DOOM Open Beta Impressions

I can't tell you how that part is going to feel, but I can tell you how it feels to double jump across gaps, mantle slowly onto pipes or continue a firefight through multiple teleports, and it feels disjointed, jerky. It's lacking that all important momentum, and that's absolutely key to convincing the audience, because at the moment, Multiplayer DOOM doesn't feel revolutionary, it feels by the numbers, stale.



The original is probably one of the only 22-year old first person shooters that still has an audience. It’s still being played because of flawless design that favoured speed over violence, recklessness over patience. Admittedly it’s a small audience compared to the crowds that originally asked DOOM to hurt them plenty, but they’re loyal.

Perhaps though, this is the nature of AAA. Bethesda doesn’t need to court the faithful audience anymore, we’re going to buy it anyway. Maybe the future of DooM is quick time events, takedowns and a hundred gallons of blood but if that’s the case than I’ll always mourn the memories of the early games pace and minimalist design.

There are some things that it does right: customising your own DOOM guy feels nice, albeit it basically a more powerful version of the Spartan creator, but it has so many new things to do. You can customise each of your weapons, applying a variety of different colour finishes and patterns before deciding how dirty you want it to look and then how damaged. You can do the same to your own armour, before selecting different taunt poses. There's a lot of style here, but it's no replacement for the sort of meaty substance I want from a multiplayer FPS at this stage.



Similarly with the challenges offered. There are plenty of rewards for playing the game, except that the actual shooting isn't that interesting. Rewards vary, but include extra armour colours, types and even patterns, a wealth of cosmetics that mark you out as the best-dressed space marine.

What does this mean for the full game? It's too early to see, honestly. We're a month or so from release and not much has been shown about the single player campaign except a couple of slick preview videos. In terms of the multiplayer though? I'll give it a miss.