Doom: The Dark Ages

[eastyy]

Played this for a while and I am still not sure at the moment how i feel, it is not the adrenaline packed fuel fest of Eternal, it is a much more grounded affair like with the original doom of the 90s but with an emphasis on parrying and the shield throw mechanic along with the usual weapons the melee is a much bigger focus. The combat does feel fun and satisfying with bigger more open stages, I did notice the performance did take a big hit compared to Eternal i dunno if its due to the updated engine more enemies or because Ray tracing is now mandatory for the game.

The mech levels and the Panzer dradoom levels are fun at first but i soon got bored of them

I think if you did not click with eternal due to ammo management this would be a better bet but the way it has been described is you are more like a Tank is very apt

[Tobal]

I'm up to chapter 9 of what seems many, playing on ultra-violence (difficulty 4 of 6 ) and it a very middling game, if it wasn't on gamepass i would give it a hard miss for the £70 price. Combat is zooming around using the shield charge to wipe of the mass of small enemies, then jumping into enemy green bullets and melee attacks to parry them for stun windows and to help knock armour off which can also be done by super heating the armour with the nailer or plasma guns, then finishing them off with a shield throw or purple melee attack to get a hefty chunk of HP and ammo back...

So i end up in a cycle of constant HP bleeps as it's constantly dropping to into the 5-20 range from the just the shear amount of enemies at all times, firing from all corners of these large open'ish maps, and that's it, you find that Super Shotgun with nailer or plasma depending on the shielded or armour guys is all you need with ammo plenty easy to get.

Level secrets are real easy, clearly meant for idiots to find it all on the first try, the combat break up of turret shooting, mech fighting and dragon riding are all crap and the music is quiet to the point is might as well not be there, Doom for Pensioners.

playing on 9070xt now, 4k everything set to high, it's very smooth framerate wise, but there seems to be this soft filter on it that i can't remove even regardless of sharpness setting, could be a FSR3 problem.

[Golgo]

Doom for Pensioners.

[Dogg Thang]

Thing is, we're mostly pretty close to that. Is this our Doom?

[Neon Ignition]

Really wary going into this. Really enjoyed 2016 and for me Eternal was a cliff-face drop in enjoyment levels, really disappointing sequel that didn't feel fun at all to play. I know core fans of the series are strongly opinionated on what the franchise should be but for general plebs like myself, from the original to today, the franchise has always been about the same very basic gameplay loop which works or fails based on how satisfying it feels to play. Dark Ages took a couple of chapters to settle in, getting a new more options unlocked and it feels much more structured like a traditional campaign but generally I'm enjoying it quite a bit and definitely after Eternal. The franchise works best when it comes back from a rest and so far Dark Ages feels like the right point for them to step back again till they can revive it with impact and I'd also likely be much more critical if I'd paid £70 as it's absolutely not that game to be spending that money on. But as a GP release, pretty easy win.

[Golgo]

Thing is, we're mostly pretty close to that. Is this our Doom?

Haha! Very true. Even so I loved Eternal. Found the relentless, on-rushing pace of it to be really exhilarating. Arguably they went too far with it with the DLC which was just an insanely frantic jungle gym and beyond the threshold I could enjoy.

[Dogg Thang]

I must admit, while I loved the previous Doom, I didn't gel with Eternal in quite the same way. I found the system of walky bit, arena, walky bit, arena, a bit more repetitive than I ever felt in the previous one. They're not so different but I found the enemy parts a bit more relentless and considered them a blockage to progress, whereas I know they're actually the meat of the game.

It sounds like I might actually like this one more.