DOOM has been plagued with contentious opinions ever since they released the first cover art. People quite validly complained that the Doom Marine looked like yet another generic Call of Duty soldier, which instilled the initial doubts in the hearts of fans regarding the game, that it would be similar to a generic shooter, much like a Call Of Duty.
And the open Beta over the last weekend has near confirmed these fears. DOOM is no longer the arena shooter fans had been waiting for. It begins right when you jump into the multiplayer and the loadout screen greets you. One of the best elements of DOOM and similar arena shooter (like Quake and Unreal) was that you started off with a melee weapon and picked up better weapons as you ran around the map trying to stay alive. This made the gameplay more frantic, challenging, and demanded that you learn the maps and ‘git good’.
Listen to us rant about Doom in the new episode of the Angry Pixels Podcast:
While there’s nothing inherently bad about having custom loadout, it’s just not Doom. It is a gameplay mechanism more suited for a Call of Duty type shooter, where you unlock weapons as you keep ranking up.
And then you have levels. Yes, levels! You have to level up to obtain certain weapons. Once again, this is something that wasn’t there in the previous Doom games, but something borrowed from modern shooters. Doom pitted you against other players, and the outcome was solely based on skill. Not weapons you unlocked based on the level you were at.
The weapons have a primary and secondary firing modes. And this is a great feature (in games like Unreal Tournament), adding more depth to each weapon. This also needs the players to learn when to switch firing modes, and how to use them to their advantage. What sucks in Doom is that the secondary mode in most weapons in Doom is zoom. Yes, if I stood around to zoom in to enemies, I’d be dead in seconds. There ain’t no zoomin’ while you’re Doomin’.
The movement also feels slower, though its only most noticeable on the PC. It’s clear that the core Doom experience has been watered down so as to be more accessible to a newer audience, especially for the console players. And to be fair, this is a good shooter on consoles, which comes as close to an arena shooter as it gets on the PS4 or the Xbox One. And maybe that is what this generation needs to really get back into the arena shooter genre.
While it’s easy to complain about the over-saturation of the FPS genre with Call of Duty-esque shooters, the fact is that they sell. Which means that it’s what the players want. And while looking for a change, some familiarity does help. So for those wanting to try Doom, the similarities like the loadout, and customization might just be what is needed. It’s just too bad though that the, once, grand-daddy of FPS shooters is now learning from the newcomers.
Which makes me think that maybe an unfiltered/hardcore Doom experience does not have a place in today’s landscape of Video Games. The overall gaming scene and culture has changed a lot, and Bethesda is indeed trying to evolve with the times. And while the old guard might not agree, it’s the new generation who will be the majority of the buyers. And, to be honest, I am happy for the console gamers. They will have a fun experience. I, on the other hand, will be sticking with Unreal Tournament.
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