(Conan The Demon Slayer) Doom: The Dark Ages

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Been awhile, 5 years since Doom Eternal came out. Everybody from their moms to their dads to their uncles who played Brutal Doom mods were talking about the new Doom games. How they redefined arena combat with continuous momentum and brutal gun blasting.

Frankly, Eternal had quite the mixed reception, because it was all over the place, I thought it was fine, but the Marauders sure made me question things. id software took that feedback very seriously, so they made a game where you stomp the ground hard, use a shield to deflect, switching weapons to deal with hordes of enemies, and tactically work around the stronger ones.

I don't mind the switch up, but this feels like a different Doom game, almost like the Doom fans now plays Musuo and Metroid games. It's streamlined, fun, yet it's almost borderline insulting to the hardcore fans as it plays pretty safe. I do think it stands out pretty well.

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• Before UAC

Right before you depart for the slaughter, the game gives a plethora of difficulty options to mess around with. For this kind of game, this provides a different kind of experience even on replay. But yeah, I had a feeling it wasn't going to be difficult, so I chose Ultra-Violence.

Ok, so the story, this takes places way before Doom 2016 in Argent D'nur. Around the time that the demons started their assault on the human establishments and the Sentinels, the Maykr have kept the Doomslayer as a secret weapon to deal with the demon army. Eventually he breaks out, and becomes point-man to resolve out this FUBAR situation.

• Ravaged kingdoms

Look, you don't need to pay attention to the story, it's super derivative on the world-building, and narrative moments. They have substance, but you'll care more about where they take you. As you should because damn, the battlefields as well as the worlds are spectacular to behold upon.

Combat is similar to Eternal, as in you have to ration ammo properly, but your other methods of engaging is with your shield, the shield pummels, acting as a gap closer, while it can block attacks and deflect anything that is green. Instead of chainsawing, you smash enemies with your fist for ammo or, after exhausting them, run up and engage in kill action.

Open world map design with the emphasis being bigger, because you'll deal with a lot of grunts. They're fodder for situation adjustments, it's the big guys you need to worry about. Punching them easily takes their health down, but doing the shield pummel to deflecting their blasts back does a lot to play their attrition game against them. You don't have to worry about health pick-ups and ammo, either, since they're everywhere. But it's a balancing act, much like the prior games.

As I progress further, the game gets more challenging, clamoring more different enemies, each of them have strengths and weaknesses characterized. You can boomerange throw your shield, it shreds the enemies and then after an upgrade, the rounds richochet.

The needler gun turns into an impaler with limited ammo, but headshots easily kill almost anyone of them. Some enemies will have armor, so will need sustained damage till they're flesh, and you can easily kill them. Especially the champion enemies, who will reward me with bonus loot or increase my max health and shield even. It's a nonstop journey of conquest.

Heck, Doomguy jumping down from high altitude, can kill by stomping on the ground. I might feel a bit iffy about the platforming, due to the skateboard collision effect, exploring and doing puzzles to find the secret levels are great distraction. There are a lot of stuff to find, even codexes. If you're kind of interested in the lore, that is. I still think early Doom writing works better.

There's plenty to do around the game, all you have to do is continue to do the missions, and the crazier the gameplay will get. Trust me, I underestimate earlier, never again. That being said, the game did feel a tadbit easier to play somehow.

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• Medieval Brawling

Ok, so you might have seen the trailers, having to ride a winged beast and donning a giant mecha, yeah, it's like I'm playing Metroid for some reason. Some of the gameplay concepts here are so basic, it has me asking if this all was last minute.

The mecha keeps punching the meter goes up, super punches to stun-lock and then rinse till enemy is killed. Sometimes even stomping the ground. Dodging green highlighted attacks supercharges my damage. Eventually I do get to shoot a turret gun, I like that you can see literal chunks of enemy skin and armor coming out, but it's pretty basic outside that even.

• Pimp my slayer up

Now, you can play the game without looking for secret locations, I would suggest you don't skip all. You need to find resources like crystals and gold to upgrade the weapons. Heck, Life Sigils could mean a big difference between life and death. Some boss battles can be intimidating. Shield pummelling would punish me hard, had to play safe around this one, especially since it shot spewing acid rounds. Imagine deflecting the green projectiles around that. Its armor is also bulletproof.

Remember what I said, it feels easier than the other games, but there's enough going on to keep the game engaging. Hey, you know what, this reminds me of the Painkiller sequels. You have drop-dead gorgeous visuals, runs smoother than baby bottoms, and gameplay that is in spirit to its series.

There's so much to pain attention to, grunts with plasma shield once destroyed by my plasma rifle damage can kill anyone close to them. Metal shields take hits until they burn red, where I throw my shield has the same effect, while refilling my shield bar.

There are Imps that will Sonic Hedgehogs themselves at me, unless I can deflect right, if not I suffer great damage. In fact, they're scarier than the freaking Hellknights. It's more tactical, I need to eliminate quicker, but also survive much as possible. Upgrading my weapons, shield, melee while scavenging for runes shifts the combat fundamentally even.

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• Still plenty fun to get

I'm loving this game, but the shortcomings are pretty obvious. The main plot isn't interesting, B movie cutscenes, OST falls short of the orchestral genius of Mike Gordon's earlier works, removal of glorykills, the lackluster feeling I got with the mecha, and lastly, even the beast riding experience.

Same thing as the mecha, just avoid the green thing, and damage goes brrrr. I like that I can even do high-speed chases of flying demons while shooting at them, but the movement controls leave more to be desired. These are nitpicks, not net negatives. But I have a feeling hardcore fans will say more. I also experienced my game crashing a lot, maybe it's a Game Pass thing. This is still a very fun game on its own, hours of content jam packed for your carnal pleasure.

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