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Play DOOM Eternal

nVidia just released a video showing the game on an RTX 3080 Ti. Gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous:
Impressive that it's running without DLSS on that video. Looks awesome tho, but I'm looking more forward for DLSS to now play this thing at 4k 120 fps :p. Or I can play that at 1080p 144fps with DLSS and RTX enabled. DLSS is just awesome.
 
Impressive that it's running without DLSS on that video. Looks awesome tho, but I'm looking more forward for DLSS to now play this thing at 4k 120 fps :p. Or I can play that at 1080p 144fps with DLSS and RTX enabled. DLSS is just awesome.
I'm still rocking the Xbox One X version of the game, and while it certainly doesn't look like the above video, it still looks mighty fine.
 
I'm trying to like eternal, was excited and finally installed my backlog copy. Levels aren't consistent, they just teleport you to them. Nothing feels organic or connected. Item and weapon pickups are just sitting in the environment like they do in mp maps from quake 3. Enemies are goofy, talk with bad voice acting, and the plot feels like a Saturday morning cartoon. Everything seems way too video gamey in a bad way. A huge step back from 2016 doom which I thought was fantastic. 2 levels in and I have no desire to keep playing at all. The game feels extremely rushed. The lore isn't just "there if you want it" it's shoved in your face with badly directed cutscenes and horrible delivery on voice lines. So far it's just bad. 2016 was actually interesting with it's lore. Enemies that beltch oh noooo the doomguy is just bad writing.
 

Mikemetroid

Who hired this guy, WTF?
I'm trying to like eternal, was excited and finally installed my backlog copy. Levels aren't consistent, they just teleport you to them. Nothing feels organic or connected. Item and weapon pickups are just sitting in the environment like they do in mp maps from quake 3. Enemies are goofy, talk with bad voice acting, and the plot feels like a Saturday morning cartoon. Everything seems way too video gamey in a bad way. A huge step back from 2016 doom which I thought was fantastic. 2 levels in and I have no desire to keep playing at all. The game feels extremely rushed. The lore isn't just "there if you want it" it's shoved in your face with badly directed cutscenes and horrible delivery on voice lines. So far it's just bad. 2016 was actually interesting with it's lore. Enemies that beltch oh noooo the doomguy is just bad writing.
haha this u?

 

Zviko

Noob
I'm trying to like eternal, was excited and finally installed my backlog copy. Levels aren't consistent, they just teleport you to them. Nothing feels organic or connected. Item and weapon pickups are just sitting in the environment like they do in mp maps from quake 3. Enemies are goofy, talk with bad voice acting, and the plot feels like a Saturday morning cartoon. Everything seems way too video gamey in a bad way. A huge step back from 2016 doom which I thought was fantastic. 2 levels in and I have no desire to keep playing at all. The game feels extremely rushed.
Art design and all the "video gamey" stuff in Eternal is based on original Doom games. If you want more immersion maybe try Doom 3 which is completely different from the rest. I don't even consider it a Doom game tbh.
 
Art design and all the "video gamey" stuff in Eternal is based on original Doom games. If you want more immersion maybe try Doom 3 which is completely different from the rest. I don't even consider it a Doom game tbh.
2016 had a lot of extreme video gamey stuff but I loved it. Eternal feels like a rushed expansion from 1997. That's just after the first 2 levels, maybe it gets better, but so far, plot is just hoaky garbage, the voice overs are terrible and the level design feels like a step back from 2016. I was expecting more consistency from 2016 tbh. 2016 def had a more "immersive" feel. This one just feels slapped together from the how to make an fps handbook of the 90s. To me it's a step back from how 2016 game flowed.
 
I'm trying to like eternal, was excited and finally installed my backlog copy. Levels aren't consistent, they just teleport you to them. Nothing feels organic or connected. Item and weapon pickups are just sitting in the environment like they do in mp maps from quake 3. Enemies are goofy, talk with bad voice acting, and the plot feels like a Saturday morning cartoon. Everything seems way too video gamey in a bad way. A huge step back from 2016 doom which I thought was fantastic. 2 levels in and I have no desire to keep playing at all. The game feels extremely rushed. The lore isn't just "there if you want it" it's shoved in your face with badly directed cutscenes and horrible delivery on voice lines. So far it's just bad. 2016 was actually interesting with it's lore. Enemies that beltch oh noooo the doomguy is just bad writing.
I think the game does a great job not taking itself seriously with its plot. This game is not for everyone after 1 year of playing this game religiously. Many people were put off by the new gameplay mechanics, which is understandable. On my end I like it a lot better than Doom 2016, to the point that Doom 2016 feels a loooot slower. All weapons actually serve a purpose instead of depending on a few like in Doom 2016. On the story department, Doom 2016 is ahead of Eternal, but imo Eternal is miles ahead of Doom 2016 on the gameplay department.

Once you get the hang of Eternal's gameplay, that's were it starts to shine. Like Sekiro, it wants you to master the mechanics and to absolutely monster your way out of your battles. Many criticized Eternal for "forcing" you to play a certain way (Like against Marauders, for example). But, to this day, I'm seeing dedicated players still discovering tech for this game that allows you to absolutely monster yourself out of battles and cheesing Marauders. The criticisms were the same when the first DLC came out as it was noticeably harder than the campaign and made the main campaign seem like a tutorial lol. But over time people accepted the DLC as a great way to reinforce on what you learned on the main campaign.
 
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Zviko

Noob
2016 had a lot of extreme video gamey stuff but I loved it. Eternal feels like a rushed expansion from 1997. That's just after the first 2 levels, maybe it gets better, but so far, plot is just hoaky garbage, the voice overs are terrible and the level design feels like a step back from 2016. I was expecting more consistency from 2016 tbh. 2016 def had a more "immersive" feel. This one just feels slapped together from the how to make an fps handbook of the 90s. To me it's a step back from how 2016 game flowed.
Story has never been Doom's strong suit. It was always just there for us nerds. That's why most of it is Codex entries you can read - completely optional. Level design is subjective of course. Where Eternal shines is it's gameplay which feels completely different from 2016. It's a lot faster and you have a lot more tools to work with. At level 3 you will have all your equipment and at level 5 all your weapons, apart from super weapons. That's when the game really starts. It's really all about gameplay in Eternal.
 
I think the game does a great job not taking itself seriously with its plot. This game is not for everyone after 1 year of playing this game religiously. Many people were put off by the new gameplay mechanics, which is understandable. On my end I like it a lot better than Doom 2016, to the point that Doom 2016 a loooot slower. All weapons actually serve a purpose instead of depending on a few like in Doom 2016. On the story department, Doom 2016 is ahead of Eternal, but imo Eternal is miles ahead of Doom 2016 on the gameplay department.

Once you get the hang of Eternal's gameplay, that's were it starts to shine. Like Sekiro, it wants you to master the mechanics and to absolutely monster your way out of your battles. Many criticized Eternal for "forcing" you to play a certain way (Like against Marauders, for example). But, to this day, I'm seeing dedicated players still discovering tech for this game that allows you to absolutely monster yourself out of battles and cheesing Marauders. The criticisms were the same when the first DLC came out as it was noticeably harder than the campaign and made the main campaign seem like a tutorial lol. But over time people accepted the DLC as a great way to reinforce on what you learned on the main campaign.
Honestly most of my gripes early on with it are related to asthetics, design, structure,, story,, acting.. gameplay was really good, but I need a more put together package in my games these days. Seems like they got extremely lazy in the above vs 2016s game. As far as the plot goes I think they went overboard with not taking it seriously to the point of it being goofy Saturday morning cartoon territory. That loses me completely. I'm just hoping the first couple levels weren't that great and it gets better.
 
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Honestly most of my gripes early on with it are related to asthetics, design, structure,, story,, acting.. gameplay was really good, but I need a more put together package in my games these days. Seems like they got extremely lazy in the above vs 2016s game. As far as the plot goes I think they went overboard with not taking it seriously to the point of it being goofy Saturday morning cartoon territory. That loses me completely. I'm just hoping the first couple levels weren't that great and it gets better.
The main campaign gets a tad better midway, but don't expect something as 2016 hehe. Still, the build up for the final boss fight is epic. And get ready for both The Ancient Gods Part 1&2 as they feel rushed story wise, but at least it is a good closure for the slayer saga. It felt like the conclusion could've been another main game, but ID managed to do a lot with as little time they had. I feel they want to move on to another saga (Probably Quake) and give it the Doom 2016 treatment.
 

Dankster Morgan

It is better this way
The plot is stupid and nonexistent basically, but this is the best FPS single player gameplay ever. It's just built right and the difficulty is perfectly balanced and people of any skill level can find a difficulty that provides the just right challenge. The only other FPS I've played that is like that is Halo: CE, and I think DOOM Eternal will age well like Halo did.

There are other single player FPS games that don't have quite as good shooting mechanics as DOOM Eternal, or perfectly balanced difficulty options, but have amazing stories and level designs. Recently replayed Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite, which is a great example of this.

There isn't anything WRONG with Bioshock or DOOM, they set out to do different things, and they all hit their targets.
 
The plot is stupid and nonexistent basically, but this is the best FPS single player gameplay ever. It's just built right and the difficulty is perfectly balanced and people of any skill level can find a difficulty that provides the just right challenge. The only other FPS I've played that is like that is Halo: CE, and I think DOOM Eternal will age well like Halo did.

There are other single player FPS games that don't have quite as good shooting mechanics as DOOM Eternal, or perfectly balanced difficulty options, but have amazing stories and level designs. Recently replayed Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite, which is a great example of this.

There isn't anything WRONG with Bioshock or DOOM, they set out to do different things, and they all hit their targets.
Thisssss. It's like asking Doom to have 50 minute cutscenes hehe. Games cater to different things, which is good.
 
Thisssss. It's like asking Doom to have 50 minute cutscenes hehe. Games cater to different things, which is good.
I mean 2016 was able to pull off a minimalist approach to story and nail it. Doesn't have to be all or nothing on either extreme with long cutscenes(long cutscenes does not a good story make) or no story. It struck a perfect balance and made It work, and offered good voice acting to push its narrative and interesting lore bits to digest in readable form when unlocked. Eternals approach with literally calling him "doomguy" is juvenile at best. Internet memes and talk do not translate well to in game narrative unless you have a fuck it all yolo approach to being goofy and childish. They could have done a better job IMHO. I'll give it more of a chance at some point, but I dont do cheesy anymore unless it's done well. It completely took me out of wanting to play more. I was expecting it to at least match 2016s narrative and within 2 hours I was completely dissapointed in how little the devs actually cared. Honestly if quake gets a revival I hope its way more 2016 than eternal. But I'm literally basing this off of dissapointment within the first 2 levels, so it could get better,,but its been a horrid start for me.

Another thing that bugs me was how the level layouts were used in conjunction with secrets in 2016. The metroidvania style levels were perfect, and fun to explore. Eternal literally has floating questionmarks. It just feels like a step back. Finding a secret with a new item you just got and pulling a new weapon off a dead corpse was fun and exciting. Now it has this out of place arcade feel to it with a floating question mark. Like, they seriously could have done better, its almost an insult to 2016s level design.
 
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Dankster Morgan

It is better this way
I think the Earth levels were boring aesthetically, but Urdak, Taras Nabad, Nekravol, and the Cultist/Doom Hunter base levels made up for it. All levels but the first were really fun imo. Ironically, Arc Complex is the most boring to look at, but has the best combat flow, where as Urdak (aside from Hell on Earth) has the shittiest flow but coolest environment.
 
I think the Earth levels were boring aesthetically, but Urdak, Taras Nabad, Nekravol, and the Cultist/Doom Hunter base levels made up for it. All levels but the first were really fun imo. Ironically, Arc Complex is the most boring to look at, but has the best combat flow, where as Urdak (aside from Hell on Earth) has the shittiest flow but coolest environment.
I also liked Blood Swamps a lot aesthetically and when I first played it I was always exhausted after every battle lmao. It's like every battle escalated into something bigger until you arrive at the last 2 arena battles.
 
@WhooFlungPoo I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm a huge fan of the franchise but wasn't able to play DOOM (2016) until 2020, and I loved it. It was a fatntastic game that had a classic but modern feel, simple storytelling, great atmosphere, and a non-traditional FPS combat system.

I fired up DOOM Eternal this past February for the first time (via Xbox Game Pass Ultimate), and by the time I had reached the game's third level, I was done. I couldn't believe how far off the mark the game was in its frustrating gameplay, platforming, character and art design, etc. I wanted to like it, but couldn't wrap my head around the decision making behind the game and how different it was from its predecessor.

Shortly after I saw that Hugo Martin, the game's director, had been doing a live stream of the game, level by level, and I decided to check it out to see if he'd explain some of the things that were bugging me. And he did.

In brief, he explained:

  • They didn't want to make the same game, DOOM (2016) held it's own, and they wanted to expand on the game's combat and truly focus on that and on challenging the player.
  • He describes it as in this game, you're a race car going along really fast, so for the monsters, items, and pick ups, everything was done art style/design-wise for identification purposes. Since you're moving so fast, you need to know what's what instantly. So all enemies are actually not more colourful, they're actually all lit from underneath their character models so they're always clearly visible. A gun in a corpse would be easily missed, but a spinning weapon is easy to spot and identify, medikits are crazy bright white so they can be seen even farther away, etc.
  • The game's story is secondary, and they had b-movie style fun with it.
  • Every single encounter in the game has a purpose and something to teach the player. There are Arenas, Incidental Combat Encounters, Combat Puzzles, Navigational Puzzles, etc., and he actually discusses many of them individually and what they were designed to teach the player.
Overall, DOOM Eternal is what he calls a skill based FPS. @Plays2_MX mentioned the game has been criticized for "forcing" you to play a certain way, which it has been, but that's actually not true. It's a skill-based game and the game is teaching you to fully use your tools, kit, and options.

Think of it like a fighting game. It's like playing Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate and saying "Mileena's Ball Roll should launch without amplifying it, so I'm not going to ever amp it!" Could you do well and win by playing that way, sure, but ultimately you're just making things tougher for yourself. If you play a rushdown character as a zoner, you're going to make things tougher for yourself. If you don't properly use your tools the way they were designed to be used, and combined, you're going to have a rougher time.

Once I understood all this (even if I didn't agree with all the decisions he explained), I went back and started the game over, and had an absolute blast. I stopped putting up mental blocks, playing the game the way I thought it should be played, and started playing it with an open mind and learning, and the gameplay is absolutely fantastic once you understand it. The only FPS series to come close to this kind involved gameplay is Halo, as @Dankster Morgan said, and the rush you get while playing DOOM Eternal and it's more intense encounters is fantastic.

And just like any other skill-based game, the more you play and learn, the more you'll improve and you'll see your own improvement over time.

If you want to check out Hugo's Series, it starts here:

 

Dankster Morgan

It is better this way
It's just a different game. Both are good games.

Halo: CE is probably my favorite FPS game overall, but I prefer a slower more methodical pace to FPS.
 
It's just a different game. Both are good games.

Halo: CE is probably my favorite FPS game overall, but I prefer a slower more methodical pace to FPS.
Bought the MCC on steam and it's one of my best purchases to date. 343 has done a good job on the PC ports. I'm starting my campaign on Halo: CE and wondered how much I have missed this years by not owning an Xbox before.
 

Dankster Morgan

It is better this way
Bought the MCC on steam and it's one of my best purchases to date. 343 has done a good job on the PC ports. I'm starting my campaign on Halo: CE and wondered how much I have missed this years by not owning an Xbox before.
My only REAL issues with Halo:CE are
-hunters die too easily from precision weapons, and are completely trivialized, even on Legendary with one shot in the back.
-some re used assets - Two Betrayals is Assault on the Control Room backwards, Keyes has re-used areas from Truth and Reconciliation, and The Maw has some similar areas to the Pillar of Autumn. But even then, the encounters are fresh and new. Two Betrayals is probably my favorite FPS level ever.

Like I said before, the difficulty is perfect and you always have options. The atmosphere is incredible, I recommend playing on the old graphics. Every weapon in the sandbox is useful. I dont know man, I could go on about this game. While Halo 2 had better story and Halo 3 had better gameplay, Halo 1 is still my favorite because of how perfectly everything meshes together.
 
I keep telling everyone Xbox is unfairly crapped on for a reason.
Most dudes are PS fans, including me, but MS making its move to shared games and exclusives between PC and Xbox is a solid move imo. Sony is playing catch up with some exclusives going on PC but MS will have a larger library of Xbox games on PC compared to Sony.
 
Most dudes are PS fans, including me, but MS making its move to shared games and exclusives between PC and Xbox is a solid move imo. Sony is playing catch up with some exclusives going on PC but MS will have a larger library of Xbox games on PC compared to Sony.
Yup, I really think Microsoft is on a strong path this generation, and they've been doing shared games and such since last generation. It's surprising how few people realized it!