Played through DOOM: The Dark Ages. It’s good, and I already wrote a wall of text elsewhere in the comments. The second half of the story is pretty bad, even for Doom standards. I wanna do another playthrough, where I change some of the difficulty sliders.
Yes, but it would still be nice to have in the middle.
I went back to check in Eternal, and I was wrong about that game showing the progress on the icons in the middle of the screen. Just like Dark Ages it just shows charges that are ready to use, and the progress in the full HUD on the edges of the screen. Seems like I just need to get good and look at the full HUD, like I did in Eternal.
80% of the guns were just functionally worthless and parry spam + impaler would solve all, not some, all of my problems
That’s kinda all guns. Seems like ID wanted to please all those people who said they hate the “forced” weapon switching in Eternal and just made everything strong against anything.
the player character expressed flagrant disregard for any narrative elements
They don’t. Doomguy does like two things in the very beginning, but it’s not like they don’t care, but rather about what Hayden has to say and his justifications for everything that has happened, that’s the part which he doesn’t want.
You meet Hayden later in his office, with a few minutes unskippable “cutscene,” but it’s not like Doomguy ignores him or jumps out of a window in the middle of it.
I’m currently playing the game, got like a handful of levels left. It’s a good game, but with the way the Doom games have evolved and changed over the time, I don’t think you can really say “if you like that Doom, you’ll like this Doom.”
I definitely enjoy the gameplay of Eternal more, but Dark Ages is really good.
The feel of running around is great. You sound massive, your jumps create shockwaves and kill enemies. If you’ve played Boltgun, it’s like that.
The shield is feels great. The charge is awesome, just like the Meathook was in Eternal to get right next to your enemy, and fodder demons just explode on impact.
Parries feel good, but are extremely easy. The timing is super forgiving and the range is massive.
I think a big thing, that not many people are talking about, are the difficulty sliders. You can change so many things, but ID just ignores 90% of them with their presets. You can change so much stuff, and make it feel like a completely different game. Crank up the game speed and just zoom around. Increase your and the enemies damage, so it’s all about dodging, or you get one-shot. Make the projectiles slow, but a lot more deadly.
There’s still some ammo management, but it’s not like Eternal, not even like 2016. Your melee attack, that you can use for the execute drops ammo, just like the Chainsaw, but you’re using it regularly anyway. Some guns also have upgrades that shooting demons with it also drops ammo for the weapon.
The game is a lot more story heavy, but just like in Eternal you can just skip it and not read the Codex entries.
The mech stuff is alright, but pretty basic, but also really short segments. The dragon is cool in theory, but I really hate these parts, and they just drag on for far too long. Flying around just isn’t fun.
Weapons are pretty good, and I have some favorites. The normal Combat Shotgun with upgrades is great this time and not just outshined by the Super Shotgun immediately. That Ball-on-a-Chain gun is also really nice, with some cool upgrades. Because you don’t really have any ammo issues if you use the melee regularly, I’ve just used one gun for long stretches of time, because there’s just no reason real reason to switch, and you can just use what you want.
The devs always said in Dark Ages you’re like a tank, but with default settings on Nightmare difficulty, you’re made out of paper. Projectiles are extremely dangerous, and enemies like to spawn behind you and shoot you in the back. The game is actually not great on telling you where you’re getting attacked from, and there’s just always tons of enemies around and some deaths can be kinda frustrating.
Then there are also some minor UI/UX issues. You get small icons in the middle for your melee charges, but they don’t show the progress like in Eternal with the Blood Punch. There’s no dedicated Map button, just open your Dossier, which remembers your last screen, which is annoying, because you want that map 99% of the time. Sprinting has this terrible vignette effect around your screen, and you want to sprint all the time, but you can only disable all screen effects, which includes some stuff I’d like to see.
For some dumb reason, the Fast Travel option, at the end of a level has been removed, so if you miss a secret, you’ll have to play the level again. There’s also tons of points-of-no-return, so you’ll have to stare at the map constantly, to make sure you haven’t missed anything, which makes the lack of a map button so terrible.
After I’m done with my Nightmare run, I want to do another one, where I play around with the sliders a bit. I want to turn up the game speed, but will probably lower the damage and projectile speed to compensate.
Dragons Dogma 2 has Denuvo and a 230k peak. Wukong has Denuvo and 2.4 million peak. FIFA 25, Denuvo, 110k peak (all three just from Steam).
“Normal people” don’t care about DRM.
Under Windows, the 5 machine activations per 24 hours limit they impose wasn’t something I ever hit, but under Linux it’s kind of easy because, as the article states, switching Proton versions counts as a machine activation to Denuvo.
That limit isn’t mandatory with Denuvo and Doom apparently doesn’t have it. On Steam some games mention a limit on the store page, like Atomfall, Atomic Heart or a few Assassin’s Creed games.
The Dark Ages EULA does mention something like Denuvo “may” limit installations, but then never says anything else.
Eternal had Denuvo, but it was removed a year ago, so it probably doesn’t have to do anything with the lower numbers on Steam.
My guess is mainly price and RT.
no reason
money
Hopefully more price increases in regions that don’t have these tarrifs. Can’t have the US pay too much.
The music is by Finishing Move. They’ve mostly done music for Xbox stuff, like Halo: MCC, Halo Wars, Crackdown 3, even MSF, but also Borderlands 3, or Callisto Protocol.
Mick Gordon was already out for the Doom Eternal DLC, Andrew Hulshult did that (Dusk, Amid Evil, Prodeus).
I’ve read a bunch of comments, where people are specifically calling out Marty Stratton, Studio Head at id. He posted an open letter to reddit, placing all the blame for issues with the music and soundtrack for Doom Eternal on Mick Gordon (which Mick later refuted with evidence).
That one at the Illios Well? I know that one and have played it a few times in the past.
I haven’t played yet, but the music in the trailers wasn’t that special.
Imma be honest though, while the music in 2016 and Eternal is great on its own, in the moment, while fighting, I really didn’t care, and was more concerned about surviving and blasting demons. I just re-played Eternal, and I couldn’t tell you a single music track that I remember.
Edit: Just finished the first level. By default, the sound effects are so loud, that I barely hear the music during a fight, which is fine by me. Just like in the previous games, outside of combat it’s mostly ambient and no music.
These past couple of days, I’ve been always queuing flex and I got 5x DPS in 60+ games, including one in the final 10s of a loss, where I didn’t even make it to the point.
It doesn’t really bother me, I like Tank and Support, and since Blizzard added a bunch of them when OW2 came out, so there’s still a lot to try and learn.
Decided to give Overwatch 2 a shot, until the new Doom is out.
First time playing OW in a couple of years, just doing normal 5v5 Quick Play, and it’s been fun. Mostly Tank and Support, but occasionally the Matchmaking Algorithm graces me with a DPS game. Current favorite heroes: Hazard and Orisa for Tank, Brigitte and Juno for Healer, and Venture for DPS.
After I’m done with Doom, I’ll take a look at Stadium, the new game mode that was added to OW recently.
No cosmetics pretty much disqualifies almost every game, because all of them have it, even old games.
In my comment before, I probably wouldn’t describe cosmetics as a grind. You just unlock stuff on the side, as a bonus, since most of it is random. It’s not like you’re going to play a thousand games of Ursa in Dota to unlock some rare skin.
What do you want? Lots of games fit that description.
In some shooters, you basically only grind for cosmetics, like Overwatch, Marvel Rivals or Counter-Strike. Dota 2 is a Moba and also only has cosmetic unlocks, I think.
Maybe Minecraft or Terraria? I don’t think you really grind in these games, but you do very similar stuff all the time.
I think the OW team was already pretty good in that regard, and Jeff Kaplan tried to “protect” them, even if that didn’t always result in the best decisions for the game.
The Slayer has been activated.
Love that line.
Looks exactly the same as all the other non-future Anno games, although I don’t remember if your citizens disliked living next to a pig farm in 1800.
I don’t remember if I ever played through a story mission or scenario in the previous games. I always just start an Endless Game, set the difficulty all the way down, with no other NPCs, and just build until I’m satisfied. Looking forward to doing the same thing here.