DOOM: Eternal [PC, PS4, Switch, XBone] - 2019?

[DjchunKfunK]

Eurogamer's review hits on all the points I was concerned about. Pointless and poorly told lore and more bad boss fights.

[Raid]

There hasn't been anything that has really put me off; the core gameplay loop of the 2016 game was so strong that I don't think there's much they could do with the surrounding stuff to make be reconsider putting down my money, and I've done just that. Hopefully the game will be preloaded when I get home.

[DjchunKfunK]

I'd pretty much had my fill of the gameplay by the time Doom 2016 ended so the idea of going through the same game again only with worse bosses and more lore isn't overly appealing to me.

[elgaucho]

I enjoyed the first one a lot, and I'm ok with more of the same... i've ended up buying it just to enjoy tomorrow - i've worked my ass off for months and there's a good few little games i'm enjoying right now - hoping this will add to the pile!

[Raid]

So my first impressions of this were pretty poor. The first level is a bit rubbish, frankly, with tons of invisible walls and geometry that looks like you should be able to mantle but can't. It's all just a little bit mundane - if you can ignore the thirty-storey high titans and spirals of hellfire that form the uninteractive backdrop, you're fighting in a crumbling shopping centre. You start with the combat shotgun - there is no pistol in Eternal, which while on the strengths of the 2016 game's arsenal would be a good thing, you're very quickly introduced to the game's surprisingly strict ammo limitations as you can only carry 16 shotgun shells to start, after which you're reduced to no ranged weapons at all. It's not that you can't get ammo back quickly; the chainsaw that you're given within minutes has both recharging fuel and the same ammo-spewing benefits as in the previous game, it's just that you have to quickly re-adjust to the mindset of resource management.

But oh my word does it get better quickly. The second level gives you your shoulder-mounted flamethrower (burning enemies give you ammo shards) and the dash ability (probably the game's biggest change), and it then immediately falls back into the glorious adrenaline rush of insanely fast combat. You move so quickly in this, and you absolutely obliterate the hordes of fairly weak enemies with judicious use of the glory kills (which are even quicker than in the previous game) that the entire game becomes a blur of bloody annihilation. Everything in this is designed to satisfy; the heavy machine gun is now the heavy cannon, with which even the basic attack can tear imps and zombies apart in two hits, and the three-shot weapon mod for the combat shotgun in '2016 is replaced with a true gatling-cannon mode which just eviscerates anything in your way.

This really is the FPS genre at its absolute peak.

[Alan]

This sounds great!

[elgaucho]

I'm inclined to concur with the above comments - it takes a little adjusting to the changes - i'm definitely missing the pistol fallback.

The strict ammo rationing is a bit of a.... system shock, but the replenish ammo by chainsaw, health through glory kills, replenish armor by killing burning foes with the flamethrower, and ammo through barrels changes are interesting. You won't last a fight with ammo left over in one weapon, so it' s a barrel roll of weapon swap, jumps, dives and other insanity trying to stay ahead and find the kills that will keep you alive!

I've started on ultra violence, and given some of these early stages, i'm not sure how long i'll hold out - damn those arachnids with the mounted guns! They're fierce, fast, and deadly!!

[Alan]

That’s just how I remember the first game. Always weapon switching, always low on ammo.

[Raid]

Here's a jolly little jaunt I had into the first of the Slayer Gates (which seem to be extra-difficult little arenas and maybe replace 2016's Rune fights).



I have a rune that gives me a movement speed boost every time I do a glory kill, which a) is awesome, and b) let's you get in, murder and get out before you take too much melee damage. It makes the game a bit like ballet with heavy ordnance.

The game has some fairly nice quality of life improvements such as ultra-fast loading (I have a low-end SSD and the game still loads within 15 seconds at first, and maybe 2 or 3 seconds on death), and the music doesn't stop while it's doing this to keep the adrenaline up - there's no comedown when you die right at the end of a long fight anymore, you just dive immediately back into it. I do need to play around with my graphics settings; my Fury X is getting a bit long in the tooth, and it's driving a 1440p ultrawide, yet still the game defaulted to everything on high or ultra.

[Rossell]

Yep I'm really enjoying this too even if it's kicking my ass on hurt me plenty difficulty.

[Alan]

Does the steam version launch the Beth launcher?

[DjchunKfunK]

Yes it does. You can check to see if a game does this by looking at the Steam page.

[Alan]

Folk seem to be saying it only needs a Beth account for MP and it doesnt actually need the launcher...

[Rossell]

Ps4 version I needed to login to Bethesda before I could do anything. Killed the vibe for a moment I had to say.

[elgaucho]

Folk seem to be saying it only needs a Beth account for MP and it doesnt actually need the launcher...

i couldn't play without logging into Bethesda - seems mandated to me - wonder if it's playable offline..