Zero Punctuation: Doom

[Zydrate]

I'm glad he enjoyed it, as I have.
I like how it sort of retrains you from the last decade of cover based defensive shooting.
I'm a lot more aggressive in DOOM than I am in most games but I'm STILL pressing R to reload, which only serves to switch weapon mods. It's not too bad an inconvenience as every weapon mod is a different flavor of useful and I usually only do it when in cover or after a battle.

 

[weirdee]

The weapon alt-fires are actually REALLY REALLY REALLY strong, especially when upgraded. With the Rune that grants you infinite ammo with 100+ armor the turret mode on the chaingun is GODLY and can turn a Cacaodemon into giblets faster than even the rocket launcher. The Plasma Rifle's Heat Blast recharges itself over time when maxed and it gibs lesser mooks around you (Does quite well against strong guys too, a few rounds to their face, a heat burst, a few more rounds, a heat burst, and big guy goes down). Siege Mode on the Gauss Cannon can gib multiple Cacaos in one shot. Upgrade the Super-Shotty to max and you spend one shell per trigger pull (You essentially fire one barrel at a time) while still having the same damage (Hell Knights never stood a chance). The remote detonation of the rocket launcher is great for mook mobs and for blasting the back ends of the Pinky Demons (who are much more of a prick this time around, and are of no relation to Pinky and the Brain or Pinkie Pie).

the shotgun grenade launcher, when fully upgraded, fires a cluster bomb, which is basically your bread and butter for cleaning up all purpose messes

the railgun's siege mode is strong enough to redefine barons of hell into modern art with two hits, and will stagger them on contact

 

[Arnoxthe1]

the shotgun grenade launcher, when fully upgraded, fires a cluster bomb, which is basically your bread and butter for cleaning up all purpose messes

Sooooo... It turns into the Flak Cannon?

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

Ooh... I liked that last suggestion in the credits. Evil corp has stuck a generator on the wheel of rebirth, problem is someone invented immortality. Can't have that can we? Off we go to off some people and get that energy flowing again.

You might be shocked to learn that this is almost exactly the plot of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. Just replace "evil corp" with Elder God, and his reason for hating all those vampires.

 

[sXeth]

Wait...people don't like weapon reloads in games now? Why? I like them mostly as it gives a little extra strategy and some animations are pleasant to see. Knowing doom doesn't have any kind of is a teeny disappoint personally. Is this just a nostalgia thing?

The twitch/old school FPS tends to have a ton of enemies and involve dodging a pile of projectiles coming at you, almost verging on bullet hell at times. If you add reload times, you have to add wider windows of safety to perform reloads, which dulls the action a bit (or cover, but that's basically jumping into a whole other subgenre).

There are animations anways as the weapon cycles. He pumps the combat shotgun, actually does reload the Super Shotgun between blasts, and a couple of others. Its not completely absent, but its integrated more into the standard rate of fire and animations, rather then being a separate mechanic.


Also, the ammo counts for most of the guns are pretty low and deplete out fast anyways. I think the idea is he only has the magazine in the weapon on him to begin it. Only the shotgun and the rockets seem to carry a noticeable surplus.

 

[Random Wanderer]

The weapon alt-fires are actually REALLY REALLY REALLY strong, especially when upgraded. With the Rune that grants you infinite ammo with 100+ armor the turret mode on the chaingun is GODLY and can turn a Cacaodemon into giblets faster than even the rocket launcher. The Plasma Rifle's Heat Blast recharges itself over time when maxed and it gibs lesser mooks around you (Does quite well against strong guys too, a few rounds to their face, a heat burst, a few more rounds, a heat burst, and big guy goes down). Siege Mode on the Gauss Cannon can gib multiple Cacaos in one shot. Upgrade the Super-Shotty to max and you spend one shell per trigger pull (You essentially fire one barrel at a time) while still having the same damage (Hell Knights never stood a chance). The remote detonation of the rocket launcher is great for mook mobs and for blasting the back ends of the Pinky Demons (who are much more of a prick this time around, and are of no relation to Pinky and the Brain or Pinkie Pie).

the shotgun grenade launcher, when fully upgraded, fires a cluster bomb, which is basically your bread and butter for cleaning up all purpose messes

the railgun's siege mode is strong enough to redefine barons of hell into modern art with two hits, and will stagger them on contact

The heavy assault rifle's alt fire (or at least, the only one that matters) when fully upgraded is a rapid-fire missile launcher. It kills single demons, it clears crowds, it takes down big guys, it is usable in all situations. I probably used that more than any other weapon in the game.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

Wait...people don't like weapon reloads in games now? Why? I like them mostly as it gives a little extra strategy and some animations are pleasant to see. Knowing doom doesn't have any kind of is a teeny disappoint personally. Is this just a nostalgia thing?

Just a nostalgia thing I think. DOOM 1&2 (maybe 3? Not sure. I did like it though, but I played it without too much exposure to the first two) didn't have reload animations because your ammo was just in a big pool specific to that weapon. It works really well in the new DOOM since the idea is to always be moving and shooting. Reloading would break up the flow quite jarringly.

Edit: Sorry, I typed all this out before seeing like 10 people already quoted you about this haha

Was hoping he would reference the cute little Doomguy collectibles. I got the biggest grin when I found the one that unlocks the player character model and doomguy played with his arm for a second and then gave it a fist bump with the waggle fingers from Big Hero 6.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Had a feeling that Glory Kills would be the sticking point for ZP, even if a small one. After seeing playthroughs I knew it would be, even if there is some variety in them to be had by doing it from different angles and they aren't terribly long or flow-breaking. It doesn't change the fact that there are hundreds of demons to deal with in each level, and who doesn't want to get more health back?

Maybe if they'd changed it so that the animation doesn't make you temporarily invincible, making it risky to perform when there's more than a handful of demons remaining in a room and forcing you to save it for the last survivors, which is probably the time you will need health recovery the most.

'I'll get you next time, Doomguy. Next time... when they make a sequel...'

 

[Guffe]

There are no good pandas!!!

This was a funny review
How do I get those supernippples he talked about?

 

[orangeapples]

This game brought me back to my childhood playing Doom. Running around aimlessly in a level doing my best to kill everything, being surprised when a level ends and giving up around level 3 because "I'm too Young to Die" was too hard...

I never once claimed to be good at video games.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

I shant quote all the peeps, but i do understand a bit more now with the reloads. Will definitely try this game soon. Just going through an upgraded Wolfenstein TNO at the moment.

 

[Gatlank]

I think someone elsewhere described it as "I picture one night the guys at ID were sitting around a table during a night of drinking, and one of them blearily raised his head from his drunken stupor and said "Guys... EVERYTHING'S CANON." ...and they went from there."

Perhaps in Deum 2 they will say "An Elder Scroll did it.".

 

[GTG3000]

I shant quote all the peeps, but i do understand a bit more now with the reloads. Will definitely try this game soon. Just going through an upgraded Wolfenstein TNO at the moment.

Deum really shouldn't be compared to TNO though. It makes Deum look unpolished and cluttered.

I really wasn't satisfied with Doom because of this - I remembered WolfTNO and it's tight, polished design and hyped myself that Doom will be like that.

*bzzt* WRONG!

Doom could have been perfect, but instead of streamlining the game for the run-and-gun, they felt like it was necessary to pile up shit ontop and around it. The weapon mods look like they couldn't decide which ones to put into the game until the very last moment, so they just put them all in and didn't do swapping animation. Many mods have this weird aim-then-shoot instead of just altfire, even if it's not justified for the mod. There's also a bit of loss of identity between all the guns. TNO had underslung rockets on the rifle because there was no dedicated rocketlauncher. Doom, on the other hand, just stuffed rockets everywhere and even thrown in a rocketlauncher that ends up being pretty useless, with it's low damage and low ammo count. Again, same thing with HMG and plasma - they do same pew-pew spam thing, except hitting anything with plasma is mostly luck, and unlike godly HMG with scope, plasma deals shitty damage and wastes useful railgun ammo. Combat shotgun and supershotgun are also at odds with one another thanks to the combat shotguns burst mod.

The excuse plot is handled very ham-fistedly. Of course, I didn't expect it to be a narrative-driven game, but by god, either make an excuse plot to add some background noise, or grab us by the scull every few minutes going "LOOK" while something boring happens on the screen. There's an abundance of characters who are barely used at all, and I get a feeling ID expected us to CARE about killing that one chick who unleashed the demons. On top of that, the awesome voice bits you find on history of doomguy are placed waaay near the end, when they would have much more impact in the beginning. The robot guy was handled poorly, and the game would benefit greatly if the only talking entity was VEGA.

I feel the game has lost a LOT of fun value because ID decided to bolt on all that shit. Instead of giving us enough ammo to last an encounter and make chainsaw just a fun way to kill demons, they make chainsaw drop ammo and limit how much you can carry to roughly enough to kill a baron (Not an accurate measurement). Instead of making proper alt-fire for each gun and making each gun solid, they add two alt-fires, one of which quickly stops being used, and make players upgrade their guns for no good reason, especially considering how many points you receive. Were they afraid that players will get bored if they don't find a new shiny every ten steps or something?

 

[Uliana]

I feel the game has lost a LOT of fun value because ID decided to bolt on all that shit. Instead of giving us enough ammo to last an encounter and make chainsaw just a fun way to kill demons, they make chainsaw drop ammo and limit how much you can carry to roughly enough to kill a baron (Not an accurate measurement). Instead of making proper alt-fire for each gun and making each gun solid, they add two alt-fires, one of which quickly stops being used, and make players upgrade their guns for no good reason, especially considering how many points you receive. Were they afraid that players will get bored if they don't find a new shiny every ten steps or something?

I found the upgrade system rewarding, especially since the optimal way to upgrade weapons was to explore the map, thus giving incentive to find every nook and cranny to get the last upgrade points or a new weapon you'd normally get only on the next level. Also, they do have different swapping animations for each and every weapon mod, so not sure what you're going on about there.

Also, you realize that you can increase each weapon's ammo capacity through the Argent System upgrades, and that you can even enhance your ammo management abilities via the Rune system - there's even a Rune called Rich get Richer which allows you to have infinite ammo provided your armor is above 100 points. As long as I can prevent my armor from going down with that rune, I can pretty much spam all my weapons without worry (firing the chaingun for 3 minutes straight to kill everything without stopping was an awesome thing), and even before I get that rune there's a rune that increases ammo pickups.

I also disagree on the Plasma Rifle: I actually thought I'd hate it, but its Stun Bomb and Heat Blast mods are actually really great, the former for stunning enemies and thus making them easier to hit with the plasma rifle, and the other is good for clearing out the smaller enemies you shouldn't be bothered wasting ammo on.

While Doom is not quite what you'd call an "very intelligent" shooter, there's still some thought needed to get the best out of the game, which gives it that bit of depth you wouldn't otherwise if it was too simple mechanics wise.

 

[GTG3000]

I feel the game has lost a LOT of fun value because ID decided to bolt on all that shit. Instead of giving us enough ammo to last an encounter and make chainsaw just a fun way to kill demons, they make chainsaw drop ammo and limit how much you can carry to roughly enough to kill a baron (Not an accurate measurement). Instead of making proper alt-fire for each gun and making each gun solid, they add two alt-fires, one of which quickly stops being used, and make players upgrade their guns for no good reason, especially considering how many points you receive. Were they afraid that players will get bored if they don't find a new shiny every ten steps or something?

I found the upgrade system rewarding, especially since the optimal way to upgrade weapons was to explore the map, thus giving incentive to find every nook and cranny to get the last upgrade points or a new weapon you'd normally get only on the next level. Also, they do have different swapping animations for each and every weapon mod, so not sure what you're going on about there.

Also, you realize that you can increase each weapon's ammo capacity through the Argent System upgrades, and that you can even enhance your ammo management abilities via the Rune system - there's even a Rune called Rich get Richer which allows you to have infinite ammo provided your armor is above 100 points. As long as I can prevent my armor from going down with that rune, I can pretty much spam all my weapons without worry (firing the chaingun for 3 minutes straight to kill everything without stopping was an awesome thing), and even before I get that rune there's a rune that increases ammo pickups.

I also disagree on the Plasma Rifle: I actually thought I'd hate it, but its Stun Bomb and Heat Blast mods are actually really great, the former for stunning enemies and thus making them easier to hit with the plasma rifle, and the other is good for clearing out the smaller enemies you shouldn't be bothered wasting ammo on.

While Doom is not quite what you'd call an "very intelligent" shooter, there's still some thought needed to get the best out of the game, which gives it that bit of depth you wouldn't otherwise if it was too simple mechanics wise.

To each their own.

And yes, I do know about the argent upgrades, I just despise them along with the rest "progression systems" they shoved in.

Why does Doom even need a progression system besides going through whatever demon is standing directly infront of you anyway. It's a very unpopular opinion as it turned out, but I really wished for Doom to be a pure, distilled run-gun-fun kind of a deal, and all these impurities just raise my sodium levels.

I may be the only human in existence that liked and still likes Doom3. I even bought the expansion pack. No, it wasn't "classic," but it had a good constant stream of tension running through it, and I thought the design choice to make the Flashlight so imperative to the game was brilliant.

I quite liked Doom 3 as well. I thought it was an interesting take on Doom, and it also helps that I'm a huge wuss when it comes to horror, so the scares worked really well on me.

But I really enjoyed Doom 2016. So far I've played it through twice (once on hurt me plenty to get my bearings, and then again on ultra violence. Considering giving ultra-nightmare a go to see if I'm good enough to get that achievement). IMO I think ID did things right to update Doom. If there is one complaint I can think of, it's that the story really is a secondary consideration, it's coherent enough to the point where I can't say it was awful, but it's lacking a lot of details like;

Spoiler

What did the demons promise Olivia that made her start this whole mess, how did they find out they could port to hell in the first place, who was the head demon giving orders in Argent D'Nur

etc. etc.
It's kind of like they wanted a story that's not as simple as the original Doom, but didn't want too much to get in the way of the demon punching and I don't think they got that mix right. But I think they did most everything else right. I liked the glory kills, they never got old on me and the weapon mods worked well for me, though there were some mods more useful than others, but people's mileage may vary on which ones. I for one preferred the gatling rotator over turret mode, triple shot lock on over remote detonation (even though that does chew through ammo) and so on. Probably the plasma rifle has the most balanced pair of mods, I found myself using them almost equally.

They really dropped the ball with story - they wanted to have an excuse plot that just kinda happens in the beckground like white noise, but they also make it very, very prominent and impossible to ignore.

 

[Transdude1996]

Yahtzee liked Doom 3 too(at least in comparison to Medal of Honor Warfighter).

Yeah, but "in comparison to Medal of Honor Warfighter" is a real nasty qualifying statement. I could say "I like gardening," but once the "at least in comparison to MoH: Warfighter" qualifier comes out it's obvious I don't know my pollen from my stamens and may even have a personal grudge against every plant that's ever existed.

Yep, that's damnation by faint praise if I've ever seen it. Like saying "more watertight than the Titanic," or "a better love story than Twilight," or "a better composed, less contrived ending than Life is Strange's."

Seems to me that drinking pussy juice would actually be a pretty manly thing to do.

Apparently he's not tough enough for the Love Nectar.

Oh there's FAR worse endings then Life is Strange.

May I nominate The Darkness 2, or XIII, or

(Insert game with cliffhanger ending that will never see a follow up)

.

 

[shrekfan246]

Wait...people don't like weapon reloads in games now? Why? I like them mostly as it gives a little extra strategy and some animations are pleasant to see. Knowing doom doesn't have any kind of is a teeny disappoint personally. Is this just a nostalgia thing?

You've been quoted like, fifty million times, so I'm just quoting to add to the stack.

I'm a jerk, I know.

OT: Game looks fun from what I've seen, though count me up for another person who still thinks Doom 3 is a pretty good game. I guess I just don't have the same reverence for the original titles; I did play them when I was younger, but I was always more into Star Wars Dark Forces II.

Still, I appreciate what DEUM does with its narrative. It's really interesting to see how they've managed to actually create a personality for a mute protagonist, especially in a game that so gloriously tosses its own plot to the side unless the player really wants to see it.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

I kept forgetting there were grenades at all... Until I accidentally pressed the button to try to sprint or crouch for some reason.