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

Man, once again, id does what id does best: making me feel like the most badass mother fucker to ever exist. Doom 2016 brought me into the franchise with a ton of fun, fast paced gameplay that the series is known for. While I’ve had a love for shooters since I was a kid, no COD, Halo, or other “boots on the ground” gameplay could’ve prepared me for how insane and destructive Doom’s gameplay loop is, but it felt relatively small in scope compared to its sequels. Doom Eternal took everything that made 2016 great and ramped it up to 11. The mission variety was much more diverse and led to an overall better campaign, but to me, the combat enhancements and constant need for platforming and crazy ass agility often left me feeling a bit overwhelmed. I looove Eternal but sometimes it’s hard to go back to with how much is going on all at once. The Dark Ages is the perfect middle ground for me. As much as it feels kinda silly adding a shield to Doom, the way it’s implemented makes it a welcome addition to the franchise. The gameplay is still as zany and intense as it has been before, but has been simplified down to some core features: an arsenal of guns, a couple of melee weapons, and a shield, each of which working in tandem with each other to create a rhythm. At times when it began to feel overwhelming, I never thought that there was anything I couldn’t do. I wanted to push through fights. I didn’t avoid challenge areas. I wanted to explore the levels way more than I did with the other games and it just feels so freaking good. My only complaint is that there are some heavy frame drops in highly populated areas. Normally, I wouldn’t care too much about it, but the speed of the game is directly tied to framerate. So if it drops all the way down to 40 fps, it begins to feel like I’m playing in slow motion. That being said, I can’t even bring myself to remove a point from it because it’s JUST SO FUCKING FUN