Zenoth
Diamond Member
- Jan 29, 2005
- 5,196
- 197
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I'm a HUGE Doom II fan. I know what you're referring to - THIS:
Look at this marvelous gameplay!!
Enemies aren't super deadly. It's a continuous gauntlet of killing killing killing.
I'm about 3 hours into Eternal now. It is more arcadey but enemies are way too quick. I'm starting to have some fun with dashing non stop, chainsawing for ammo, glory kill for health, and flame mount for armor. But I don't think I LOVE it.
Actually watching that clip above makes me want to play Doom II now.
I've watched a stream of the game yesterday. I thought I'd 'give it a chance' by watching it more than just 10 minutes. I watched the streamer playing for two different streams, maybe a total of 4 or 5 hours into the game. I'm absolutely aware - even though I don't care - that I'm in the minority with these new "Doom" games. But now that I've watched enough of it I can say without exaggeration that, for me, for my own tastes this game is a complete joke and I'm staying away from it. I also save a lot of money (brand new games in Canada right now cost about a pair of arms and legs) and time.
I'll stick with Brutal Doom. Maybe in 20 years or so we'll get another reboot of the franchise, but at that point it's probably going to be in VR and I won't care either.
With this said, I can give credits where due for Eternal:
- It has decent music, but I still prefer the original tunes from Ultimate Doom, or the ambient tracks from Doom 64 or PSX Doom. Still, it's not bad.
- The visual fidelity is pretty good (LOD, overall attention to details, it's pretty good).
- It's a LOT more visually-varied this time compared to "Doom" 2016. There's a lot more assets and the maps distinguish themselves from each others a lot better now.
- Enemy animations are good, transitions are smooth (not just the 'glory' kills, but in general). I particularly like how the Arachnotron moves around.
- Most enemy designs (or re-designs) are good. Not all of them, but most of them. I just hate the Imps, hated them in 2016, still hate them here. Imps in Doom are bulky and slow, they are humanoids with spikes. This time they look like some scrawny B-movie horror sci-fi alien invasion monster that keeps jumping, dodging and platforming like they're training for American Ninja Warrior, stupid redesign on them. But other than that and maybe one or two new enemies the majority of them look pretty good.
- I am in shock for this one but the A.I. in this game is actually good. Obviously not for the basic 'zombie' soldiers but for the likes of the bigger enemies and the Arachnotron they all seem to try to flank and attack from behind or navigate around the maps very well. They don't just stick to one spot all the time and they don't do the typical modern FPS "take cover, come out of cover for 2 seconds to shoot, back to cover and stay there" cycle. Given that the maps this time compared to 2016 are more varied in layout and structure it's nice to see that the enemies use that as well.
- Weapons design and sounds are, generally, pretty good.
That's about what I kept in mind from what I watched. But all the rest is pure garbage (for me), so it's a pass.