Doom – Brutal acumulación de pedidos

Brutal Backlog es una función semirregular en la que el equipo de JDR revisa algunos de los juegos no jugados en sus estantes (tanto digitales como físicos), sin tener en cuenta su edad o las limitaciones técnicas de su época. Solo los mejores títulos resistirán el escrutinio actual.

Como alguien que descubrió los juegos de PC a principios de los 90, era casi imposible evitar Doom 2 . Siguiendo el original del shareware, fue en gran medida el niño del cartel de los juegos ultraviolentos y accesibles, aunque mis recuerdos persistentes son sus píxeles en bloque, los océanos de rojo y naranja, y la increíble velocidad a la que podía viajar a través de enormes áreas llenas de criaturas demoníacas. Diez años más tarde, descubrí que Doom 3 era un desastre bastante atractivo, un juego que realmente no sabía si ser un terror lento o un FPS de acción total. En mi opinión, falló en ambos. ¿Qué pasaba con esa antorcha de todos modos?

Mis esperanzas para la serie no eran particularmente altas cuando se reinició Doom en 2016, pero parece que sucedió algo inesperado durante el desarrollo. Los críticos hablaban de un regreso a las raíces del juego. La palabra “diversión” fue usada en múltiples ocasiones. Coloréame intrigado: es hora de un viaje de regreso al infierno.

cinco minutos en

Me despierto encadenado a un carrito de hospital, justo antes de que un esqueleto intente saltar sobre mí. Naturalmente, a pesar de estar desnudo, me libero y rompo su cara en una pulpa sangrienta con una mano sin grilletes. Parece que estoy en una especie de estación planetaria. También parece ser uno que está bien acostumbrado a este tipo de ataque dado que en realidad han programado sus sistemas para mostrar “INVASIÓN DEMONÍACA EN CURSO”. Me encantaría haber conocido al codificador encargado de ese trabajo. “Lo siento, ¿quieres que programe qué mensaje en la GUI? Y esa es una posibilidad genuina, ¿verdad? Está bien, tengan paciencia conmigo, solo voy a regresar a la Tierra por unos años”.

Espero que esto encaje, de lo contrario voy a estar irritado durante bastante tiempo.

El movimiento es suave como la mantequilla, y después de agarrar un traje útil para evitar que sienta frío, rápidamente me presentan a Glory Kills. Estos son esencialmente finalistas exagerados que se activan cuando un demonio se tambalea después de recibir un poco de daño. Rompo algunas espinas y pateo algunos cadáveres en la cara para ser recompensado con sonidos crujientes satisfactorios y un poco de sangre. Ah, y paquetes de salud, parece. Mi arma es una pistola de munición ilimitada y estaba haciendo el trabajo muy bien, hasta que encontré una escopeta. ¡SÍ! Pruebo la escopeta en un demonio poseído que se mueve lentamente a corta distancia y explota en varias partes del cuerpo. Esto es poco después de que me informaran que necesito “arrancar y rasgar”, presumiblemente todo lo que encuentro. No es específico, pero me dijeron que la presencia demoníaca está en niveles inseguros.

¿ Qué es exactamente un nivel seguro de presencia demoníaca?

Tengo la sensación de que este juego no se va a tomar a sí mismo en serio.

Treinta minutos en

Al igual que su predecesor, el reinicio parece ser un juego alegre y vertiginoso a través de entornos que no tengo tiempo de asimilar por completo, aparte de sus perímetros. 

gr. Argh.

Cada área debe tener todos los enemigos despejados antes de que pueda progresar (esa presencia demoníaca es insegura en todas partes ), y hay muchas municiones, al menos hasta ahora, para evitar que los monstruos me molesten. Todavía tengo que morir. Tal vez no puedo. Tal vez tres décadas de juego han perfeccionado mis habilidades casi a un nivel divino, fusionando mi conciencia con el controlador hasta el punto en que se convierte en una extremidad adicional, totalmente sensibilizada a todos y cada uno de los estímulos y lista para desatar el dolor en cualquier criatura que infrinja mi espacio personal. .

Treinta y dos minutos en

Me tropiezo con una habitación que contiene una cantidad abrumadora de Hellspawn e inmediatamente me hacen pedazos.

dos horas en

Ahora he descubierto algunas armas más: un rifle de asalto, una pistola de plasma y una motosierra. Esta última herramienta me permite cortar demonios por la mitad a cambio de una cantidad ridícula de munición. Todo lo que recuerdo de la serie original también está aquí. Fragmentos de armadura, potenciadores frenéticos y un excelente diseño de niveles están todos presentes, pero mejor aún, una IA llamada Vega me ha ofrecido desafíos a cambio de puntos de mejora de armas. Estos han comenzado de manera bastante básica: matar a dos poseídos en un solo disparo de escopeta, encontrar tres secretos, realizar cinco Glory Kills diferentes. Las recompensas, combinadas con drones de campo que ofrecen funciones adicionales para mis armas, significan que las armas tienen una profundidad adicional con la que estoy totalmente de acuerdo. Había ocho armas en Doom 2 ; los complementos aquí significan que mi arsenal básicamente se duplicó.

Low ammo against a Revenant. Doesn’t bode well.

Hidden areas are another matter. The original game, like most of id Software’s output, had secrets buried everywhere. I am pretty bad at finding them, preferring instead to strafe around levels like a madman before moving on to the next. However, you can also upgrade your armour’s sensors to help you find them, but this isn’t a cheat — knowing where they are is not the same as reaching them.

I learn this the hard way while trying to get a shiny green armour booster, making a misstep and plunging into a furnace filled with molten metal. TOASTY!

Three Hours In

Speeding around makes me realise how intuitive the level layout is, thanks to a combination of objective marker distances and a detailed map to fall back on when needed. I’ve not had to do so often, since the illusion of space and multiple pathways is well crafted. I’m often too busy rushing to the next objective to notice that a lot of the (admittedly beautifully) rundown corridors and rooms all feel a little samey after a while. Sparking electrical wires, empty pizza boxes and the knick-knacks of a lived-in station are scattered around, but vary little.

While there are a couple of levels where I need to complete three (or more) tasks in different zones and can attempt them in any order, they aren’t so far apart as to be annoying, but neither are they particularly exciting. Activate a button here, smash a canister there, locate a keycard to progress through a matching coloured door, the usual stuff. The enjoyment comes in the act of reaching them: namely, blasting my way through an increasingly powerful set of weapon-wielding undead. The Revenant has made an appearance, but I’ve got a rocket launcher so we’re on a level playing field. My original pistol has barely been touched since those first few minutes of play, since there’s always just enough ammo to keep me blasting through, and if there isn’t…well, Daddy’s got a chainsaw for just that scenario.

Enemy bodies disintegrate without trace which saves getting a cleaner in.

There’s a hat-tip of a story here somewhere, something about a Mars station channelling Hell energy to provide an infinite power source for humanity. A guy called Samuel Hayden ran the Union Aerospace Corporation before getting a terminal disease and transmitting his mind into a computer while an English lady called Olivia Pierce has gone bonkers and wants to combine the two dimensions because reasons. But this isn’t Dead Space and the bare bones of my motivations take a hefty second place to running around and blasting things into a bloody pulp.

It’s weird: Doom is the kind of game I’d have expected to cause a fury among the right-wing media upon release. It’s gory, gratuitous and exhorts violence. Yet, perhaps because all of the enemies are alien invaders from Hell, it didn’t stir up as much controversy as games where you can — for instance — choose to walk through an airport, shooting up people. Indeed, this is the first in the series to get through Germany’s censors unscathed. Perhaps underneath the tongue-in-cheek exterior, the game is actually a cunningly hidden metaphor for the world’s current political climate: survive at all costs at the expense of anyone who looks different. Or maybe I’m overthinking it and I should just enjoy making things mindlessly explode in a shower of limbs. Perhaps this says more about me than the game itself.

I ponder this as I rip the arm off an Imp and beat him to death with it.

Eight Hours In

The initial euphoria has worn off somewhat. I’m still enjoying Doom but it’s become a bit repetitive and even the introduction of the Cacodemon didn’t prove that exciting. I’m in Hell now, which looks gorgeous, though I’m basically on autopilot. A couple more weapons have been acquired but the gameplay is otherwise unchanged from when I first started. However, Mick Gordon’s thrash metal soundtrack has been superb throughout, so I’m looking forward to what he brings to Doom Eternal — lots of screaming, by all accounts.

Don’t think I want to book a meeting here, actually.

I have a feeling I’m getting close to the end which is probably for the best. If it carried on for much longer, the game would feel a bit flabby. That isn’t to say there aren’t a few additional treats thrown into the mix — Rune challenges offer additional upgrades if you can complete them, usually “kill X with weapon Y in Z seconds” variants, and they offer a more cerebral approach to the non-stop demon slaying. You do have to kill things, yes, but you normally have to do it in a controlled way, such as with a specific weapon that rewards you valuable extra seconds for Glory Kills, or by using explosive barrels. Rune challenges are essentially the thinking person’s splatterfest and break up the standard gameplay nicely.

Nine Hours In

I thought it would be over after I killed the Cyberdemon. But no. There are more things to kill. Weirdly, despite the gore and over-the-top carnage, it doesn’t feel awful. Things move at such a pace that the splattered body parts, blood and severed limbs barely have time to register before disappearing from the screen. It’s an almost clinical approach to gratuity: show the nastiness and immediately wipe it clean. It doesn’t seem as outrageous as it should do, perhaps because of repetition and a subsequent lack of consequence. Nothing remains to mark your actions, so do they really matter?

I muse over this philosophical question briefly, before plunging my fist into the stomach of a Mancubus, ripping out his insides, then forcing them down his throat until he explodes.

Ten Hours In

It’s still going. I’ve since had to fight a few Hell Guards which were pretty tough. The boss fights in Doom have been challenging but fun, and it’s a shame there weren’t more of them earlier on. Looking back at how the game front-loaded the increasingly tough (but ultimately dumb) standard foes, it would have broken up the repetitive action a bit if id had included a few enemies — like this — that needed a bit more thought to take out.

Now I’m headed back to Mars. Presumably this will be the last area.

Eleven Hours In

It was not the last area. Even so, the lab arena of Vega’s central processor made for a slightly more interesting fight. Instead of just shooting lots of demons, I also had to shoot four coolant towers. And lots of demons. I assumed that this would be where I locked down the gate to Hell and finished the game.

I assumed wrongly. I’m going back to Hell.

Twelve Hours In

It’s all over. I’ve saved Mars, Earth, and probably Hell as well. They really shouldn’t have wanted to link up with us anyway. Thanks to global warming, in fifty years time the smoking, barren, intensely hot landscape of Hell filled with emaciated, shambling creatures will be indistinguishable from Earth.

This is a Gore Nest. Subtlety is not a strength of Doom.

Interestingly, once I left Hell and returned to the red planet the game stepped back up a gear. I’m not saying it was the introduction of the BFG 9000 which swung it (it’s a fun room-clearer, but the super shotgun is definitely my favourite), but the tighter multi-levelled combat arenas of the Lazarus labs were more enjoyable than Hell’s sprawling, samey environments. The final boss was also a fun blast, although why some studios seem to think that spiders are the worst possible form an enemy can take is beyond me, even if that spider is armed to the teeth with laser cannons.

Final Verdict

There’s much to take away from Doom. It is unashamedly old school in design, but a lot of the features it incorporates elevate the fun way beyond many of today’s more “realistic” shooters. There’s no run button, since you’re always racing at full pelt to, well, everywhere. There’s no reload button because you’re encouraged to empty the clip of every gun you own into the face of every demon you encounter, before stocking up on ammo again. Both of these omissions made me appreciate how much they slow down other FPS games. I’m not suggesting they should be removed from the genre entirely, just that their absence may help rather than hinder the design of some shooters. Much like Bulletstorm dispensed with jumping and was all the better for it, Doom’s pace and level design lend themselves to a more simplified controller scheme, where the “30 seconds of fun” gameplay loop popularised at Bungie during Halo’s development is at the forefront.

That loop does, unfortunately, become a bit too familiar in the later stages. The story is basically nonsense, and the game feels far more linear than Doom 2. This is both a blessing and a curse, since while it focuses you on combat, there’s little else to do than run from checkpoint to checkpoint fighting the same series of battles in different environments. Even so, I can’t be too hard on a game that places popcorn fun above all else, and I’m mightily looking forward to Doom Eternal this year with (hopefully) a bit more substance to it. As it stands though, this reboot is a bloody good blast, in every respect.