Doom baby

Ah, Doom Eternal, the ultimate stress-reliever disguised as a demon-slaying extravaganza. Because why spend hundreds on therapy sessions when you can just unleash your inner rage on the legions of hell?

In this delightfully cathartic adventure, you'll find yourself traversing the fiery depths of hell with all the finesse of a bull in a china shop. With a vast arsenal of weapons at your disposal, including shotguns, rocket launchers, and chainsaws, you'll mow down demonic hordes like a particularly bloodthirsty gardener on a rampage.

But it's not just about the mindless violence—no, Doom Eternal offers a surprising amount of depth beneath its layers of gore and mayhem. From its intricate level design to its surprisingly challenging puzzles, there's more to this game than meets the eye. Not that you'll notice, of course, what with all the blood and guts flying everywhere.

And let's not forget about the story, which is about as deep as a kiddie pool but just as refreshing. With its tongue firmly planted in cheek, Doom Eternal delivers a narrative so absurdly over-the-top that you can't help but chuckle as you rip demons limb from limb.

So if you're looking for a game that's equal parts therapeutic and absurd, look no further than Doom Eternal. Just be sure to stock up on ammo—and maybe some bandages for all those paper cuts you're about to inflict on your enemies.

Rating:10/10

*Sigh* - I don't think I can accurately describe how much it pains me to write a negative review for this immensely popular Doom game after loving Doom (2016), but id Software took the greatness of this game's predecessor and just ran with it in the completely wrong direction.

I know the Doom fans are going to have a "REEEEE" moment with that previous statement, but kid, I was rocking to the original Doom & Doom II while you were still a twinkle in your daddy's eyes so it truly pains me of how much this goes against the spirit of what a Doom game should be. If we're being honest the Doom franchise has had a rocky evolution and to understand where this game went wrong we need to understand where we came from to know how we got to this point.

Doom (2016) really was a great game and I loved it. Doom 3 had been a series reboot and retelling of the first game, but part 3 was so bad id had to scrap early builds of Doom 4 and reboot the series... again. However, we got lots of big wide open combat arenas, pretty graphics and fun gameplay so Doom (2016) was a worthy reboot even if the rebooted lore was nonsensical full of continuity errors. What was great about it is there isn't a wrong way to play it.

Doom Eternal took the fun combat of Doom (2016) and morphed into something unenjoyable. So the previous Doom game had certain "combos" you can perform of fast weapon switching then switching between different weapon mods for different enemies then using equipment then performing a contextual action. Of course seeing a bunch of people running around using equipment and constantly switching between weapons and weapon mods never screamed "skill" to me and in fact makes me think of someone in a state of panic flailing their arms madly as they throw a bunch of sh!t at the wall hoping for whatever to stick. In Doom (2016) you didn't have to play that way and in fact I completed the game and the rune challenges just fine using only two weapons, but in Eternal they went all in on that kind of "skilled" combat and it just isn't fun.

Of course this is nothing compared to Eternal's biggest flaw which is the overemphasized platforming which doesn't belong in a Doom game. There was mild platforming in Doom (2016), but Eternal with double jumping and double boosting to gravity lifts or some kind of scaleable surface. This isn't Tomb Raider so they should have kept the Tomb Raider like platforming out of a Doom game and they should be ashamed of themselves for going this far with it.

After playing and loving Doom (2016) I was really looking forward to Doom Eternal, but I put it on the backburner to save a good game for later as I worked through clearing other games out of my backlog. When I finally did take a break from work and decide it was time to play some Eternal I ended up hating it and wished I had cleared it out of my backlog sooner. The fun in Doom (2016) was sucked out of Eternal and I actually grew to regret my purchase.

At one point I would have been really excited to play a new Doom game, but with unfun combat and terrible platforming in Eternal I probably won't touch the next Doom game unless there is a return to form.