Doom: The Dark Ages |OT| Mod City

Am I taking crazy pills? Eternal clearly looks better comparing these two videos:







Added a 5090 video too just in case.
 
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Am I taking crazy pills? Eternal clearly looks better comparing these two videos:







Added a 5090 video too just in case.

There are definitely people that feel this way. I honestly thought it looked more or less the same, sans a few neat effects and textures. Which I thought was still pretty strange for the latest game in the series. I enjoyed my time with TDA, but it's hard to not feel like some parts of it were rushed.
 
I have an Asus monitor but my tv is a qled from Samsung. The room I'm in is fairly bright most of the day so I was told qled is better than oled if the space is lit up you game in.

Has great features like hdr, vrr, 120hz, 4k, etc but a part of me does want to try and LG Oled some day when other necessary upgrades are needed.
Me as well, but I'm very happy with this TV except for the fact Samsung and AMD seem to not know each other because it's been since this issue started and someone in a forum called support and they "only tested using Nvidia", so I'm stuck with Nvidia for future upgrades if I want make use of the 100% of this TV.

I REALLY wanted to try HDR on this TV, there are many dark zones that would probably look amazing on HDR.
 
Is there any shotgun that comes close to the OG one? Maybe Duke Nukem?
People usually say the FEAR shotgun is among the best, but I prefer the one from Blood. Packs a punch, Caleb reloads it like a chad and you can dual-wield them.

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People usually say the FEAR shotgun is among the best, but I prefer the one from Blood. Packs a punch, Caleb reloads it like a chad and you can dual-wield them.

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My favorite shotty goes to the Gnasher in Gears of War. Turning people into bits and that perfect reload animation. Oh baby!
 
I only be able to play this once my new CPU arrives, so how is the gamer? Is it betetr than Eternal?
Nope.

To each his own. Maybe it will be to some.

The further you go the better it gets but it never hits the peaks of eternal so far.

I watched an interview from the developer on it just a bit ago and now understand better what the goal was and inspiration for the combat. So I dislike it less. It's inspired by shmups to do bullet hell weaving. Issue is here they only ever have like 3 bullets on screen the size of the screen instead of something like Returnal. Basically they wanted to poor mans Returnal and failed IMO.
 
People usually say the FEAR shotgun is among the best, but I prefer the one from Blood. Packs a punch, Caleb reloads it like a chad and you can dual-wield them.

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Fear and Blood. Two legendary FPS from Monolith. RIP

The Fear shotgun is ok. Not an all-time great IMO. It does feel good gibbing dudes in slow-mo tho.

The super shotty in Blood is indeed great. Everything about Blood is great.

I adore the punchy shotgun in Duke Nukem. Easy top 3.



Trying to think of other great shotguns in games that have it all (feel, sound, animation).
 
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It's different, but only time will tell if it's better then Eternal
They both offer similar experiences that focus on mechanics. Sometimes I get the itch to play Eternal because there's nothing else like it. I see Dark Ages being similar in that regard.
 
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I only be able to play this once my new CPU arrives, so how is the gamer? Is it betetr than Eternal?
It's different than Eternal.
Honestly the fact the Doom trilogy each one plays different (and works) is huge respect to Hugo Martin and the ID Team.
 
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The highs are really high but it feels unfinished and, as expected, the story continues to be fucking dire. The Dragon and Titan section are also terrible IMO. Basic bottom of the barrel trash. A world exists where id Software could make a badass dragon game based on the world of Argent D'Nur and the basic flight mechanics in TDA, but this implementation isn't even remotely fun.
 
Am I taking crazy pills? Eternal clearly looks better comparing these two videos:







Added a 5090 video too just in case.

Gave this a spin on my 4090 and Game Pass and Eternal definitely looks better to me. I also tried it on my Pro and it's the same as well. Eternal runs much better and looks a lot sharper. I have no idea why devs are baking in RT on console without an option to turn it off.

Usually Microsoft doesn't rush titles out so it's a bit surprising the state the game is in on every platform(save for Series X maybe?) It needed another month or two in the oven, and I imagine by July things will be looking closer to Eternal graphically.
 
I only be able to play this once my new CPU arrives, so how is the gamer? Is it betetr than Eternal?
It's a big change of pace from Eternal. Some may actually like the game more because of that. Some might not. Personally I'm enjoying the more "grounded" gameplay.
 
Am I taking crazy pills? Eternal clearly looks better comparing these two videos:







Added a 5090 video too just in case.

Agree man. I can't see any technical differences between the two. If you're gonna use a ton of ray tracing stuff let us at least see it. The only thing TDA has going for it in comparison is the physics system. The performance is the real kicker. What the hell are those GPU cycles for? On my system it's an insane difference. Eternal I can ultra nightmare top to bottom and lock my monitor's 165hz. TDA I get dips below 60fps if I don't use a scaler. Difference between low and ultra nightmare is like 4 fps. The framegen actually feels more stuttery than without. It's weird. Even when native the IQ is kinda poor. Like there's a veil over it. They really need to get in touch with the company who made the engine to get some optimization tips.

Last night I played quite a bit of both. Actually the best time I've had with TDA so far. One encounter specifically really stood out. Not even a boss or anything, just the right collection of enemies and terrain. Watched a few vids and found out what I'm doing isn't too far off from the meta. I'd actually lobby the same complaint most people had about Eternal that I don't have many options in how I'm attacking. It's a good game that's better than the majority of SP FPS games, especially in recent years. Eternal was just lightning in a bottle.
 
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People usually say the FEAR shotgun is among the best, but I prefer the one from Blood. Packs a punch, Caleb reloads it like a chad and you can dual-wield them.

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Such an underrated shotty IMO. Hell, such an underrated game. I wish we could get a new Blood. I want Caleb to come back. 😢

Honestly DOOM 1/2's super shotty, the Blood shotty, and the Quake 2 super shotty have always been some of my favorites.
 
Agree man. I can't see any technical differences between the two. If you're gonna use a ton of ray tracing stuff let us at least see it. The only thing TDA has going for it in comparison is the physics system. The performance is the real kicker. What the hell are those GPU cycles for? On my system it's an insane difference. Eternal I can ultra nightmare top to bottom and lock my monitor's 165hz. TDA I get dips below 60fps if I don't use a scaler. Difference between low and ultra nightmare is like 4 fps. The framegen actually feels more stuttery than without. It's weird. Even when native the IQ is kinda poor. Like there's a veil over it. They really need to get in touch with the company who made the engine to get some optimization tips.

Last night I played quite a bit of both. Actually the best time I've had with TDA so far. One encounter specifically really stood out. Not even a boss or anything, just the right collection of enemies and terrain. Watched a few vids and found out what I'm doing isn't too far off from the meta. I'd actually lobby the same complaint most people had about Eternal that I don't have many options in how I'm attacking. It's a good game that's better than the majority of SP FPS games, especially in recent years. Eternal was just lightning in a bottle.
I think that's where a part of me has to be lax on this:
-There aren't any other good SP FPS franchise left
-They have changed it up consistently title to title
-They put in a lot of effort

I wager the short comings for this game do stem from Microsoft overlords wanting a product out.

I plan to complete. The Komodo champion should've been the basis for this games combat design and enemy encounters. It achieves what they were going for with a bullet hell shmup encounter.
 
Surprised the CCU is so low for this, Would have expected it to be around Eternal or at least between Doom 2016 and Eternal. I wonder if it's because this game no longer works on 1000 series cards for the reason for having several tens of thousands less CCU.
 
Do we know when the Path Tracing patch is coming? I wanna continue playing past Chapter 6, but man it feels so weird it's kinda like turning my XTX into a Mid Tier card at this point.

I'm playing hooked up to the TV at 4K100hz and I need to use FSR in Quality, since frame gen above 60 feels very stutterry
 
I just didn't like it as much as 2016 and Eternal. Too much focus on melee combat, uninspired levels , and a much worse soundtrack.
I also hated the open maps with multiple objectives. They are so tedious.
It also didn't help that I recently replayed Doom and Doom 2, so I come with a fresh reminder of what peak Doom is like.
I think it's a pretty good action game, but it's not what I wanted from a new Doom installment.
 
Agree man. I can't see any technical differences between the two. If you're gonna use a ton of ray tracing stuff let us at least see it.
On PC with the highest quality RT mode (and PT mode soon) you do see some of this difference, but I agree that like with Indiana Jones having RTGI is more of a way for the studio to build the game differently and optimise costs. Indiana Jones never really showed something that could not have been looked almost 100% the same with baked lighting and probes… it would have take longer for the team to do to sure and cost more money which might have resulted in less expansive levels and other corners being cut…
 
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Am I taking crazy pills? Eternal clearly looks better comparing these two videos:







Added a 5090 video too just in case.

It's definitely not as snappy as Eternal. Everything from movement to the gunplay feels more floaty and slower.

Do you get to unlock faster weapon switching later on or nah?
 
Usually Microsoft doesn't rush titles out so it's a bit surprising the state the game is in on every platform(save for Series X maybe?) It needed another month or two in the oven, and I imagine by July things will be looking closer to Eternal graphically.
in what world? they released halo infinite, redfall, starfield, forza, ara, flight sim in totally unfinished state.
 
Just arrived in Hell and... the demons don't get a buff even? I know that this wasn't the case in previous games or whatever but I dunno, was kind of hoping they'd be tougher to fight now or get extra abilites.

Also what's with the constant blueballing of the soundtrack? The guitars were just about to start riffing and then immediately stopped as I already killed all of the enemies (it's after you receive the rocket launcher and kill that one group of fodder in a hallway). Super odd.
 
It's just an interesting data point (if you know I'm here mostly for sales threads), no need to be triggered about it. Plus something tells me this is the only hard number we will get from MS.
I'm far from triggered lol, I guess I personally just don't get the desire. But adding flop or something along the lines of it failing is just kind of silly to me. Especially when there is more than one platform for it, on PC as well.

I just realized Vega (the AI voice) is in this? Is it ever explained why?
As far as I know, no, lol. I wondered the same thing. Especially when he chimes in whenever he kind of feels like it. It almost felt pointless to even include him IMO.
 
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"Rip and tear until it is done."

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I do believe it is done. I don't have much more to add to my previous posts, it's another great entry for the franchise that's simply eclipsed by it's previous two entries, all things being subjective, I'm sure there are those who will declare this their favourite in the modern trilogy.

One thing I always do before starting *any* game is to go into the Options and see what I can adjust. Here I did the standard turning off of CA, motion blur and screen effects (I didn't do that last one immediately, it took the sprint effect giving me a headache lol), I have yet to play a single game that has benefited from this stuff, usually makes the overall visual experience worse. Upon completing the game and going back to the handful of levels that weren't 100% I turned off the HUD *completely*, full immersion and the realization that you don't really need it.

Super shotgun is always great, Combat Shotgun became a beast after you get the triple fire upgrade, feels so damn good with the DualSense haptics. Chainshot was cool, Ravager is 💯💯💯, grenades/rockets are so vanilla in comparison to everything else, wish they would have done something else even if rockets are a staple. Loved the sense of impact of melee attacks, flail is god-tier. Parrying never got old, shield is great, speed of the game is perfect, anyone saying it's slow is retarded, it's arguably the quickest in the trilogy with a shield dash that literally teleports you across the battlefield lol.

Panzer DragDOOM and mech levels were fun little gimmicks though at most I would have limited them to two levels apiece. While I lament the loss of glory kills (yes, you can jump at enemies to execute from the air for a few unique animations, doesn't come close) I once again applaud id for shaking up the formula and trying something new, I enjoyed spending the past 3 days with my old friend the Slayer, until we meet again, 8/10.
 
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I think its fine but not as good as Eternal. I am more than happy with ID trying new approaches to their games, but especially with the art style, this could have been the next Quake instead. I think they should have improved upon Doom Eternals combat by just giving more ammo etc.
 
To me this is one of the most beautiful (subjective) games ever designed. On SX it looks like a classical painting come to life. Its hard or impossible to convey in a single image, the way the animations flow with the lights and shadows.

Eternal is brighter looking, with almost electric looking lights, and brighter more saturated colors because of it. TDA looks completely different with the natural lighting making colors immediately look subdued and bleak in comparison but it feels more natural the way lights reflect off of different surfaces and colors.
 
I'm loving this. I like it a lot more than Eternal so far, which I thought was a step back from Doom 2016. I heard a lot of reviewers say how much you like this will be taste dependent and I like it more than Eternal. About as much as I liked Doom 2016. Seems like it has more puzzles and secrets than Eternal and more strategy.

So far my favorite gun is the Chainshot gun. I love that thing it's really strong. Also like the Super Shotgun a lot. Also really like the Cycler and the Impaler. I mainly use my shield and melees though. So far those are by far the strongest attacks right there with the Super Shotgun and Chainshot gun.
 
Surprised the CCU is so low for this, Would have expected it to be around Eternal or at least between Doom 2016 and Eternal. I wonder if it's because this game no longer works on 1000 series cards for the reason for having several tens of thousands less CCU.
Free on Gamepass. This always drives the CCU down on Steam.
 
Fear and Blood. Two legendary FPS from Monolith. RIP

The Fear shotgun is ok. Not an all-time great IMO. It does feel good gibbing dudes in slow-mo tho.

The super shotty in Blood is indeed great. Everything about Blood is great.

I adore the punchy shotgun in Duke Nukem. Easy top 3.



Trying to think of other great shotguns in games that have it all (feel, sound, animation).


Half Life 2s shotty is pretty awesome

Always loved the Bioshock 1 shotgun (electric bucks!)
 
The graphics (ID Tech 8) in this game are awesome, imo looks better than the Unreal Engine 5. No microstutters, no Shader pre loading, loading times are very fast, just looks better all in all.
IMO of course.
Path Tracing should take it up another notch.
Also the Cutscenes are beautiful in this game, man. And they are running in realtime.
 
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Eight hours in, and it has decided to erase my save. I had a message saying the local and cloud saves were different, and which one did I want to keep. Time stamp was seconds apart, so I chose the local save.

Fucking Xbox app is a piece of shit. Similar thing happened to me in Expedition 33, but at least that had some backup saves.

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10th mission and I gotta I like it more than I thought it would after seeing the trailers and previews.

As a Doom shooter I would rank it like this:

1 - 2016
2 - Eternal
3 - TDA
4 - Eternal DLC

Just as a shooter is weird, sometimes it feels like the guns are secondary, they're just as a backup from all the parries and melee fights.
That being said, as a game it isn't bad, the gameplay is good, most importantly it's fun, don't like all the slow mo from parries and melee, that should be toned down or have an option to turn off.

It's easier than Eternal, I'm not saying it's easy, as you can still be easily killed if you fuck up, but definitely way more forgiving than Eternal, didn't die once so far here and I'm just an average FPS player.

All in all, still my favourite is 2016, for me it was close to almost perfect, that is one big problem they have, it was that good and had very simple but tight and awesome mechanics that they've been trying to replicate in another form with Eternal and TDA, but IMO couldn't to the same level.
 
Half Life 2s shotty is pretty awesome

Always loved the Bioshock 1 shotgun (electric bucks!)
Not a fan of the shotgun in Bioshock or any of the weapons. They've always felt weird to me.

Agree on HL2. Especially the reloading sound of the shells sliding into the chamber. Very satisfying.
 
Just got to chapter 18 and the game has stepped it up in every way it needed to. The first half of the game is very mid.

The second half finally puts lots of enemies and bullets on screen, has the story pick up, and takes you to some super sick places. Plus the mythical creature they introduce in chapter 13 or 14? Chefs kiss!

It's strange how soft and meh the first half really is. They needed to by chapter 5 pump it the fuck up. In fact they could drop probably 5/11 of the first 11 levels and the game would be for the better to get the player into the real action sooner.

Quality over quantity. They are trying to ease the player in too much and ramp it up bit by bit, but really they just made the game feel bloated and padded.

This second half if it had been the starting point say in chapter 3-5 in terms of enemy density and story beats would've absolutely put them in a situation to make a better game than eternal. As it stands though it can't because of most people will hop off the game before they make it to the second half.

I would've had the game at a 6/10. Now? We are getting into that 8.5/10 spot. I won't be able to complete it until Wednesday or Thursday so we will see how well they can stick these last few levels.

Oh and the BFC and the last melee weapon? Fuck yeah!
 
People usually say the FEAR shotgun is among the best, but I prefer the one from Blood. Packs a punch, Caleb reloads it like a chad and you can dual-wield them.

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I'm heavily biased towards Selaco so probably the ESG-24 Shotgun for me.



Slow powerful and effective.

Sadly nothing ever gonna top the Cerebral Bore. Will always be my favorite weapon in a FPS.

 
I'm heavily biased towards Selaco so probably the ESG-24 Shotgun for me.



Slow powerful and effective.

Sadly nothing ever gonna top the Cerebral Bore. Will always be my favorite weapon in a FPS.


I still have to play Selaco! I'm waiting for it to come out of early access, but I'm glad to see it has yourt endorsement.

And yeah that gun from Turok is crazy stuff. Saw it as a kid when the game came out and it looked like the coolest shit ever put in a videogame haha.

I almost forgot how much I loved the HL 1/2 shotties. 🙃
Sound design could be better in the HL games imo, but fuck me if dumping a double shot on a zombie doesn't feel amazing.
 
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