With that in mind, I’m sure you
appreciate there was a lot riding
on this new Doom. I promised
myself I wouldn’t let myself get too
excited about it for fear of bitter
disappointment, but as its release
date loomed ever nearer, I couldn’t
contain my anticipation, and with that
came the overwhelming worry that
it’d take my fond memories of the
series and bludgeon them to death
with the butt of a plasma rifle before
unleashing a barrage of rockets
at the still-twitching corpse of my
nostalgia. Thankfully, no such thing
happened. I loaded up the game
and quickly became pathetically
obsessed with it. I think it’s safe
to say it’s everything I want from a
game brandishing the Doom logo.
This pleases me.
First off, let’s take a moment to
discuss the story. There is one, and
it’s fine. The gist of it is that Earth’s
energy supplies are dwindling and
the situation is in full crisis mode –
right up until the Union Aerospace
Corporation discovers a gateway to
Hell on Mars. They begin extracting
Hell energy via the gateway, which
provides a near-limitless supply
of boost-juice for the inhabitants
of Earth to keep going about their
business. Obviously, the happy,
fun times don’t last long, someone
inevitably makes an almighty mess
of things (as humans tend to do),
and demonic legions begin pouring
through the portal, rampaging
through the UAC’s Mars facility.
This is when you’re roused from
your slumber. Conveniently, it turns
out the Doom Marine (that’s you!) is
some sort of ancient warrior tasked
with being an eternal pain in the ass
for the denizens of Hell. The story’s
appropriately silly and overdramatic,
and the various bits of writing and
acting that accompany it are all topnotch, but it’s ultimately forgettable.
The important thing to remember
is that Doom doesn’t really need
any form of meaningful narrative to
convince you that shooting demons
in the face with cool guns is the right
thing to do.
And not only is using an arsenal of
cool, sexy weaponry to decapitate,
dismember and maim demons
the right thing to do, but Doom
just makes it feel so damn good.
id Software’s always been known
for creating shooters that excel
at providing an array of ludicrous
Issue 39 | 2016 The OverClocker 39