Holy crap.
To emphasize what this game is to me, a little about myself: I'm 35 years old. My first ever PC game was Wolfenstein, and DOOM followed soon after. I played a lot of it, both solo and with my friends over modem. Then came Quake, the internet and things moved online, but I always played the high paced, straight forward shooters. That's what defined me as a gamer, and continues to do so.
Straight forward, fast paced, skill based twitch shooters pretty much died when tech reached the point where semi-realism became viable, and such games took off. Don't get me wrong, I love Far Cry 3 for example, but the subgenre that DOOM stands for pretty much died off, with few exceptions like Bulletstorm or Serious Sam, which were good, but not great. I wasn't sure the days of me jumping around firing rockets, chainsawing enemies and flying around using jump pads would ever come back, at least not in any solid, modernized form. Heck, I wasn't even sure it would work anymore, even for me.
But here we are... THIS is the game I've been waiting for for the last 10 years.
This game fucking sings. Each and every design decision in it support one or both of the two things that matter: The gameplay and the atmosphere. It gives me the type of rush I haven't gotten from a game in years. 30 minutes after starting I was jumping around and blasting demons in the face with a shotgun like the past 10+ years of my life had never happened. I was back in my youth, playing a game that doesn't try to hook you through anything else than being fun to play.
I have to tear myself away from this game. The way they've managed to bring modern game design paradigms into the mix with all the upgrades, without taking away from the straight forward aspect of the gameplay, is impressive as hell. All the weapons feel right, all the skills feel right. It feels new and just like DOOM at the same time. So fast, so fierce, and so precise. Compared to other recent games, I feel like I am one with the controls, I don't even register using a mouse and a keyboard... what I wish to happen just happens. It's an amazing feeling having after such a long time away from it. Game also looks pretty, and runs near-perfect.
And I'm still pretty good at it, too! Whenever I get near death, the adrenaline kicks in and I let my instincts take over, and it's like I'm 15 years old again, taking out enemies at a pace that will make a sidestander wonder what the hell is even happening on my screen. It really is a shame that so many people will be experiencing this with a gamepad. I am not in a "team" when it comes to gaming, I have consoles and I have the PC, but this sure as shit is one game you want to play with m+kb. I wouldn't play a soccer game or fighter with a keyboard, and just the same, I wouldn't play this with a gamepad.
10/10. GOTY. id software just resurrected from the dead and jumped straight onto my AAA developer list that really isn't long. Good lord what a surprise.
Hype over. Buy this game. We need more games like these.
