and surprise your enemies, hang back from a distance, or go blasting in the middle of the field you can have at it. I am a type of player who will be in the middle of it all, with the shotgun your able to be up close and personal. The shotgun is my favorite weapon no doubt the power and range are perfectly fine exactly how it is. Some of the other weapons could use a bit more power though, but each weapon has its own strengths in the end. There are pick ups on the maps to help you slaughter your enemies easier like the Quad damage, Haste, Gauss cannon, and the Demon rune. Having any one of those pretty much ensures a one shot kill on your next target(s). The Haste pick up makes you do everything faster including how fast you shoot your weapons. The Gauss Cannon is pretty much a new big weapon sort of like the BFG in power it will eliminate anything including the demon. The demon rune will transform you into a demon where you will destroy your enemies in numbers if you play the cards right. Quad damage is self explanatory, but having these pick ups are really helpful to get especially because your opponent will get them if you don’t. Teams are normally around the pick up areas of these, causing for big battles over who gets them. They do take a bit of time to respawn so this causes the gameplay to alter while they are available. It also seems like they spawn within each others time frames to help each team get a fighting chance. When the demon comes out hopefully the other team got the Gauss cannon. If the same team gets the demon and the pick ups at the same time it could get ugly.

 Levels:

After the first impression, I started looking more at the levels and how there made. Since I am a level designer I find a lot of interest in how the levels are in games. Since I played the alpha I had already seen the level “Heatwave” it reminds me of when the T-1000 gets pushed into the lava in Terminator 2 honestly. Some kind of factory with lava not sure exactly what it is but its pretty cool. But this new level is beyond special in my opinion. The new level that was added into the beta and was not in the alpha is called “Infernal” everything about this environment is Doom and has Doom 64 written all over it. To top it off, it has colors like green somehow blended in using some crazy ways. This level has amazing views and makes you feel like you are indeed playing Doom without a doubt in mind. This level could go down in history for me if it has an SP counterpart of it to, which I’m sure it does.

Concerns:

I do have some concerns however, there not in order I see all of them as a bit important. Besides the ones I have already mentioned like the mouse settings and not having an fov scale. Sometimes when I died my marine would look like a ragdoll almost as if it somehow missed its animations and kind of just floated around. The plasma rifle needs to have more power, it is extremely weak and its one of my favorite weapons from Doom it sucks to struggle to even get a kill with it. I don’t really like weapon loadouts but unfortunately that has become some sort of part in fps games which is quite sad. You can only carry two weapons and I don’t agree with it but somehow or another the reality of carrying what a human could actually carry beat the magic of carrying a ton of weapons again. I am used to the classic games where we carry however many weapons we found because it also made it more fun to find them. Also, I think the options/settings should be more pc friendly and support a way to make it run better on lower end pc machines. For me its not a problem but Doom is a classic game that runs on almost anything so making this game have more options to make it less consuming I think would help benefit quite a few. My last concern is I don’t want to see this blue glove no sir please just take it out if its going to be the color of our team. I chose my player to be green like the Doom marine and that’s the gloves I want to see. If we have to be blue because its a team match then just give us old DOOM hands with no gloves. I don’t want to see the colored gloves based on blue and red teams. I know what team I am on. Hopefully somethings get tweaked, we also know that not all of the maps, modes, or weapons were revealed in the beta so there is more to see.

Overall:

I had a ton of fun I’m not going to lie. I enjoyed it I had my Super Shotgun and my RPG that’s all I needed to rip and tear. Even as the last hour passed and the servers ended while we were trying to run one more game I actually enjoyed it. The action is fast paced and brutal with a nice touch of Doom action. No its not the original classic game I won’t say that and Doom 64 is still my favorite Doom. I don’t believe a new game can be better then the classics though. But this has some good Doom vibes with its own thing going. I imagine the SP will help back the game up even more. Not to mention snapmap should at least be worth taking a look into for some of us. Its not bad at all for a modern game, most modern games I can’t even play or enjoy but this has high potential. So this to me is actually quite close to a classic but has some modern fundamentals mixed in.

Final Score:

I will do it out of 5 for now and use a different system then I normally do. We will use one specific for it, since we have only seen an early stage of the mp side. If you can make sense of the score below.