Doom Beta Hands-On

Come for the demons, stay for the multiplayer?

The Doom beta has come and gone over the weekend and if players didn’t get a chance to tackle the insane amount of carnage, they might not know what they are missing. Ok let me go ahead and preface this by saying I’m not the biggest multiplayer guy. I prefer my games being all about single player or co-op with story elements and wild action. It’s far and few between where I play a multiplayer experience that captures me and keeps me enthralled. Doom has always been a story driven, single player experience for me and I am highly looking forward to that for the new trip to hell. Luckily, Bethesda and Id decided to give me a chance to play the Beta and I walked away, broken, bloody, but impresses.

Brutally fast paced!

The small taste of the DOOM experience I had simply blew me away. It was fast, graphic, fun, and took me back to an era of first person multiplayer I haven’t quit felt since the early days of Goldeneye and Unreal Tournaments. I started off picking out one of the characters and their load out and away I went. While I will admit the bright colors and outfits for the characters players can select felt a bit out of place, I also started to wonder if they did that so it would be easier to see the teammates and opposing side. I’d imagine everyone in dark and drab colors, might not be so noticeable in an arena that is in itself a bit darker than most.

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Once I had full control of my character and the session began I was immediately sucked in by the fast speed of the player. The damage that I could see from shooting a rocket in an enemies face was immediately satisfying. After death, even the wait to jump back into the fray didn’t last too long before I was chasing or being chased by the other team. Jumping into platforms, being shot into the air, shooting rockets, never felt more satisfying.

The feeling of speed and power in player’s hands does a great job of providing that critical feedback when in combat. When one of the demon icons drops, it becomes a mad dash to obtain and gain control of the rocket shooting, rocket pack enemy. Flying around the arena, shooting rockets at breakneck speed becomes highly cathartic when in control. In reverse, if the other team gets a chance, the feeling of tension and stress as this person comes barreling in the player’s direction with rockets firing every which way is nerve-wracking, jumping, moving, and evading as quick as possible.

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All I see is RED

The DOOM beta was only a small taste of what the final game has to offer obviously, but much like certain creatures in the world, once getting a taste of blood, I wanted more. The only main concern at this point was some of the screen tearing occurring. It wasn’t happening constantly, but enough to notice, granted the speed of the game helped mask it a bit more so. DOOM is fast, adrenaline inducing, and this is only from a small glimpse into the multiplayer modes.

If the full campaign can mirrors some of these moments and the online multiplayer continues to run as well as it did, with all the thrills we got here, every FPS fan will be in for one hell of a ride. I pre-ordered DOOM for the single player, now I can add multiplayer to that list as the seemingly long wait continues till May 13th, 2016. I’ve been waiting since DOOM 3, I think I can handle another month.

DOOM’s Open Beta will run from April 15 through 17 for all players to experience the carnage.

Written by
Justin is a long time passionate fan of games, not gaming drama. He loves anything horror related, archaeology inspired adventures, RPG goodness, Dr Pepper, and of course his family. When it comes to crunch time, he is a beast, yet rabies free we promise.

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