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dkirschner's Doom: The Dark Ages (PC)
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| [June 7, 2025 08:33:17 AM]
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Doom: The Dark Ages was a good time, but the franchise is starting to take itself too seriously. I remember enjoying the stories of Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal, but this one was an eye-roller. Of course, it's just an excuse to kill demons, which is fine, but I don't need the excuse. It provides the Slayer motivation too, but again, I don't need him to have a reason for what he's doing. I didn't care about any of the characters--not the king, not his daughter, not the various named lieutenants and soldiers whose names I never learned. The main bad guy was very evil and bad, as befitting a prince of Hell, but I don't know what his motivation was besides...power? Kill Sentinels? Why? The fat guy, Kreed Makyr, I liked better. He reminded me of Baron Harkonnen in Dune. So, story, overly serious and who cares.
The running and gunning is as satisfying as ever. Whereas the previous two Doom games focused on the risk/reward of proximity, The Dark Ages edges away from melee. Although there are melee weapons, the star here is your new shield. You can use it to close in quickly and bash enemies, but I far more often used its thrown buzzsaw function, which stuns enemies and allows for various effects. For example, you can upgrade the regular machine gun to ricochet when shooting an enemy affected by the buzzsaw shield. Throw the shield, fire the machine gun, watch the bullets tear through nearby enemies. Very satisfying.
The roster of guns is great and, as with Doom Eternal, most have their place for rock-paper-scissoring enemies in certain situations. The plasma rifle explodes enemies with plasma shields. The shotgun and the ball-hurling gun do more damage to armor, which you can then break by throwing your shield. The machine gun that does spread damage is great for clearing out hordes of fodder demons. The one that I used the least was the sniper rifle, which wasn't really a sniper rifle. You can't zoom and it more "lobs" the bullet (arcs and falls short) than shoots it straight. So, you can't actually snipe, which is fair enough; it just made the gun pretty pointless for me. All guns can be upgraded a few times, and I ended up playing almost exclusively with the alternate plasma rifle, which supercharges, doing tons of damage to an enemy and arcing electricity to nearby enemies, which then explode when you shoot them.
In terms of the combat encounters, this was an evolution of Doom Eternal, which was nice. I liked the somewhat open maps where you'd stumble upon groups of enemies, rather than walk into a room, have the walls come up, and do one arena battle after another. Although walls would come up, creating arenas, they were usually much bigger, more varied, and felt more organic. By the end, you were dealing with numerous tough enemies at once, sprinting around, targeting armor, parrying, cycling your weapons, etc.
And I have to mention parrying, another new combat focus. This was in Doom Eternal a little bit, but parrying is now a big part of combat. Enemies sometimes have a green animation with their attacks, or will shoot a green projectile at you. These can be parried. Parrying has various effects, such as stunning nearby enemies, spawning an auto-turret, and shooting out a fan of homing knives. You have to learn to telegraph enemy moves and parry in the midst of all the chaos on the screen. It was FAR more forgiving than something like Sekiro. I'm also currently playing Nine Sols, which has Sekiro-like parrying. Hopefully these games help me with Sekiro!
There are also three different modes of combat. Mostly, you are the Slayer, on the ground, running and gunning. Sometimes, you pilot this giant mech to fight enemy titans. Other times, you fly a dragon and engage in some air combat. These segments were epic for sure, and they broke up the gameplay, but I much preferred the regular on-the-ground combat. It's so crunchy. Everything has weight to it, sounds great, looks awesome. Finally, there are secrets galore, so you can spend your time exporing the maps, poking around to find all the gold, upgrade materials, collectibles, and so on. I did not focus on this, and probably averaged like 60-70% completion on the maps. You use your shield a lot for platforming around, throwing it at switches and whatnot. I probably would have explored more, but, you know, Game Pass only lasts for a month and I've got a lot to get through! First Game Pass game of June, down. Definitely recommend Doom: The Dark Ages if you want a fast and frantic FPS.
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dkirschner's Doom: The Dark Ages (PC)
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Current Status: Finished playing
GameLog started on: Monday 2 June, 2025
GameLog closed on: Friday 6 June, 2025 |
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