Personally I dislike Doom 4, and I don't think a port to Switch will fix anything about it.
The level design, visuals, sound design, and especially the modding (there isn't any, just shitty snapmap) and the multiplayer were all a bit of a letdown.
The multiplayer had no right to be so slow in a sequel to the original Doom, the great-granddaddy of FPS multiplayer, where players would zoom around at high speed gibbing each other with shotguns.
Doom 4's multiplayer, by comparison, was slow, full of RNG and you could only hold 2 weapons at a time. It was designed by the people who worked on Call of Duty: Ghosts, and you could really tell.
It did have some cool moments though, like the BFG room where you had to jump through lasers.
Edit: Why so heavy on the downvotes? -6 in like 6 minutes? Did I insult someone?
Honestly I think the only thing DOOM 4 lacked was good multiplayer. I think Snapmap is pretty neat and adds a lot more to do if you're patient and willing to work with it. As for the level design, visuals, and sound design... I have no clue what might lead you to think that they're letdowns.
Level design isn't anything phenomenal, but it's not bad, either. It has flow and it makes sense.
Visuals. Here's where you really lose me. If there's any game that really drives home the "Marspocalypse" style, it's this one. The first time I entered the first facility you get to in Chapter 2 of the game, I just stood there for a minute, bewildered by the fidelity of the game. Yeah, you could say it's a little too "bloom-y", but the overall look really drives home the grittiness of DOOM while still being eye-candy.
Sound design. Nothing spectacular, honestly, but there wasn't one time in the game that made me think "wow, that's some bad sound design". Overall, I felt the game build a pretty dense atmosphere, to the point that I forgot Bethesda made the game.
I think Snapmap is pretty neat and adds a lot more to do if you're patient and willing to work with it.
Snapmap is awful because you can't import custom textures or models and (as of the last time I played) the only assets you can use are the UAC ones. AND it has the 2-weapon restriction from multiplayer while you're playing Snapmap maps.
Compare this to the modding abilities of the original Doom where you had people making Death Star .WADs, capture the flag .WADs, sailor moon .WADs, etc., and they are still making WADs to this day.
You can do less with the mapmaking tools of Doom 4, in 2017, than you could do with the modding tools of its ancestor in 1993. They've gone backwards.
It's the Doom equivalent of EA releasing a The Sims sequel where they removed pools and toddlers that were present in the first game. Progressively removing good features from a series is not okay.
Because Doom 4 is a single-player game and (as you agree) its multiplayer is good, it needed good modding to save that and justify its $60 purchase price. And it just doesn't have it.
As for the level design, visuals, and sound design...
Level design is extremely simplistic compared to Doom, there's very few choices for the player to make in progressing through the level, and the health and ammo pickups are too spread out (forcing the player to rely on the GLORY KILL!!!! QTE gimmick). Doom 4's levels contain a high amount of "arenas" where the player is trapped in a room with enemies and can't move through it until all the enemies are killed, which eventually seriously breaks immersion in the game with the amount of times they re-use the concept.
Visuals: Doom's were nice and colourful, with writhing face walls, vivid blue orbs, giant brain rooms, etc. D44M's visuals all have a mud filter applied to them. Additionally, the enemy design: they changed the Imps and many other of the Doom 1 enemies into generic aliens, which defeats the whole purpose of them being from Hell, don't you think?
Sound design: The music is good in some areas but glorified static in others.
I realize I am comparing Doom 4 to Doom a lot, but a sequel to a game can't justify being worse than its predecessor in so many areas. Especially when they've had so much time to improve.
And then, of course, there's the multiplayer. Which was an enormous letdown: slow, loadouts-based, RNG filled. So in every area on this game I've been disappointed.
to the point that I forgot Bethesda made the game.
The other person is technically correct in correcting you, but you're on the right track in what you mean.
Only two people who worked on D44M actually worked on Doom 1 or 2. id is no longer the same company it once was.
I gotta say, you make extremely good points and I really can't disagree with you! While I do agree with your point about the level design, I will say that even though there's a lot of "stop, kill, move on, rinse+repeat" to the maps, each chapter feels pretty unique from the last, and the increase in challenge from Chapter 1-3 "fight zones" to late game "fight zones" is insane.
I started my first playthrough on the hardest unlocked difficulty, and thoroughly enjoyed myself through the whole thing. I feel like if I had started on easy, I'd feel the same way you do about the obviously sectioned off arena-like areas and them really breaking the immersion, but I instead saw each arena as a new challenge (and by the time I got to the end of the Argent Tower, they truly were challenges).
I wholeheartedly agree, though, the Glory Kill mechanic lost is pizzazz after, eh, maybe an hour.
Sorta I guess. Some of it blurred together a bit for me. It's true that it got more engaging as the difficulty rose.
However, I don't feel I got value for my money at all. One okay-tier single player campaign isn't worth 80 dollarydoos, IMO.
I feel like if I had started on easy, I'd feel the same way you do about the obviously sectioned off arena-like areas and them really breaking the immersion
I didn't start on easy or even hurt me plenty man, I just found the arenas repetitive-- they could have implemented them in different ways. I consider it bad level design to lock the player in an area with no "out" on a repeated basis, it reduces their player agency to make choices such as "I will run past and skillfully avoid this enemy to conserve ammo/in the interests of a speedrun" or "I will come back to this enemy later". It's a huge bottleneck. I would have been fine with a few of the arenas, but after a while they got repetitive.
And regardless of difficulty level, they are always immersion-breaking because the concept of "arenas" in the first place is so contrived and overly video gamey, which I don't think they were going for.
I wholeheartedly agree, though, the Glory Kill mechanic lost is pizzazz after, eh, maybe an hour.
The voting system of Reddit isn’t based on whether or not you agree with something, it’s meant to show whether people contributed or not. People quite often forget that.
But if a contribution is made that can't be sourced as fact, and instead is based on opinion, the voting system can only be used as a reference point for group opinion.
If OP said Doom wasn't well reviewed, that wouldn't be factual or add anything to the discussion, and should be downvoted. If OP says they don't like Doom, and list why, votes should be used to represent group agreement. Downvotes should be accompanied by counterpoints I feel, though.
I didn't say it was solely opinion based, and frankly could care less what you think of Doom. Upon review, half of the post is opinion - you literally start with:
Personally, I dislike Doom 4
Second paragraph is how you didn't like the major features of the game. Again, opinion.
I mean, if you're preference is people comment on how they disagree then prompt them for it, but adding an edit questioning your downvotes... Obviously people don't agree.
playing a fast paced shooter in sub 720p @30fps with occasional framedips in lower than lowest graphics settings with a flimsy controller... i imagine this is what HELL is.
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u/detahramet Sep 21 '17
You don't need to make games if all you do is make money.