5/5 ★ – 321gametime's review of DOOM: The Dark Ages.

What I've learned to love the most about Doom is how different all the games can feel. Even with the original doom trilogy (1, 2, 64) each of those games introduce something different. The biggest difference between that trilogy and the reboot is just how big of a difference each game has. There is a high chance that someone only likes one of the games in this new trilogy. The Dark Ages is definitely going to split people. I'm sure we can all agree that it is a good game, but HOW good it is will depend on personal taste. I love many games in the Doom franchise, but none of them I don't think I can call one of my all time favorite FPS games...until now. This game feels catered to my personal taste in FPS. I love the epic story and large levels, which reminds me a lot of Halo. The mech levels gave me the power fantasy I missed from the Titanfall franchise. The dragon levels were a nice pace breaker and reminded me a lot of Star fox. The artstyle is so unique and some levels really dive deep into an abstract, weird style I love. The core gameplay though is still doom at it's very core. A new taste of doom but still doom. Each of the weapons pack a punch and are so much fun to upgrade and customize. The melee weapons are so much fun and flow much nicer into the combat loop than any previous doom melee system. The best part of it all though is the shield. It's an easy to learn mechanic, but leaves a lot of room for pro players to abuse and push the game to the extreme. Imagine if all of Eternal's resource management and weapon switching was put into one item. The shield does such a good job at this and I love it. It's easy to say that this is without a doubt my favorite doom game. It is insane how much Id was able to put into this game. The only thing I found to be weak is the music. Not to say it's bad, but I miss Mick Gordon's soundtrack so much. Overall though, this is without a doubt one of the best FPS games I have ever played, and I am so unbelievably excited to see what they do with the DLC, both in terms of gameplay and story.