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Doom Eternal review

I’ll happily admit I was later to the party with Doom refresh, I did manage to finish just in time for the release of Doom Eternal however. Doom (2016) was fantastic, it had superb level design and the game mechanics were excellent too, but could Eternal match that? 

In short yes, except this time round the game is even tougher, with more enemies, less ammo and a bit of platforming thrown in too. 

First off, Doom Eternal looks fantastic, which you might not even notice because you are too busy shoving an enemy’s guts down their throat before chainsawing even more enemies while dealing with even more enemies who are frantically trying to kill you. It’s great to see the improvements from the previous title, enemies now lose bits of their bodies when you hit them with your arsenal and with 20-30 enemies on the screen at any time you never see a drop in performance.

The set pieces really are impressive, with a mix of beautiful architecture and vomit inducing monster insides that you will pass through. Danger is everywhere, whether it’s dangerous jumps or something trying to kill you. Doom Eternal has introduced more platforming to this world, with walls to grip on to and climb (they remind of the walls you need to grapple in Tomb Raider)and a new mechanic called ‘Dash’ that allows you to zip forward over bigger jumps. At first I wasn’t sure about these new elements but I’ve grown to like them as I progressed through the game.

The expanding lore might be a concern for some but I found it really interesting. Of course you can get even deeper into it by reading the numerous codex entries you’ll discover as you traverse through the world.

As well as the different codexes, there are plenty of other secrets throughout the game to discover, Secret Encounters for example are optional times encounters hidden in the world, completing them earns you weapons points, that can be used to add secondary elements to your weaponry.

As you would expect, the firepower at your disposal is spectacular, with weapons ranging from shotguns to rocket launchers and they are all a blast to use. They key to surviving in Doom besides never staying still is understanding which weapons work best against which enemies. A well placed rocket into the mouth of a big RED HEAD is enough to allow you to pull off a finishing move to restore health or earn extra ammo.

The big change between this and the previous titles is the amount of ammo that’s available, or the lack of it in this case. You need to make every shot count as there isn’t much ammo going spare and I found myself dying a lot more as a result. For those of you who prefer the hardcore experience of DOOM then you’ll enjoy the challenge, but if like me, you prefer just blowing things up it’s a lot less fun.

Doom Eternal Is another excellent game that makes you feel like a god in one breath before humbling you moments later. The beautiful graphics combined with the heavy metal soundtrack will get your heart racing as you scramble for ammo while taking on some outrageous enemies, with an incredible array of firepower. Once you are done with the campaign you should definitely head over to multiplayer to test your skills against the online masses. Either way you’ll have a blast.

£59.99
9

Score

9.0/10

Pros

  • Fantastic visuals
  • Awesome visuals
  • Tough enemies

Cons

  • More ammo would be nice!
Dave Moran
Hello! I'm the owner and Editor-in-Chief of the site. I play too much Rocket League (and Fortnite for that matter) and I wish I was better at Rainbow Six Siege!

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