RF Generation Message Board

 :guncannon:

PARTICIPANTS:
GrayGhost81 (host)
singlebanana
MetalFRO
Duke.Togo
Pam
zophar53
douglie007

CHECKPOINTS:
Week 1: July 1st - 7th - Finish the Foundary area
Week 2: July 8th - 14th - Finish Kadingir Sanctum (Hell) area
Week 3: July 15th - 21st - Finish Lazarus Labs area.
Week 4: July 22nd - July 28th - Finish VEGA Central Processing area.
Final Days: July 29th - 31st - Finish the game.

dot hack?

I'm in for this one!!!

I’m in for Doomy Doom.

Interesting. This is also CC's playthrough for September. I guess I will push forward my next playthrough.

Ah man!  I didn't even look at their schedule before we made this selection. Would have been cool to play a game on both sites again. :(

Will there be Multiplayer Match-Ups too?

I'd be willing to give it shot.

Seeing as though this was my favorite game of 2016, how could I not sign up for this one. I'm in! I've already beat it on Hurt Me Plenty though, so I'll have to step it up to Ultra Violence.

Doom... I'll do it

So I started playing two days ago and have made some decent progress in the game already (can't reveal my current location as it is a bit of a spoiler). As many of you know, I'm not much of a FPS gamer and even Shawn was surprised when I agreed to play DOOM (2016).  Not that I don't enjoy these games from time-to-time (I'm sure you'll hear about my history with these games), but I'd probably say that this genre probably ranks just above sports and racing games for me. Just a personal preference. Anyway, to the surprise of some and maybe even myself, I was really excited about starting this game. I saw that it made many of our site members best of year end list for 2016 and over the last few months, I had listened to a good bit of the soundtrack via YouTube, which (podcast spoiler), I love.

I have to admit, it took me a few levels to get used to the controls of DOOM, especially the aiming, but after that brief period, I found myself taking to them rather well. I feel that they did a great job with the button-mapping. While the game has some duck and retreat mechanics like its predecessor, I find that the more open areas of this game require a more aggressive approach, which I like a lot.  I'm not sure if this method applies to the more difficult settings, since I'm playing on "baby game for baby gamers" mode, so maybe some of the rest of you can chime in. Still, I find that even the easiest setting is pretty challenging and have died several times; I'm quite happy with this. I feel like the controls are very smooth and well-done, however, there are some platforming bits further into the game that are a bit annoying, though still, I never felt frustrated.  I had to reset my game once because I got stuck in a groove I couldn't get out of, but with the games nice and frequent auto-saving, I didn't have make up much progress at all.

So far, my favorite part of DOOM is the story.  I played the original, PC version of the game back in the day and honestly don't recall whether or not there was a story. Perhaps there was one in the instructions or on the box, but of course, these were the "Wild West" days of the World Wide Web, so I doubt my college roommate had either (*wink* *wink*). The story in DOOM (2016) is captivating and it's really cool that it begins right off the bat with you being strapped to a table, waking up with demons all in your grill, and having little to no idea of what is going on.  I'm really impressed with how this story is beginning to unfold and I love that your disgruntled character still has that gritty attitude that I remember from the original game. The use of holograms to tell the story in a very industrial way is really cool and helps aid in you being able to put what's going on together.  I often find myself chuckling (sometimes nervously) at their comments.  I have to say that I get some of the same feels as I did in Beyond last month, those "is the human race taking technology/science too far" sci-fi fuzzies.  I always like when a game makes me reflect on our present and this game surely does it. I have a sneaking suspicion that there is a twist coming...

The guns and upgrades are fun. I really like the variety and the enhancements. Suit upgrades are neat, but I sometimes question whether they really add much value. The Rune side quests are kind of lame to impossible, but I figure these are made for coming back to and replayability.  The enemies and environments look incredible!!....except for the shield guys, they are bastards. And finally.....GORE KILLS!  Wow, these are really nice and I really like how they differ from enemy to enemy. Brutal and fantastically fitting.

Alright, that's all for now.  I'll leave you one more item of interest: GORE NESTS! Love 'em.   

I messed around with the game a bit last month and I must say, it's INTENSE! You're definitely right about needing an aggressive approach. If memory serves, Pam mentioned in her review video that you really can't stand still, and there's a lot of truth to that. I found that there were a couple places I could hang back and snipe demons a bit, but mostly, you have to jump into the fray and really just move around to avoid attacks. Also, you really need those glory kills in order to regain life, so you kind of need to be in the thick of it regardless, unless you can avoid any and all oncoming attacks. Hoping to put a bit of time into this game over the weekend.

That must be my issue, I am getting killed a lot, but I don't run around much, I try and stand my ground.

Yeah, staying mobile is absolutely vital to staying alive, especially in the later levels. The nice thing is that by using the glory kills to gain back health and the chainsaw to gain back ammo, it creates a gameplay loop where you get in trouble and close to death only to fix the problem by being aggressive. It takes skill and is nerve-wracking when things get hectic, but is very satisfying and feels awesome when you get into a good groove, especially with the neo-metal soundtrack in the background lol. It's nice to hear that even on lower difficulty levels it's balanced enough to allow for this.

The first time I played through this game it was on medium difficulty. Now that I'm playing it on the next one up, oof it's rough. I'm only on the 2nd level so far and have died a lot haha. I'm not sure if that's due to the game or me being out of practice. Probably a bit of both. I'm still having a lot of fun with it though. I think if the controls were not as well-structured or the combat not as well-balanced it wouldn't work. Tiny non-story spoiler, but there are methods you can unlock later in the game to speed up the glory kill animations even more (stick with those rune bonus levels. Not all of the upgrades you get from them are useful, but some are helpful later on. But yeah, they're too hard), so it gets even more frenetic. I didn't have much trouble with the platforming though. All the ledges that you can grab are marked with lights in some way, so between that, the double jump, and fairly generous ledge grabbing "stickiness," I rarely missed a jump unless it wasn't one that was intended to be made. The 3D map is a big help too in some of the larger areas where it can be hard to tell where you're supposed to go.

I love the story! Especially how the DOOM Guy doesn't really give a crap about any of it. He just wants to kill the demons haha. The demon logs are my favorite I think. I won't spoil them here, but they add some great flavor to things. Has anyone listened to the announcements going on over the loud speakers in the facility? They're so great. "Demonic presence is at unsafe levels." So, ummm, what would you call a SAFE level of demonic presence lol? And the flavor text in the logs is really fun too.

I'm glad people are enjoying this game. I still love it just as much as I did when it first came out.

Holy crap this game is hard! I reached the Vega terminal and got the upgrade, which I opted to put towards max health. However, I have no more gas for my chainsaw, so the shield enemy in the next section takes me out fast. Is there another way to kill these creeps?

The shield guys are a huge pain. Chainsaw is by far the easiest way to handle them. But if you're out of gas I'd recommend either trying to circle around them to hit them from behind or the side, or trying to throw a grenade so that it lands a little behind and to the side of them, so when it explodes it hits them from behind. Every once in a while they'll get themselves in front of an exploding barrel and you can shoot that for the same effect, but that instance doesn't happen often. I've also had success double jumping over their heads and turning around to shoot them from behind, but I don't think you get the double jump until a bit later.

My shield guy go-to remedy now is the frag grenade. Mapped to L1 for PS4.

Finally got a chance to get in and play. I take things pretty slow and look for all the secrets, but I did manage to get through the first two stages. What are the checkpoints for this game?

Doom is broken down in several stages composed of 13 main areas. I think 3 areas per week, plus the last few days to finish the final stage works.

Week 1: July 1st - 7th - Finish the Foundary area
Week 2: July 8th - 14th - Finish Kadingir Sanctum (Hell) area
Week 3: July 15th - 21st - Finish Lazarus Labs area.
Week 4: July 22nd - July 28th - Finish VEGA Central Processing area.
Final Days: July 29th - 31st - Finish the game.

Ooh, nice! I just finished the Foundry area last night, so I'll be off to the races for the next set this evening.

EDIT: I will say, turning down the difficulty to the lowest level helped tremendously. I was playing on the default setting, and while that typically worked for me on older DOOM games, Wolfenstein 3-D, etc. this game is just brutal, and my ability to successfully aim with the right analog stick on ANY pad pales in comparison to what you can do with a mouse, so I have to crank the difficulty down in order to stand a better chance. Were I playing on PC, I might feel a bit different, and be able to handle it better, due to more precision aiming, but on console? Fuhgeddaboutit.

Yeah, like most Doom titles, this game can be punishingly difficult. I kind of figured that going in, so I'm on the lowest setting as well. No shame. :)

Agree that this game is hard even on easy.

I just finished the game and I really liked it. I really dug the finishing move to get health mechanic (reminds me of Warhammer Space Marine!).

I was using all the weapons throughout the whole game, and that rarely happens to me in any game!

The music is AMAZING. Really reminds me of old Nine Inch Nails.

I'm glad to be finished with game, as much as I liked it, I was getting a little tired of the gameplay loop of escalating groups of more and more powerful enemies.

Interesting. I don't hear that, but I can understand where you're coming from. Are you thinking along the lines of "Happiness In Slavery" or "March of the Pigs" type of stuff for when the music ramps up after you activate a demon nest?


I only just completed powering down the Argent facility last night, so I can't speak to this quite yet, but I'm finding the progression to be good. Some of the larger, or harder to kill enemies initially feel like minibosses when they first appear, and then as you move forward, they become integrated into the regular flow of the game. Case in point: the big hulking demon that appears in the Foundry area the first time scared the stuffing out of me the first time, and took me a long while to come up with a strategy for, outside of just mowing it down with my chainsaw. One level later, and I'm seeing multiple big demons like that when opening a demon nest. This hearkens back to a lot of retro games, where early, easier bosses become fodder later in the game, though in this case, they're throwing this stuff at you a lot more quickly. I'm curious as to what they're going to continue to introduce. The "warping" or "zoom" demons in the Argent facility, that quickly warp from place to place felt like a boss encounter the first time, but when the next nest revealed one as well, I knew right away that this was probably going to be the pattern, going forward.

For those who like the music, the Doom vinyl drops on 7/13/18. Some places, including Target??, are still taking pre-orders:
 
https://www.target.com/p/mick-gordon-doom-ost-vinyl/-/A-53639693?ref=tgt_adv_XS000000&AFID=google_pla_df&CPNG=PLA_Entertainment+Shopping&adgroup=SC_Entertainment&LID=700000001170770pgs&network=g&device=c&location=9009606&gclid=CjwKCAjwspHaBRBFEiwA0eM3kehiFga0uexS0GCUcEzaIH_q_x8OzAAykRuueJgi9Jt64dGJISjCDRoCcQ4QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

I agree with all of this. Pretty tough even on easy, yes!  Warhammer: Space Marine feels, check! (though I wish that there was a damn shield kick button) Scrolling through and changing weapons often, gotz to!  Great metal music to smash and explode demons to, priceless!  

I'm nearing the end of the game myself and I can attest to the loop of increasingly difficult rooms and baddies is beginning to wear on me.  Let me say that the variety of demons is great and I feel like they did a very good job of mixing up the groups and adding new demon types quite often.  I like the some of the enemies have "soft" spots where they take more damage and I also appreciate how specific guns work better than others for some of them. What I really feel that this game lacks from the onset are boss battles.

Spoiler (hover to show)

However, there are some pretty good ones about 3/4 of the way in.

 Josh, I know you mention the sort of mini-boss battles with the introduction of new demons, but I feel like some more challenging one-on-one content would make the game feel less rinse-and-repeat. Perhaps the length could also be trimmed down, but I dunno, some might feel like they didn't get their monies worth.  Just my two cents (see what I did there...).

Pretty much. The synth/guitar sounds in general remind me of The Downward Spiral sound.

I really like the grindy, wavy synth sound that slams you after a few seconds in the pause menu.

I like synth that sounds off-putting, almost disturbing like that. Check out "Die Like a Rockstar" by Danny Brown for more of what I mean.

Totally agree on the music. I love a good static-y base, and there's lots of it in this game. Did anyone notice the bits of the original Doom soundtrack buried in the various new songs? Sometimes they're hard to pick out, but they're definitely there. One of the more identifiable ones is right at the start of the game. During the title card in the elevator in the first level, and then the shotgun cocking along with the ending guitar riff. I heard that and I was already pumped 5 mins into the game.

Btw, the creator of the soundtrack did a 3-part making-of video series on it. Definitely worth checking out. It's really interesting the methods he used to create the various electronic distortions and the monster base guitar he used https://youtu.be/ua-f0ypVbPA

There's apparently a vinyl version of the DOOM soundtrack coming soon!

Yep. A link to a preorder 5 posts up. 😉

I missed that, thanks!

If the checkpoints are the indication, having just finished the Kidingr Sanctum, I'm roughly close to halfway through the game. That last section was intense! I realize that it was supposed to be in the depths of Hell, but I definitely had some trouble with that last section, just before teleporting back to Mars. In my haste to run around and not take damage during the onslaught, I kept falling off the main platform, as I was running around. I think I must have done that a half dozen times or so. I rather hate bottomless pits in FPS games.

I'm glad you brought this up, because I kept meaning to comment on the platforming in this game and forgetting to do so.

I was very surprised by the verticality in this game. Many times I found myself wondering "How the heck am I supposed to get up (or down) there?" Well, start following green context clues on screen, basically. Jump and grab what you can. Don't forget to look for holes in the ceiling and don't be afraid to take huge leaps of faith.

While I understand your frustration here, Fro, I thought it was very cool addition to a what is on the surface a gun-shooty-gore-fest.

I did that several times too FRO. For me, that last Hell scene took me the most tries to beat in the game. Second only to a certain train station encounter that you will come across later... I fell into the pits a ton as well and had to ration out the chainsaw and 4X damage power up at the right moments. Tough fight. Glad you made it through.

@GrayGhost81 - I actually like the platforming, and agree that it does add an extra element to the game, so it's not just shooting baddies. The jumping takes a bit to get used to, and can be a touch floaty, but overall, I liked that aspect. I just don't like falling off a ledge when I'm 5 or 6 gunshots away from killing the last demon in a large onslaught, only to have to do the whole thing again, and usually 2 or 3 times, because I got lucky that time  :laugh:

@singlebanana - The chainsaw is infinitely useful, but boy howdy do you run out of fuel fast! Rationing is right, and I found that it was best to save it for enemies I had trouble with, like the "warping" demons, or some of the big fellas that shoot fire and fireballs at you, that have shielding. For those guys, I found that, outside of grenade cheesing, catching them from behind, or using either the rocket launcher or Guass Cannon, they generally took the most time for me to take out. Even the Baron of Hell enemies generally go down faster, because they don't have shielding.

I was having fun with the game yesterday, so I pressed on past the weekly goal, and am now in the Lazarus lab facing the Cyberdemon. Holy cow, is this thing going to take some time to figure out how to kill.

I loved the Cyberdemon fight, but yeah, it's intense! I tended to make a beeline for the BFG ammo and hit him with a couple blasts from that right off the bat. Except sometimes my aim would be off and I'd whiff it. Super annoying when that happened.

I'm glad to hear everyone's enjoying the game enough to push through the difficulty :)

Just a little something I noticed, but I typically fired my BFG when my health was low. Firing it and switching weapons quickly on a stunned boss causes them to spew health. I could typically earn full health this way and rinse and repeat this tactic when necessary.

Oh that's interesting. I never noticed that connection before. Nice tip!

OK, I'm woefully behind, but I got through the Foundry last night. Spent an eternity looking for the key card. I REALLY wish it gave you a map marker or at least a visual clue when they are on a corpse.

I'm assuming this is the case between versions, and also assuming you've seen this before, but just in case: if you see a corpse with a highlight around it, go check it out, because it will likely have a Praetor token or keycard.

I beat the Cyberdemon last night, and got myself past the next level, so I think I'm close, if not in, the home stretch!

First rule of Doomsday: Always check corpses. :P

I agree the key cards aren't highlighted very well. The praetor tokens glow red, but I never spotted anything like that to highlight the key cards. I had a couple spots where I was wandering around lost looking for them myself when I first played.


You're getting there, only a few levels left. But there's a couple surprises left in store :)

I have the Crucible! The fight against the Hell Guards is pretty intense, and there are some interesting attacks in the mix. I realize that this can be true for much of the game, but I found the key to this battle was to find a rhythm. For many of the earlier onslaughts, I could fudge my way through them, because you can rely on glory kills to replenish health and ammo, but you only get occasional ammo in this boss encounter, so you really have to get a sense of how these guys move, where you can go to avoid attacks, and which weapon will work best to whittle down their energy.

I loved the Hell Guard boss battle. It's probably in my top 3 most nerve-wracking, edge of my seat parts of the whole game, but very cool. He's got some attacks that kept me on the defensive more than any other fight in the game, especially in the second phase. I haven't seen anything like it in a Doom game before. But yeah, paying attention and learning his moves was really helpful.

The boss battles finally come around the 3/4 mark of the game, small gripe. They are interesting in the sense that you really have to learn them and figure out the patterns. A lot of times this includes some platforming elements, including kneeling.  I found them all pretty intuitive and enjoyable, but yeah, the Hell Guard was intense! Whatttttttttttt?? 

Spoiler (hover to show)

**When two more guards pop up after the long battle with the first**

Just a heads up, we are recording the Doom (2016) podcast this weekend with our pal Travis (zophar53).  A new segment of our show includes reading out the "Final Thoughts" of our participants before giving our opinion. We are recording a bit earlier this time, because we have some upcoming recording conflicts due to vacations and what not. I know that some of you have not finished the game yet, so please carry on, but for those of you who have, we would love to hear your final thoughts on the game.  Please feel free to post them here on the forum under a spoiler tag if you are commenting on any "spoilery" narrative stuff (not that there is anything to spoil storywise, but maybe some of the events are surprising??) .  After the month is over, I will remove the tags. Thank you for playing with us this month and for your support of the show!

I just beat the game, about 10 minutes or so ago. I can't remember exactly how long ago now, because the credits take for flipping ever to get through!

Final Thoughts!
The reboot of DOOM takes the original formula in an interesting new direction; it's fast, frantic, intense, and a white knuckle experience from the very first enemy encounter. The new enemies provide variety, and the large cast of returning enemies up the ante, with much more speed and aggression than the first 2 games provided, and the platforming elements brought a whole new dimension to the classic formula. The game's soundtrack, a mixture of industrial and djent, kept pace with the mood of the game, from the more ambient droning between fights, and during exploration sequences, while the high octane metal segments heighten the anticipation of battles, and as the number and strength of foes intensifies, so does the music. The graphics are amazing, even on the Switch version (which I played), and the overall experience is definitely worth the ride. The game begins to overstay its welcome slightly by the end, as the sheer number of enemies you have to dispatch before the final boss encounter is a bit ludicrous, but honestly, I am happy to have played through this game, and it's making me even more excited to pick up Wolfenstein II as soon as I can.

Congrats man! I'm about halfway through; this higher difficulty is kind of kicking my butt lol. But I'm getting there, slowly but surely. You're def right though, that last level is pretty insane with the sheer amount of enemies they throw at you. Were you playing in heldheld mode or on a TV? I bought the Switch version but I haven't spent much time with it. It's pretty impressive that they were able to make such a huge game work on that thing, especially while keeping it looking decent.

Also, fun fact, the guy that did the music for Doom also did the music for the new Wolfenstein games.

I played DOOM exclusively docked. I appreciate that I could have played it handheld, but honestly, as insane and fast action as the game is, I'm not sure the Joy-Con sticks would have been the best thing to play with. That said, I'm sure plenty of people have.

I'll be joining as well!  I'm a bit late to the party (busy summer), but I shouldn't have any problem finishing the game in the next few days.  I bought the collector's edition of the game when it first released, but didn't play too far at that time before it went to my backlog. 

Last night I made it through the first encounter with Barons of Hell before stopping for the night.  I haven't seen anyone discuss this yet, but attached to the platform that you fight the Barons on, there is a small dark cave.  Inside there is a hidden lever (still not sure what pulling it did) and also the iconic Skyrim helmet sitting on a rock.  Neat little easter egg.

Absolutely loving the game!  Playing "Hurt Me Plenty" difficulty on the PC version - game is great to look at.

Apparently, there are some hidden levers on each stage that unlock some of the original game maps. Perhaps this was one of them?

That definitely was one of those :)  Not gonna spoil the location for you though, you'll have to look around that area to find the old Doom room it opened up. Nice job finding it. Some of those levers blend in pretty well and are hard to spot.

I did quit after the autosave for that area where I found the lever.  And the first thought I had was that it maybe unlocked an original Doom level, because I knew that was a thing within the game.  I'll have to look around a bit more when I get back in.

Another item I found was a little Doom Guy doll in the same map. 

Do those classic levels play out as single experiences in the game, or do you get transported to them when you discover the lever? I saw that you could find them, but never located any to unlock during my play through.

They're not separate full levels. The levers just open a door/wall within the level that leads to a room that mirrors a room in classic Doom. There's one in each level, nothing super complex, but they're a fun trip down memory lane.

The bobbleheads are neat too. They unlock 3D character models you can look at and rotate around from the menu screen.

After finding a few of them last night I read the in game codex info on them.  It sounds like you can start a new game slot and choose classic Doom levels.  I believe you get to play through the whole classic map. 

Nice!  What an awesome addition to a very cool game.

If that's the case that'd be awesome! That's not a feature I'd heard of.

I haven't had a ton of time to play this one this month. I'm around 75% through my 2nd playthrough.

DOOM quickly became one of my favourite games every after I first played it in 2016. I love how streamlined it is. No reloading, no cover, just constant movement, fun weapons and the most satisfying strafing. The Cyberdemon is one of the best boss fights from any game. The first time I saw him I emptied by BFG into him in the first phase... not realizing there was a second phase. That second phase, and all the movement it requires, is so good though.

On my current playthrough I've been trying to gather all the collectibles. I've got some mixed thoughts on that. I like to clear out the level then go back and find everything, which works at first. But in later levels you often get cut off from the beginning of the levels and its not always obvious when that is happening. I've had to restart levels a number of times because I was unable to go back to get a collectible. That's no fun. It's definitely better to play 'in the moment' than worry about finding everything.

I also just got my shipping notification for the new double vinyl of the soundtrack :)

My final thoughts (which were expressed more professionally on the playcast): THIS GAME IS F**KING RAD!!! Lol

I just finished it  :grrr:.  As someone who used to play the shareware Knee-Deep in the Dead campaign over and over again in my younger years, this game did the Doom name justice!  To sum it up with one word - relentless.

To add to the Classic level discussion:
You do get to choose them from the same campaign profile in which you unlocked them.  I only played one of the Doom 2 levels.  I chose it because I remembered it being one of the easier ones...it was not easy.  You start with only a pistol and none of your skills follow you.