Recent reviews by EpsilonGotBored

Sony finally backpedaled on their requirement to link your Steam and PSN accounts. Still hate Sony but the game itself is worth every penny.

After playing DOOM 2016, I was hooked. iD Software did an amazing job with the game and, like many others, I was shocked to see just how well they did. I, personally, am not a completionist, but DOOM was such a well made game that after my initial play-through on Hurt Me Plenty, I was still wanting more. So I did a 100% Nightmare run and it was incredibly fun and rewarding to play. I bought DOOM Eternal shortly after and, like with 2016, started with Hurt Me Plenty. iD promised to bring even more fast paced action and brutality to the table and I believed that they achieved this goal well, until I got to "Taras Nabad".


Archviles
Where do I begin? Basically a walking buff totem that has absolutely zero announcement to its presence on the battlefield. When I first played "Taras Nabad" I was confused as I saw that the demons were glowing red and respawning, indicating that there was a buff totem nearby, but I couldn't find it. After about 15 minutes of looking, I finally realized that it was the Archvile, not a buff totem. I wouldn't have a problem with this if it weren't for a couple of things:

1. Why is there no tip for this guy? Every 5 minutes in the first few missions were treated like a baby and had your game paused so you could read about every weakness for an enemy. But with this mini-boss, you are given ZERO warnings to his existence or his abilities. If you are going to inform us of every demon's powers and weaknesses, do it consistently.

2. He was behind a gate. I was physically unable to reach him in order to progress because he clipped through or teleported in and would not teleport out. I'm fine with bugs, usually, but things like this has happened on numerous occasions.

Marauders
This enemy first appears on "ARC Complex" at the end of the mission, even getting a cutscene and is one of the few demons(?) that actually speak. As stated before, you are given a text box indicating what exactly the enemy does. To make it brief, any attacks on him will be blocked by his shield. When he blocks damage with his shield, a wolf is summoned that races at you to attack you and slow your movements. In order to damage him, you need to keep him at a medium distance as if you're too close, he'll shoot you with his shotgun and if you're too far away, he'll attack you with his blade. At a medium distance, his attack leaves him vulnerable to a counter attack. His eyes flash green right before it so there is an indication as when to shoot. Hitting him with a high power weapon such as the ballista or super shotgun will stagger him, allowing for a second shot (or third, if you're fast enough) before he recovers. This enemy is easily one of my favorites. The initial fight was absolutely one of the best in the game. Then they brought him back, and then they brought him back again, and again, and again. Look, I get it. According to the canon (Caring about DOOM lore lmao), there is a bunch of these guys. But having a whole cutscene dedicated to him, just to reuse him is a little cheap to me, but it's okay as long as he's fun to fight, right? Well he is, by himself. Fodder demon constantly respawn in order to give you a source of ammo while fighting him and that's fine. But, like the Archvile, there are zero warnings given when entering a room full of demons and two or three of this enemy is thrown in the mix. Oh, did I also mention he can be spawned in by Archviles? Regarding fighting him, the times when the A.I. should use a medium range attack seems buggy at best and broken at worst. I have been hit by his medium range attack while standing right beside him and I have see the same attack when I am very far out of the range of that attack. But hey, at least you can easily take care of him with the BFG, right? Nope. If you try, he'll block it and summon his wolf just as a casual "♥♥♥♥ you". Okay, but he can't block an attack from the Crucible surely? Same thing happens, attack, block, wolf. Or if you're very unlucky, you'll swing, target a zombie behind him, and lose a charge on a zombie.


The Cacodemons getting sent into a glory kill state from swallowing projectiles was and is a cool addition. The weak-points on the demons as a whole are a fantastic idea and should explored heavily. However, if you do not immediately deal with these weak points, you are punished, heavily. I am fine with this as it is DOOM that you're playing. It is designed to be a punishing game when played incorrectly. This, in itself, is okay, but having to juggle different weak points takes away from the fun of the combat, at least to me. Revenants are an enemy that is constantly moving and flying. Trying to hit their cannons with a precision bolt shot while being assaulted by hordes of other demons is ridiculous to ask of a player, especially at higher difficulties. This problem is only worse with the Arachnotron enemy which constantly dashes and moves unpredictably.


Why am I solving puzzles in a DOOM game? This does nothing but to artificially increase the time it takes to finish the game. They're not fun and, thanks to the atrocious level design, sometimes takes a decent time just to figure out where the other part of the puzzle is.


I can't describe every single bad level design choice here as we'd be here for the next week, so I'll start off with, what I feel to be, the worst level in the entire game: "Sentinel Prime" You begin this mission with a neat cutscene of the Night Sentinels shouting "RIP AND TEAR" at the arrival of the Doom Slayer. Then, it's lore, then more lore, then more lore, and some more, and the FINALLY, you fight demons. This whole level takes you out of the combat just to throw lore that no one asked for at you.


This is very subjective and because of this, I'll keep this brief. One thing I loved about 2016 was that the enemies were, for the most part, unique looking when compared to the original games. In Eternal, however, the devs did nothing but play on nostalgia when it comes to enemy design. It feels very bland and unoriginal to me. Like there was no freedom in designing the enemies. If there were a mix of 2016 style enemies and Eternal style, that would be a fun and, since iD seems so obsessed with lore, good way to combine both styles.


DOOM 2016: You find a guy laying on the ground with a keycard and a gun on him. You rip the keycard off and rip the gun from his cold dead hands

DOOM Eternal: Here's a floating gun that is very brightly colored and spins, don't forget to pick it up. Oh and don't worry about learning how to use it, we'll explain everything about it as soon as you pick it up.

Do you want to go through extra fights that are insanely difficult on higher difficulties to get what looks to be one of the coolest weapons in the game? If so, prepare to be disappointed. The Slayer Gates on their own can be fun on lower difficulties, but on higher difficulties they just aren't worth your time for the reward you get: the Unmaykr. This weapon is hyped up to be an incredibly great weapon, but once you get it, you find out it's just a side-grade to the BFG. If the BFG had more ammo (why they felt the need to reduce the number of shots you can hold when there are enemies that can literally block the shot is beyond me) the Unmaykr could be useable, but it's not


While this game is different than Doom 2016 in a lot of ways, it still has a fun combat loop and weapons, they just take getting used to. While many things on this review are portrayed negatively, they can be good depending on how you view them. Thanks to the removal of Denuvo, I can recommend this game to anyone who enjoyed Doom 2016.

While the Jungle Update itself was good, why did we have to wait so long to receive bug fixes and patches to game breaking items for so long? The Pyro's flamethrower has needed an overhaul for many years now and it took an entire update dedicated to just the pyro to fix. Other than many aspects of a certain class being extremely over-powered, this is a fun game to play and I would recommend everyone at least give it 20 hours of play time.