myreviews2024

I pulled the plug on Doom Eternal halfway through. No sugar-coating it. The game felt like a mechanic factory on fire, with menu screens and gauges popping up before I even caught my breath. When the team announced DOOM: The Dark Ages and promised a back-to-basics approach, hope pricked up its head. Now, after twenty-five hours, I can tell you one thing for certain: the reboot is having an identity crisis the size of a boss arena.

This new chapter does not look or move like the Doom you posted about on social. Speed and arcade swagger have been set to slow boil, almost like the designers re-tuned the engine for bricks, not rockets. Picture the Slayer standing ground, shield locked, daring a line of demons to make the first hiss. When they bite, he smashes bone the old-fashioned way.

Identity Crisis: Shifting Speed and Style

Is that Doom? Or is it something dangerously close to brand hazard? The camera shakes, the crunch is loud, and blood-tinged visuals flash in every corner. Still, the drumbeat pace of 2016 has gone irregular. Some players will cheer the slower circuit, and others will miss the sprint. I still don’t know where my own opinion sits, and that doubt keeps poking me long after the credits roll.

Brace and Bash: A New Combat Philosophy

The menu screen still flips to the classic shotgun-chamber icon, but the verb under the gun has changed. DOOM: The Dark Ages trades rip-and-tear for brace-and-bash, and that swap invites you to rethink exactly what the brand can hold. Sure, the sandbox is gorgeous: ruined castles, lightning-streaked moors, and enough verticality to make an elevator tech freak out. I found myself snapping screenshots more than killing demons, and that’s telling in a series named after Raw Slaughter.

Progression has also jumped the fence. No more tidy upgrade trees or blood-punches for extra flair. Instead, you fill a crucible by trading soaked runes for broad-stroke perks, and those perks feel slap-dash right up to the final arena. I failed the final gauntlet on my first try, and believe me, it wasn’t a skill that did me well. The perk path, still half-uncooked, lurked like a trap I didn’t see.

Conflicted Progression: Perks and Pacing Issues

Make no mistake, criticism aside, Impact kills are still gasp-worthy. Shoving a hellspawn headfirst into shattered cobblestones demands its own round of applause, even if the applause is tinged with confusion. Each finish feels like a page torn from a heavier, darker spell-book. But somewhere under all that gore, the loudest voice is itself a question: who are you, DOOM: The Dark Ages, when you aren’t boosting forward and ruining red carpets?

Right now, I can’t answer that from the pilot seat. I can only tell you that Dark Ages swings for the fences and, by God, almost breaks the bat in half. Whether you call that a slam dunk or an awkward sideswipe depends entirely on which version of the Slayer you carry in your head. Ideal players may still adore it for daring to move. Die-hards just hope the next sequel learns that sometimes less is, frankly, way less.

Unanswered Questions: Story vs. Spectacle

Doom: The Dark Ages could end up being the series’ boldest misread or a master stroke the studio pretends it planted from day one. Either way, I’m still fidgeting with my own verdict and wondering if the reboot really pays for the trip back. Hope the devs stocked that estranged speed boost for whatever comes next because right now, that button feels like the missing rune. I have to say that I did not enjoy it as much as Astro Bot, the game that I played before the Dark Ages, and of which you can find my review in the previous post.