Gadgetory

the new doom has been out for a few weeks now and if you haven't played it yet you should because it's freaking amazing it's been 23 years since the original doom came out and gaming has changed a ton since then just look at the difference in file size the final version of the original doom was 45 megabytes while the new doom is 45 gigs that's a thousand times in size and with those ears the FPS genre has gone through a lot of different phases and what makes doom so great to me at least is that its single-player campaign makes use of some of these new things while still keeping the approach to old-school game design and here's 5 of the biggest ways it does number one hazing Doom doesn't need to take any time to explain shit to you so many games these days get caught up and plot character development motivations all of which can be a good thing but don't need to be in every single game and doom proves that it does take a little bit of a middle ground there's some setup there's a few conversations here and there to give the game a bare-bones plot necessary for those looking for it but the game wastes as little of time as necessary on this instead favoring to just throw you into the action ripping and tearing enemies apart which is in fact why you probably wanted to grab this game in the first place if you want more the game throws some data logs at you and things you can read up on if you want to get a little more mythological with the game story but as far as 99% of the game is concerned you just need to keep moving and kill everything in your way which links into point number 2 aggressive gameplay one of the biggest trends in FPS games that has risen since the original doom is regenerating health which was popularized by the Halo franchise and love it or hate it one of the big impacts of this approach is that it rewards players for patience and hiding from enemies oh what you took 3 bolts to the chest just hide behind a rock and wait for your screen to stop being red and that is not something that would fly in older FPS games which forced you to push ahead if you wanted to live and this is exactly what the new doom does it brings back a regular Health System but with one important change you can not only gain life by picking up health packs but also by finishing enemies often the most brutal method possible meaning if you want to stay alive you just need to keep killing with every breath you have if a big enemy hurts you no amount of running hiding will save you so the only way to survive is to go through everything that stands in your way this makes for one of the most of visceral experiences I have ever had with an FPS especially in recent years and is one of this game's biggest merits in my opinion what makes this game even better is point number three it's love of Secrets older FPS games doom included were littered with all kinds of hidden finds to reward players giving you caches of health armor ammo and guns and maybe even a fun little Easter Egg or inside joke and the new doom fully embraces this and is able to take things a step further since in the old games you couldn't even jump or look up doom has tons of Secrets you're told about but need to hunt down and adds in a little bit of modern game design by making a lot of these things collectibles and upgrades that make doom guy all the better at killing things in his way not to mention having an extra special secret in every level that recreates the original doom music included FPS games at large today don't really do this anymore and definitely don't take them to the same degree which is kind of sad because a it gives you a very good reason to play through the game again if you didn't find everything and be it's just a ton of fun to stumble in on this kind of stuff and be rewarded for your curiosity now getting back to the gory stuff point number four is what I like to call the one-man army a lot of shooters these days are obsessed with the idea of the squad or teammates are giving you NPC friends which isn't a bad thing in and of itself but sometimes it's awesome to just feel like you're the biggest badass that ever lived and this is exactly what doom does for the player you don't need cover fire you don't need a flanking buddy and you certainly don't need a computer-controlled Ally to run over and kill you if you ever get dumb and die fighting enemies you are more than capable all by yourself the entire games start to finish no opening handheld ally no assistance you can summon in a bad situation just you and literal tons of ammo and weapons that you can carry all at once and devastate everything in your path with and this leads to the final point to hell with logic it's kind of weird but we've grown to accept as being realistic or not in video games these days it's perfectly alright to get shot five times then hide behind a wall to feel better but we need to make sure characters can only carry two guns at a time only so many different support items and guns need reloading with ammo that's only dropped by enemies using the same thing if the game in question is trying to be the most realistic experience possible than fine but if not where's the fun and all that doom guy never needs to reload his guns except in the case of the almighty super shotgun and otherwise you just get all the ammo you need by chainsawing a demon in half as he splits open is some kind of munitions pinata juggle between two guns why not just carry all nine at once including four guns that have to take two hands and a ton of strength to hold and a chainsaw to just top it all off realistic falling damage nah guns that use some kind of internal logic or have a respect of physics never it's just so refreshing when the rule of the game is simply what's fun and not what's realistic or what makes sense for the story the point of all this isn't just to say that doom is a fun game which you should try which you definitely should if gory FPS games are your style the point is is that there's some merit to making games today that hearken back to old-school approaches and most importantly worry less about having complex stories are simulating the real-world things those things have their benefits and there should of course still be games that focus on them but at the same time it just doesn't hurt to make a game whose only real concern is have fun rip and tear