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Doom Eternal Review: Gold Medal Gore

"Doom Eternal is a ridiculous, bloody, pulsating masterpiece."

• Insanely smooth fight

• Creative skills

• Varied and beautiful surroundings

• New traditions do not disturb

• Brutal but fair difficulty

• Platform sections are a hit or miss

• A little too long

Playing Doom Eternal is like skating on the world's most violent ice rink, racing from enemy to enemy and gutting them with the grace of a gold medalist, while chunky guitars roar in the background.

Doom Eternal is a sequel that knows exactly what worked with Do Software & # 39; s Doom from 2016. After proving that he was still the master of first person shooters, the developer drove a victory lap with his latest entry and ridiculously expanded to find out what it was. The first game didn't quite nail.

The Doom Slayer is here to tear, and once players master its vast arsenal of weapons and skills, they can slaughter demons in one of the most entertaining ways I've ever seen. Doom Eternal is like good fast food – it's simple, unpretentious, and better than the competition that tried to reinvent the wheel.

Tear and tear until it's done

Doom Eternal, set a few years after the events of Doom, is in an even worse situation than when a portal linked Hell and Mars. The earth is completely overrun by demons, and a connection to hell releases a constant stream of monsters that kill almost everything on their way. Only the Doom Slayer – whom the game occasionally calls "Doom Guy" – has a chance to save the world. As a god among men, he is more than capable of inflicting pain on hundreds of demons in just a few minutes, and this time he needs every bit of his skill.

It is tasty, greasy, unpretentious and better than the competition.

The 2016 release of Doom contained its own science fiction meets mythology story, but often, sometimes literally, turned the bird around in further explanations to return to the plot. It was certainly in the spirit of the original game, but Id Software offers more background in Eternal.

You'll learn about the Sentinel creatures responsible for much of the game's events, as well as the powerful hell priests that the Doom Slayer must destroy before he can save Earth. You will also learn more about the Slayer itself and the connection between the game areas, both through direct storytelling and through collectable data logs.

This would have greatly improved the pace of the game in 2016, but after almost every mission in Doom Eternal, the hunter returns to his Fort of Destiny to upgrade or explore them. It is the perfect opportunity to learn about traditions.

Of course, this is still a doom game, and when it's time to take a super shotgun and blow off demons' heads. Doom Eternal is more than happy to engage in some of the smoothest and most complex fights a first person shooter has ever offered.

After starting with some basic weapons like a shotgun and a heavy cannon, players quickly get a large number of tools. A rocket launcher, a plasma rifle, and a chain gun work best against different demons (of which there are more than twice as many types as Doom), and the chainsaw allows the hunter to get additional ammunition from weaker enemies on the fly.

Even the Glory Kills finishing move system has been redesigned for the Doom Blade packaged in the Slayer's armor, which allows players to replenish their health while gutting the brood of hell.

The perfect combination

However, the biggest game changers in Doom Eternal are not weapons or melee weapons. The Flame Belch and Ice Bomb abilities drastically change the combat loop by giving players a way to get more health and armor without having to find items already on the ground. These items are still available, but knowing when and who to attack to get them through kills is much more satisfying.

The flame burp is essentially a short-range flame thrower, and almost every enemy is set ablaze when struck. They also drop a small amount of armor, which increases if they are killed while still on fire, and multiple enemies can be hit with a single "burp".

Doom Eternal does everything in its power to kill you.

The ice bomb serves a similar purpose: an upgrade gives players more health if they kill an enemy frozen by their explosion. By using the two moves simultaneously, the hunter can quickly destroy massive groups of enemies. If he does not do this consistently, he has little health and armor. If players want to survive in Doom Eternal, they must master all of its tools.

This is especially true not only because Doom Eternal's resources are otherwise limited, but also because its enemies can be brutally difficult. The cannon fodder is preserved particularly early, but Doom Eternal does everything in its power to kill you.

Recurring enemies fire missile barriers from the air while the pinky blanks attack at lightning speed. The arachnotron spider-like enemies can take a surprising amount of damage while their towers illuminate the hunter. And the armored Cyber ​​Mancubus is even more resilient than Doom's giant Mancubus enemies.

By far the most challenging standard enemy is the Marauder, who is equal to the hunter and carries a shield that only falls off for a few seconds when he wields his ax. Whenever he appears, he deserves your undivided attention, which can be very difficult when there are several other enemies nearby. After killing him a few times, it's easier to learn his patterns, but he's no less threatening.

The Archvile joins him, a demon who can produce an infinite number of other demons until he is eliminated. When he spawns, every other target becomes secondary and his quick death is essential. Fortunately, just like the Marauder, it is not overused, and the crashing heavy metal boom during every battle keeps even repeated attempts intoxicating.

Diversity is the spice of death

Doom has been mainly divided into two different environments: a research facility and hell itself. Doom Eternal has much more range, with hellishly infected earth, a space defense station, hell itself, and even alien worlds that are all filled with demons to the point of rupture. The prospects that Id Software offers are great, which makes it difficult for the hunter not to spend a few moments gazing at the view before returning to his regularly scheduled slaughter.

These areas are often filled with platform issues that require air diversion and careful timing to overcome large gaps. You can use clever skills that are usually reserved for combat, but Doom Eternal relies a little too much on jumping puzzles in the final hours of the game. Dialing back, even slightly, would have helped the game not feel too long about a mission.

Whenever the hunter does not jump on platforms or improve his skills in the Fortress of Destiny, he almost always kills demons. There is very little opportunity to breathe, and that would be a problem for almost every other shooter. But this is Doom Eternal, and the thrilled feeling that players get when they jump between enemies for a few minutes and cut them from link to link makes the extended battles a joy.

An almost permanent smile appeared on my face during the fight, even in certain areas that gave us problems because Id Software never threw enemies at the hunter just to make things difficult. It's all in the service of fun and a massive force journey that embodies the spirit of the Doom series.

An almost permanent smile appeared on my face during the fight.

Our opinion

Doom Eternal is a larger and even better version of its predecessor that recognizes exactly why fans loved this game so much and gives them even more reasons to love the sequel. Only the single player content is currently live, but when Battlemode is nearly as addictive and powerful as its campaign, Id Software has made one of the best first-person shooters of the generation.

If technology were up to the task in 1993, it would be the game that John Romero and John Carmack would have made from the start.

Is there a better alternative?

Doom Eternal is better than the already excellent game of 2016, and its turn to old-school shooter gameplay is unique among modern shooters.

How long it will take?

It will take between 15 and 20 hours for the campaign to complete on the standard "Hurt Me Plenty" difficulty level.

Should you buy it

Yes, unless you're not a fan of Gore. There is a lot of it.

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