Creators of Doom give it another shot
ROYCE WILSON
DOOM is one of the most iconic games of all time, released in 1993 by id software and being largely responsible for the popularity of first-person shooter games as we know them.
The 2016 reboot (also called Doom) took everyone by surprise, being a superb first-person shooter that stayed true to the series’ origins while adding a 21st-century spin.
Bloody, brutal, hardcore and relentless, it was an allkiller-no-filler experience, so when Bethesda announced a sequel, Doom: Eternal at E3 in 2018, it piqued the interest of hell-fighters everywhere – an interest that has remained unabated even though the game was supposed to have been out in November last year and is now on track for a March 20 release instead.
The plot, in true Doom style, is perfunctory: the forces of Hell have invaded Earth, and it’s up to you, as the legendary
Doom Slayer (aka “The Doom Guy”) to stop them. Cue the sound of a pump-action combat shotgun being dramatically cocked and a chainsaw being fired up.
While the hardcore, upclose-and-personal action is there, the game now includes what can be described as “combat puzzle” elements, with the addition of environmental puzzles to navigate, which does a great job of breaking up the combat sequences.
Another neat touch is some tweaking to the power-up system, including the ability to find “extra lives” in the game. That means if you get killed, you respawn on the spot instead of having to restart from the previous checkpoint.