Doom Video Game Review

An Incredible Recreation Of A Well Loved Shooter

As visceral and fast paced as it is impressive, Bethesda’s rebooted Doom is an incredible first person shooter. Remaining faithful to the original game, this arcade shooter features a decent 20 hour campaign, a fully fledged multiplayer and even creation tools to make your own maps to share online. Doom is a game made with love and whether it be the fast paced action or the bloody brutality of killing enemies, the game oozes charm at every turn.

There’s a great array of demons to fight

The campaign mode where you’re likely to begin your journey destroying demons cleverly puts the gameplay first with a loose story around saving a demon-infested Mars base. Each level is likely to take around an hour or more to complete and with each of the 13 levels, a new gameplay mechanic or weapon is introduced to cleverly combat the repetitiveness of killing the same enemies. The final three levels break that mould by introducing ingenious platforming sections and an end boss in each to test your skills against. Whilst these bosses are relatively straight forward and generic to beat (shoot specific weak point until dead), it’s a welcome inclusion and breaks up monotony in a good way.

Thankfully the game never feels stale or unfair which is just as well, given Doom’s predominant focus on gameplay. The action is intense and the heavy rock riffs that kick in during big fights really help the adrenaline fuelled gunfights. There’s a plethora of different beasts to fight as well and whether it be fireball throwing scavenger demons or behemoth devil monsters that tower over the battlefield, there’s a great array of enemies to fight that require a slightly different tactic to beat each one, keeping you on your toes. Of course, the fast paced action and quick movement speed lends itself perfectly to using the shotgun for large stretches of the game. Although some of the other weapons are impressive and deal devastating amounts of damage, using both variations of the shotgun seemed to be a winner for large stretches of the campaign.

A number of different weapons can be used throughout the game

Within the destruction-fuelled, insane campaign mode is a large number of collectables and upgrades to improve your character. The multiple layered levels are well designed and feature a nifty amount of secrets throughout. The upgrades visibly help too and whether it be upgrading weapons, increasing ammo capacity or simply completing rune challenges to unlock weapon bonuses, there’s a number of different things to unlock to help keep the game fresh and exciting. Exploration is encouraged and finding every hidden nook and cranny in the well designed levels breeds some decent rewards, making the time spent finding the secrets well worth the investment.

Multiplayer action is frantic and chaotic at best

Once the campaign draws to a close, there’s a lot of additional content to sink your teeth into. Recent free updates with the game allow for online play with Bots, an arcade mode that pits you against a time limit to try and gain as high a multiplier as possible through killing monsters and avoiding being hit. Online, the multiplayer levels are well designed for the most part and take advantage of portals, jump pads and the same frantic action evident in the campaign is very much a part of the online component of Doom too, accentuated through using these game enhancements.

The final part of Doom sees an extensive map maker included too. Although not quite as complex or intricately designed as the campaign levels, there’s a good tutorial to guide you through the basics. On top of creating your own, you can also search through an exhaustive list of player-made levels that are ingeniously crafted and take full advantage of the incredible creative capabilities of the gaming community.

The shotgun is one of the most favourable weapons to use in the campaign

Doom is simply an outstanding recreation of a much beloved classic game. This is how you do a remake and Bethesda have managed to craft an incredible shooter, dripping in visceral beauty and boasting some breathtaking, fast paced action. The 20 hour campaign is decent and some of the level design makes full use of the weapons, equipment and multi-layered areas as well. Along with a deep, manic multiplayer and creation tools, this truly feels like an updated version of the Doom games. Its hard to fault this first person shooter that effortlessly recreates one of the best shooters of all time.