Track Your Gaming Journey

Doomguy is now a walking tank and it's amazing.

(100% on Ultra Violence)
The 'difficult 3rd album' labels this game has attracted isn't purely because it's the 3rd game. This is still an amazing game and some of my complaints might make it sound worse than it is, but I have some issues I'm still getting a feel for how excited or not I am to replay this later.

The direction taken to make Doomguy more of a bulwark is an interesting direction to take and one I really like, but it's implementation isn't perfect. Focusing more on gameplay that encourages you to 'stand-your-ground' to focus on parrying and melee-ing, regardless of how lenient or strict the parry-window, invites the game to ask perfection from the player. This would be fine, but I had a lot of instances where the game would either temporarily conk out and not work properly, or certain aspects would sometimes kill the flow.

Flow-killing issues such as:
- Ledges have strange hitboxes when you stand on them causing you to sometimes get stuck, float weirdly (this also happened for barriers on uneven terrain) or bounce off them when hitting right on the edge from a height
- Enemies sometimes use their range attacks when you're right in their face for no reason causing them to get quick and cheap hits and mess with your flow
- Certain parry-able melee attacks would cause the enemies to go through me and miss or push around me and hit me in the back/side despite me timing the parry correctly, thus damaging me when it shouldn't
- Enemies get stuck on environment objects and thus can't hit you (sometimes only for a short while and sometimes until I killed them)
- The sound balancing isn't anywhere near as good as it should be so fodder enemies behind me would hit me from off screen because I had no way of knowing they were there
- When blocking damage with the shield you take no damage but the UI still lights up like you did which can be confusing in moment to moment scenarios and whilst still getting used to the game
- Pressing sprint doesn't always mean you'll sprint. Certain instances like landing or jumping more twice or more in a row means doomguy has to get settled or something before he can sprint again. The solution should be to turn auto-sprint on but there will still be times where you're not sprinting when you should be, so all this does is start you sprinting at the earliest possible frame after doomguy settles back into the movement. This can be a big problem in platforming or avoiding floor based hurt-zones
- You can't parry whilst swapping weapons meaning you have to wait till an aggressive enemy is staggered before swapping (yes increasing the game speed is a workaround but that affects so many aspects of the game it's not an actual solution to that problem)
- You can clip through walls by leaning against them whilst holding the weapon-select-wheel button
- Enemies can still miss you with their parry-able attacks despite you movement that would normally mean they would still hit you, meaning your parry won't parry, killing the flow since you don't get the slight slow-down or potential enemy stagger. This is sometimes because of minor changes in the ground height (like ankle deep liquid or ramps), or just because the game felt like it. Meaning when the enemies are inaccurate, YOU get punished for it

To summarise all this is to say; if the game demands perfection from me, it's not unfair to demand perfection of the game.
I'm not talking bugs and glitches, like the fact that you can phase yourself through any wall by pushing against it whilst holding the weapon wheel button**, I mean the semi-regular behaviour of the game and enemies killing the flow of combat when it feels like those instances should not be in the game.

However, a lot of these issues are significantly overshadowed by what I loved about the game. There's an immense sense of charm throughout, like the special animations when picking up specific secret toys or Doomguy petting and feeding his mecha-dragon "Serrat". While that's definitely not the vibe of the entire game, those one-off moments do make for some nice levity between the seriousness and weight of the normal moment-to-moment gameplay and cutscenes. When the game wasn't getting on my nerves, it was scintillating. It was smile-inducing. It was unabashed fun. And that fun starts with...

The Shield. Ohhh man this shield.
It lets me parry, it lets me slice, it chainsaw stuns, it blocks, it turns enemy shield walls into armour, it lets me zip right into enemies, it bashes and bursts low-tier trash in the immediate area, it has upgrade choices like a damaging shockwave, DMC style Vergil summon swords, a shoulder-mounted cannon and an electric-shock chaining attack, IT HAS BUILT IN SLO-MO FROM THE START! I LOVE the shield.
At first when I knew it was gonna be tied to a parry mechanic, I wondered what a no-shield-use playthrough might look like (not from a dislike of parries, though I'm not always good at them I love parrying in games). Now I can't imagine playing the game without even one aspect of the carnage you can inflict with the shield.
The throw that sticks into mid-tiers stuns them in place whilst ripping into their chests, rips through fodder enemies leaving them in two like a lightsaber through Darth-Maul, explodes metal shields into armour and causes ricochets off plasma shields, as well as used for occasional environment traversal. The bash zips you to faraway enemies, stuns them and explodes low-tiers. Parries have those upgrade choices I mentioned earlier, though those only activate on parry-able projectiles so it's not as broken as it sounds but is as devastating as it looks. Speaking of sounds and looks;

The entire game looks like an insane and amazing heavy metal album, just like the last two games but with it's own medieval influences. However, the leap to IDTech8 feels limp. Dark Ages doesn't look that much better than Eternal on a technical level, though the incredibly quick loading times are brilliant. I mostly say that because I know for a fact I would've been able to crank the game to Ultra-Nightmare level performance at over 120fps if it wasn't for the fact that this game forces Ray-Tracing apparently just like how that recent Indiana Jones game does. Instead I was getting between 70 to 80fps on Ultra in most areas, with quick but noticeable dips to 60 in more intense rooms.
I'm also gonna have to assume why this didn't feel as polished as Eternal. I can't recall a single major bug or game-breaking glitch in Eternal (I'm the kind of petty fuck that uses instant replay to record glitches, if it happened I would have a clip and I don't), but in Dark Ages there were a good few, including the three times I fell through the world and found you can glitch through all walls by pushing against them with the weapon wheel button held.
With that being said, Argent (I think that's the planet you're on), Hell, Spirit Realm and the Cthulhu world are all distinct and gorgeous with the only exception being Belly of the Beast and that's mostly because it's whimsically gross to be in for obvious reasons.

I'd love to say that the game's soundtrack lives up to it's spectacle, but it just doesn't. It's not bad, far from it, but it is a more straight-forward kind of metal. Finishing Move did a great job, especially if what Mick Gordon said about Marty Stratton being a seagull manager is true, but I can't recall a single standout track from the entire game's OST. I can recall a prevailing motif of guitar-led, slow percussion to help illustrate the flow of most combat encounters in the game, but no "oh my god I HAVE to listen to this track later" music moments. This game doesn't really have it's own equivalent of 2016's At Doom's Gate, Rip & Tear, BFG Division or Harbinger, nor the equivalent to Eternal's Hell on Earth, Cultist Base, The Super Gore Nest, Meathook or The Only Thing They Fear is You that plays during a level. I'll definitely be listening more closely to the OST in my spare time, and I already know it's by no means bad, but it definitely comes across as a much more safe, straight-forward metal approach.

The weapons all look and sound unique and pleasing to chunk, mulch and immersion blend demons with, but my time spent swapping between them was mostly to fill objectives rather than out of necessity or even simply picking the 'best tool for the job'.

This game introduces a 'weapon class' system. Two of the same gun types occupy the same slot, you can only swap to the other gun within that class either via the weapon wheel or by pulling out the gun of that class and hitting the class-swap button. Luckily there's no Eternal style 'use this gun and/or this gun mod to deal with this specific threat' mechanic so it's not much of a hassle or pace killer getting out a specific gun, but then there's also so many times where I didn't use a different class gun because typically the one you got after is an overall improvement. Yeah the regular shotgun can be upgraded to be burst fire and ignite enemies that take more than 2 hits and ignited enemies drop armour, but the super shotgun just kills mid-tier enemies one shot at point blank range anyways so why bother? Yeah the Shredder can be upgraded to make enemies act as nail-bombs when shot enough, but why bother when the Impaler decapitates and impales enemies into walls?

The only exceptions to this are the Chainshot and the Grenade Launcher, since the Chainshot occupies it's own slot with no other weapon of it's class available and the Grenade Launcher just having more immediate and impactful upgrades like cluster-bombs. I opted to mostly used the Super-Shotgun, Impaler, Ravager, Cycler, Chainshot and Grenade Launcher. I did fully upgrade all the weapons in my UV playthrough, but the few times I didn't have a mastery or level objective to do with them I used them for ultimately pointless reasons, like if I was full health and low armour I tried using the fully upgraded Combat Shotgun but I quickly realised it's more efficient to just Super-Shotgun the mid-tiers and find armour from other sources. While I don't think the other weapons are entirely invalidated, the beauty of this being it's the player's preference and gameplay expression choices that can make no two-playthroughs of this game the same, I think you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone that prefers the inferior weapons over the more impactful ones. Especially in harder difficulties.

No BFG in this one...ok I mean no LITERAL BFG, instead we have a Crossbow version in keeping with the medieval aesthetics. The Ballistic Force Crossbow we can hold 3 shots of. While the introduction doesn't have the build-up of Eternal or 2016's BFG, it's still a great "Fuck this room" button and still satisfies when used. I probably could've used it more often and in writing this I now realised I never used it during any of the real boss fights (as in ones with a health bar on screen, not boss demons you get health, armour and ammo upgrades from), so I'll probably go use it again there when I feel like it.

And no chainsaw in this one, instead you have your melee options. Fist, Flail and fuckin big Mace. All of them do more specific things from a melee attack and all but the Mace have 3 charges of use, but the key difference that stopped me using the Mace was the swing timing. Going from Fist to Flail is natural as the animation timing is quite similar, but using the Mace got me killed from using it at the wrong time, it's like I had to re-learn when to use a melee, so I went back to the flail to keep me in the flow of combat over killing enemies slightly quicker. I'll definitely have more attempts of learning when to and not to use it in future playthroughs though, as that slower swing comes with a more satisfying way to pulverising demons.

The voice acting is all perfect and brimming with character, even if some of it is a bit simple in it's mustache-twirliness, but then again it's Doom so maybe it should be like that, and it's always nice to hear more of Debra Wilson's uber-talented voice in new games.

The enemy designs are mostly on point, though I don't like that the 2016 imps have hair now because it makes them all look like an evil version of Jack Nicholson and that one hairstyle from Vanilla Skyrim. The Imp Stalkers are a great way to bring back the classic design whilst making them a more unique regular mid-tier enemy. The new high-tiers are intimidating and challenging. Though they have their own gimmicks and attack styles, all except the Vagary and Komodo boil down to learning parry timings once you get in their face with my only real annoyances are from the fodder soldier's weird double ball and lined projectile, the new Cacodemon Hybrid's grid lazers and the Witches with their aggressive tracking skulls and AOEs.

Oh and Pinkies are now weird, giant, horse-dog things for a soldier to ride on and did initially take me out of the experience when I started to question how they went from how they look here to the stumpier, smaller look they have in 2016 and Eternal.

Other than that, the Vagary and Mancubus' area denial acid projectiles feel like they lead their shots way too aggressively, with them going so hard towards where I'm going to be they're annoying at worst and at best fly straight up in front of the enemy firing them only to limply splat down because I was charging straight at them. And while I'm glad to see no movement-restricting purple goo, the tentacles make a return and they're just as time-wasting and stupid as they are in Eternal. Only difference here is with the shield throw and parries, you have a quick no-resource expending way of getting rid of them.
The only other thing I'll say is I do wish less of the high-tier's attacks pushed you backwards. Boss variants absolutely still should, but it sucked when playing the game correctly and parrying high-tiers parry-able attacks I got placed on the back-foot until their uninterruptable combo finished (at least uninterruptable without serious resource expense).

There are what one might call gimmick sequences, such as the Turret, Dragon and Mecha moments;

The turret sequences, though short, are still turret sequences. It could've been the exact same enemy encounters but let me be mobile and use the miniguns (maybe at a reduced speed or something) and it would've been more engaging. It's 2025, I thought we didn't do forced turret sequences outside of Call of Duty or something.

The Dragon flying segments on the other hand are fun...when you're not forced to strafe and dodge. Those moments feel less like a power-fantasy where I'm petting my Cyberized Cat with wings that does a Godzilla 2014 style glory-kill to the giant demons and more like DDR. But flying round, chasing demon ships and shooting them down is great, I wish the combat was able to more closely follow that style of gameplay, even if it would've resulted in them just doing a metal version of Star Fox...ok and now I wanna play a Heavy Metal aesthetic Star-Fox spiritual successor, don't you just love when you think of ideas you have no way of implementing and you have to hope someone else is able to do it / has already done it for you? Cus I don't.

Meanwhile the Mecha segments make you feel like you're playing a sliver of someone's dream first-person Pacific Rim game (it's me, I'm bitches). Sure they're simple but the spectacle doesn't get old and the sound design, while still nowhere near the level of anything Eternal (hard act to follow I know but it's the previous game in the series so it's fair game), is on point. Doesn't hurt either that you have Eternal's dash as a parry substitute and get what might be the biggest dual-barrelled miniguns and shotgun in fiction either.

All three of these sequence types don't out-stay their welcome, they do what they're meant to do and then just as quickly finish.

This game's story is fine, I guess. A lot of it feels what it is, contrivances and MacGuffins to get Doomguy to specific areas, rooms and divergences rather than just letting him go nuts. There's a story here, I just can't bring myself to really care beyond the visual splendour of a moment that gets me hyped for the next gameplay segment. The main villain is a demon, so we're at least not just having another corrupted human being stupid with the powers of hell, and he does have a very punchable face, rippable neck and tearable spine structure so I was looking forward to the final boss. We do however have a fat, capitalist Makyr as the betrayer, which would be nice but the boss fight with him wasn't hard enough to deplete a life sigil from me on UV which was both enjoyable in that I didn't give him the satisfaction but unenjoyable in that I didn't feel challenged.

Other smaller issues I have:
- Finish-able boss-enemies that are large enough to have their head off-screen but the rest of the body on screen (namely the Pinky) can be hit with the finish button but will be hit with a melee attack instead, so you have to quickly make sure the point with the purple circle is on screen, not just their body despite the fact it's also got a purple outline.
- I hate the grunt soldier's weird double projectiles, I feel like they're responsible most of my deaths
- Fuck that one secret challenge pit in Belly of the Beast (see sprinting and barrier+uneven terrain and inaccurate enemy issues)
- I really, REALLY dislike that you can't parry whilst swapping weapons
- There are moments where no music is playing during combat in the early game and it feels weird and unintentional? Like they didn't make enough music or it didn't trigger for whatever reason.
- and lastly, I had an instance of the game swapping to the BFC without hitting the button after a melee animation and I was holding down the fire button so it used it before it even appeared on my screen so I felt I had to reload the checkpoint and it really annoyed me at the time.

TL;DR = Good but lacklustre music, some moments where the flow of combat can break and a slightly too high launch price are still not enough to kill a recommendation due to how satisfying the bulwark-style combat can be, but I also can't say it's worth full-price to anyone. I'd go as far to say it's a must-try if it's on Gamepass (currently is and likely will stay there but I say 'if' just in case), but maybe for someone who isn't sure on the vibes or gameplay, it's a definite pick-up for $40.

I think I'll have to make the time to try purposely remove any annoyances I had in encounters, but besides waiting for specific mods for ones I outright want removed (the soldier's double projectile), it's gonna be tricky.

Really hoping they add more combat customisation options for the little insularly problems I have, thought the main one I'm holding out for is letting me parry whilst swapping weapons. If they add that I'll definitely pick this back up again.

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