Well, that was a rather arduous few months of schooling and its accompanying work…
Though I can’t say I did enough actual work compared to the amount of time I spent playing games. During that time spent not doing schoolwork, I became reacquainted with a now four-year old (that’s painful to say) favorite of mine in that of DOOM Eternal.
DOOM Eternal is a 2020 first-person shooter that is the sequel to 2016’s “DOOM”, the fourth in the whole DOOM franchise, and hotly debated to be one of if not the best of the series. You play as the titular Doom Guy (now known as “The Slayer”) as you fight to liberate Earth from the military corporation turned Satanic cult, the UAC. Since 2016’s installment when the Spider Mastermind was slain, matters have only gotten worse on Earth, and the time between then and Eternal’s events has been marked by the Slayer’s hunt for the three Hell Priests in an effort to stop their invasion of Earth. Supported by an alien goddess called the Khan Maykr, the Hell Priests have unleashed… hell… on Earth and its denizens all from the comfort of their lairs scattered about the globe.
Gameplay wise, DOOM Eternal is probably one of the most satisfying first-person shooter experiences to ever exist (don’t listen to anyone who says its ULTRAKILL those people are unwell). Intuitive and interesting movement plus fantastically powerful weapons and their mods make for quite a fun power trip of a game… That said, though, you are still VERY much able to die in this game. You probably WILL die in this game your first few times around. This game is TOUGH. Not tough in the “holy shit I want to quit right now” kind of way, but more so the “I finally beat that combat arena, I feel like a god” kind of way. I won’t pretend the game is perfect though. The biggest problem with the game is that it makes you rely VERY heavily on one specific rune (character upgrade) that increases your aerial mobility. It doesn’t just increase it a little, no, it makes it so you can practically do figure eights in the air whenever you jump. You have so MUCH control that there’s no way you could possibly play without it after getting it. “So what?” you might ask. Well, the problem I have with it is how something so integral to the core experience of the game forces you to be locked out of some other interesting gameplay options. When I play, I run the runes “Air Control” (obviously), “Punch and Reave”, and “Equipment Fiend”. “Punch and Reave” gives you health pickups when killing demons with your super punch’s shockwave and “Equipment Fiend” decreases the charge time of your equipment per enemy killed with it (i.e. grenade recharge timer goes down depending on how many demons die in the blast). The game gives you these three slots, but realistically since “Air Control” is objectively the best one out of the bunch, you’re really locked to two, which doesn’t give you nearly as much room to switch up playstyles as the game would have you think.
Aside from that, there are some wonky things with collision and cutscenes here and there, but nothing too awful. Oh, aside from the difficulty in some of the later areas in the Ancient Gods 1 and 2 DLCs that feel a little suspect in their balancing.
Story wise, I have called this game a “rock opera” if that makes any sense. It leans heavily into this theming in the Ancient Gods DLCs with the introduction of a lot of Norse looking locales and dragons. Basically think of a Metallica album cover or something like that. It’s cheesy, but it’s badass as all hell. There’s not really much else to say about the story. It takes the rule of cool and runs with it.
The music. Holy hell, the music. For the MAIN GAME, Bethesda/id software hired on the one and only Mick Gordan to create the most metal, insane, adrenaline-fueled soundtrack ever conceived. It has so many layers and so many different interactions with the actual gameplay at any given time that it almost feels tailor made to any given playthrough and compliments it tremendously. Unfortunately, id succumbed to their hubris and lost their chance at ever working with Mick Gordan again thanks to some corporate greed junk. For the DLCs, id hired on Andrew Hulschult and David Levy to compose the music, and I’d say they did a pretty good job. Nobody can replace Mick Gordan as the DOOM music guy in my heart, though.
In summary, DOOM Eternal is a hell of a game, 10/10 (except when I am angry at it).
Now for an even wider scope of a summary, I’d like to summarize this whole experience running a site. It was much different than anything I’m used to. Clearly, I’m not much of a social media marketer and didn’t get a great deal of views, but for those few that did check out my posts, I’d like to take the time here to say thank you. It does mean a lot that someone would go out of their way to read something I wrote.
Thanks for tuning in and adios! : )