July 2018 Playthrough - DOOM (2016)

[zophar53]

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.

[singlebanana]

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

[Duke.Togo]

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?

[singlebanana]

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.

[MetalFRO]

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.

[singlebanana]

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.

[GrayGhost81]

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.

[MetalFRO]

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

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'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.

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.

[singlebanana]

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/...QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

[singlebanana]

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.

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...).

[GrayGhost81]

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?

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.

[zophar53]

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

[MetalFRO]

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

[singlebanana]

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

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

[MetalFRO]

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.