Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Doom Eternal Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 12

Episode Date: March 17, 2020

Blessing, Andy, Imran, and Nick give their review of Doom Eternal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yo, what's up? Welcome to Kind of Funny Gamescast, Doom Eternal Review. I'm one of your host Blessing at Yale, Jr. And joining me is Twitch.tv.com. Andy, how's it going? I'm doing fantastic, Bless. I'm keeping safe. I'm hydrating. I'm taking a lot of vitamin C. I hope you're doing the same. Oh, dude, I'm doing all those things. I'm taking the vitamin C. I'm hydrating. I'm staying at least six feet away from all my neighbors, from all my roommates, trying to stay healthy. I'm eating healthy bless. Yesterday I consumed only sunflower seeds, so I'm doing great. Oh, wow. Wow, yeah, you're killing it. Speaking to the people who are killing it,

Imran, the Don Khan is also joining us. Imran, how's going? I'm doing well. I'm not keeping healthy at all. I decided to make Philly fries today, which is a not healthy food, but otherwise I'm doing all right. What are Philly fries?

They're fries with like Philly cheese steak stuff on top. Oh, boy. Oh, wow. They're fries that wrap the Fresh Prince theme. Yes, exactly. Exactly. You put it in the oven. It just the constant fresh prince thing for an hour. Because of Philadelphia. Yeah, bless. Yeah.

Yeah. Also joining us is the producer slash Slayer, Nick Scarpino. Oh, what's up, everyone? How's it going, dude? It's good, man. I'm pretty much on Amron's side on this one. The only thing I ate today was pepperoni. I'm drinking. Andy's, Andy's dosing vitamin C, and I'm just drinking Coke Zero and eating pepperoni. Hell yeah, dog.

It's going to be so. so hard to not fall into vacation, like vacation tactics of eating like crap, sleeping in way too late. I stay up until 3 o'clock in the morning when Doom last night. I sit up until 4. And I was like, that was about 1.30. My wife was like, what are you doing? I'm like, oh, I forgot. I got to actually work all day tomorrow. God, if people, if people don't realize at this point, the vibes are probably a little bit different because we're all working from home. We're all Skyping in, or not even Skyping in. We're using an application all kind of come together and be able to record audio.

And so people on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games, you're seeing what I imagine is like some sort of static screen or some sort of gift screen. We don't have our faces on the screen. But for audio listeners, hopefully things aren't too much different. Today, we're reviewing Doom Eternal because this is kind of funny games cast each and every week, four, sometimes five best friends gather around this table to talk about the big gaming topic of the week. Before we get into our Doom Eternal review discussion, it's time for some housekeeping.

Thank you to our Patreon producers, James Davis, David Mindell, Muhammad Mohammed Mohammed, Momo, the neobiologist, Frank Furter, Thalia Floyd, Hesius Berrio, Amon Martin, William A. Nance, Billy Leporta, Michael Bradley, Robin Weiland, Tom Bach, Jordan Lewick, Julian Grudadaria, Max A. Blair, Cody Banks, Agent Cody Banks, Trent Berry, Jacob Pleak III, Thomas J. Mayhan, Sanchez, Sean I. Evan May, Stephen Insler, Elliot Koshk, David Norwich, Ben Wolf, Adam Bancurst, Evan Ballard, Keith Lewis, James Hastings, Quaid Burnett, Casey Kern, Luke Patterson, Travis Rahe, and Joseph O. Youstaff. Thank you all for your support on Patreon. We still have a bunch of Patreon producers. So we appreciate you guys. And then today we're brought to you by Upstar, but I'll tell you about that later. For now, let's be in your graduating class of 2020. Andy, this is like, does this It sounds like Billy LaPorta should have been a guy that got in trouble for betting on his own team. Oh, God.

Of course, dude. Boy Leporta sounds like the protagonist to like the new Superbad movie or something like that. Like Billy Lopoda, I pretty sure was in the departed. He got banished from the league years ago. He's like a Jason Sudecass movie or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. The great name, Billy Loporta, if you're listening to this.

It's my new favorite. So let's go around in a circle and talk about our history with the Doom franchise. Andy, I'm going to start with you. Are you familiar or are you familiar? Have you played Doom in the past? Do you have any sort of relationship with the Doom franchise? The OG Doom is a game that, funny enough, I would play on my church's PC. My dad kind of ran the finances for my church and was the one kind of dealing with all the Excel spreadsheets and all that fun junk.

And when I would go to church with them like after hours, I would play Doom on the church PC. and it was super inappropriate, but it was just cool seeing. I never grew up a PC gamer. I didn't have, I never really played Quake. I played like the Sims in a couple of matches of Unreal Tournament because of some free demo that was going around on the internet. But yeah, Doom isn't a game that I played a whole lot of. And so I just don't have those touchstones to the franchise like most do.

But I played the hell out of Doom 2016, and I loved it. and it was one of my favorites that year and one of my favorite games of all time. Well, Amaral, what about you? I have a similarly inappropriate story as Andy that I remember a friend's grandmother died, so we all went there and, like, as a family, went to go, like, you know, do the nice visit thing.

Chain spreader in half? Basically, yes. But the friend, like, showed me Doom on his PC, and I was like, oh, this is so fucking cool. I really wanted to play this game. So I ended up buying, I think, Doom for S&ES. or renting it or something and I'm playing the hell out of it

I played the other Doom games over the years, Doom 64 and all that, but I never really got into it. And I think it was like, not even Doom 2016 really got it for me, but when we played Doom Eternal a couple of months ago, I was like, oh, this game Rocks.

I have been missing out. So I went back and played Doom 2016 a couple of weeks ago than just play this right now. And Rocks has got, rocks is the perfect verb. Yeah. Well, how do you feel about Doom 2016

when you went back and played it? I thought the first half the game was amazing. I thought the second half the game was a really repetitive, but I forgave it for a lot of that just because it was like so well-paced and so fun. Nick, what about you? What's your history with Doom? Oh, man. I mean, I remember playing, well, let me take you back.

Before we talk Doom, I want to talk to you about Wolf 3D or Wolfenstein, right? Remember that game? So my, my, I think it was my junior high band director was like, hey, you got this cool game for PC. It's called Wolf or Wolfensine 3D or not Wolfensstein 3D. or not Wolfstein 3, Wolfensai. And he gave me it on like 20 floppy disks to install. And then after that, I'm pretty sure when Doom came out, it was a very similar experience

where it was like, hey, you have to, you can install this. But it was literally you put the first one and installed it and said, please insert the next disc. So you kept doing it over and over again until it would like load it on your computer. And we played the crap out of Doom. And if I'm not mistaken back in the day, one of my buddies, Ryan was actually the guy that got me at the job at IGN. I think he in the computer lab, a freshman year in high school.

And this would have been 1994, 95. So this might not check out. But I'm pretty sure he was able to land connect like four computers together. And we were able to play against each other, which I think was in the original doom. It was just awesome until they figured out what was happening. It was one of those situations where like the person running the lab was an older person who had no idea you could do that. And when they saw what we were doing, they were like, you're out. You get kicked out of a computer lab forever.

So that was pretty amazing. but I remember playing the hell out of that. And then, of course, when Quake came out, we played that a lot. We used to have land parties for that as well. And then as far as Doom 2016, I was sort of, I had the same vibe that Emron had where I played the first couple hours of it. And I'm like, this just seems repetitive and thin. And so I'm actually excited to go back and play that now that I have a little more context for it

with Doom Eternal. But I'm going to think, I have to guess it's going to be the same experience, though, because Doom Eternal, I was not expecting it to be as dense as it is. Yeah, Doom for me was one of those games growing up, where I probably played like maybe the first level or two quite a few times, but I always conflated it with like Duke Nukem and Wolfenstein. And in my, as a kid growing up, those games all kind of blended together for me because those were like the classic

first person shooters. Yeah. So it wasn't until Doom 2016 where I became super aware of Doom specifically as a franchise. And when I played Doom 2016, that game actually kind of blew my mind a bit. because I kind of had the same feeling that Imran had when he played the preview for Doom Eternal where I was like, oh shoot, this is awesome. Like the fast-paced nature of this, the like the nonstop action, the soundtrack, all of it was really viving with me.

And by the time I finished it, Doom 2016, I'd say it's one of my favorite first-person shooters of the Shen. Like probably one of my favorite first-person shooters of all time, honestly. Like I really, really, really dug Doom 2016. And so going into Doom Eternal, I was, I've kind of had. had like really high hopes for it. And so let's talk about Dume Eternal. At this point, where are we at with the game in terms of how much we played it?

Amron, how far are you? I finished it about an hour ago. Oh, wow. Nice. How long did you take you? Who? I don't know the exact hour count, but I would guess somewhere in the area of 16 to 20 hours. Nice.

Andy, what you? I beat it last night. Well, I beat it about 11 hours ago. I beat it at 4 in the morning. It probably took me close to 20. I'd say maybe 18 to 20, a little bit longer than I thought it was going to be. Yeah. I also finished it, I'd say earlier yesterday.

And I'd say it took me about 16 to 20 hours. Nick, what about you? Yeah, that sounds about right. I'm not done with it yet. I'm about 16 hours in from what you guys were talking about before. It sounds like I'm going to go. 20 hours with it. I'm like right before the last mission. Yeah, it's definitely a game that keeps going. Like we were talking about it either yesterday or the day before where we're

asking each other like, okay, we're at with this game, like how long is it taking? And I thought I was at the final boss. And so I was like, oh, yeah, like 15 hours probably. And then the game just keeps going and going and going. And so like, you told me that. And then I planned accordingly. I was like, oh, okay, 15 hours. So I'll just give myself like 10 hours yesterday to play or seven hours yesterday to play it. And now I've got like 10 hours left still. Yeah. When I when I told you bless where I was and you said, uh, man, you've got about six or seven more hours. And I was like, dang, that's, that's quite a while. Holy shit. And so yesterday my plan was that after we did our sort of test stream to test out all the technology, all this over over the internet podcasting

stuff, I was like, oh, I'll play Doom. I'll beat it. And then I'll hop online and play college duty with my friends. And then I was telling them, like, at 11 p.m., yeah, I should be done in a bit. Finish at 4 in the fucking morning, dude. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's like my main problem with the game is it reminds me of the ending of Uncharted 4 where that game just kept going.

But it's still good. So, like, my main issue is that there's just a lot more doom. Yeah. If you're into that, great. You're going to love it. I mean, one of the complaints they had would, dude, 2016, I remember talking to the director about this, was that the original game had like around the halfway point. It just started doing the same things over and over and over again. And people

complained a lot about that. But I'm guessing for this one, they decided to take that to heart and make it all new original, honestly exciting content. It just goes on for so, it goes on just as long. Yeah. And let's just get into our thoughts on it because I have like a lot about a lot with that. that kind of feeds into my overall impressions of Doom Eternal because overall, I think Doom Eternal is an incredible game. I think they took what worked in Doom 2016 and really furthered every single aspect of it. Like the thing they kind of added that feels new in this one is all the platforming and all like the obstacles and stuff. And I think that stuff works. Like it never felt gimmicky. Like every time I was doing like the wall jumping and then climbing

and all that stuff, it never got to the point where I was like it, it never felt like I was doing it just to do it. It felt like stuff that felt somewhat purposeful, given that that stuff's in a game that is strictly a first-person shooter. That said, overall, as a shooter, I think, like, it's, it's very fast. Like, I feel like it's faster than Doom 2016. Granted, I haven't played Doom 2016 recently. I don't know if you guys feel, like, Imron, you said you played Doom 2016 very recently. How did this game feel in speed comparatively? Because I felt like this game amped things up. I'm not sure the game itself is any faster, but my mind had to move away faster because there's just so much more I'd keep in mind when I was playing. Like, it's so resource management heavy.

And that's like not even a bad thing. It's more thinking man shooter than Doom 2016 was, which means that I have to constantly be moving around with an eye towards what I need to be doing next. While I was in Doom 2016, it was, I mean, honestly, it was more point in shoot than this game is. Yeah, 100%. It sort of reminds me of, like one thing I enjoyed about the bigger encounters, which I had to drop the difficulty a couple of times for. But it kind of reminds me of playing Catana Zero where you die and then you know, okay, this enemy is going to pop out here. I'll use this thing on that and then I'll go and it becomes like a rhythm game. You fall into this sort of this rhythm of knowing what things are going to take out certain enemies.

and by the end of the game, it was weird because I felt myself either I was in the best rhythm of all time and I was just like, again, bless you mentioned like 200 IQ galaxy brain shit, you know, like I'm just like I'm seeing the matrix right now knowing all the moves I need to do. But then there were some moments where I was getting frustrated in certain enemy encounters

and I would think to myself, how the fuck do I even get life back? Like I forgot what button does? that you know this because it gets really flustering you know i get flustered i think that's when that's when this game is at its most magical is when you feel when you feel like you're seeing the matrix and you feel like you are firing on all cylinders because the juggle in this game of okay cool i need ammo and so i need a chainsaw my enemies so that they'll give me ammo i also need health so i need to uh glory kill my enemies so that i can get health or i can get this and i can get this upgrade that'll let me that'll make

it so that if i freeze my enemies then i can get health out of them also and so i I can keep that in mind and put all my upgrading into like my freezing skill or whatever. By the way, I also need armor, right, which is the thing where I didn't find myself caring too much about armor until later in the game where I realized that like armor is, is valuable for the fact that it's another pickup that you can get and manage. And so once I kind of figured that out, I was like, okay, cool. Like this juggle of all the resources and managing like your chainsaw and your flame thores so you can get armor plus like being on the aggressive side so like you can get health out of

opponents like that's stuff that they introduced in the first doom where in this doom it feels like they they focused so much on that juggle that yeah like when you are in a very difficult combat encounter that uh that juggle feels like you are like seeing the matrix and i think that's when this game is at its best is when you when you are thinking at like a million miles per hour and you're at certain points though it does feel like it is it can get overbearing like this game is way more difficult than yeah oh my god i agree the biggest departure like it is it is It got hard. Towards the end of the game, I was getting really frustrated, honestly.

Yeah. I started to, too, to the point where I had to, like, lower the... I didn't want to lower the difficulty. And if I wasn't playing it for this review, I probably would have kept it. But there was one fight where it was, like, it was, like, three waves, and each of those waves had, like, a super heavy boss. And it got ridiculous to the point where I was, like, if I don't lower this, I'm not going to be able to finish it.

How good is that feeling, though? The fast guy is a shield, man. How good is that feeling when you, when you go in and you, you... you take down one of those guys. You're like, oh, that was a great boss battle. And then, like, later in the game, 15 more of them show up. Yeah. Well, there's a guy.

There's typically the marauder who starts showing up in regular battles. Oh, my God. It is the most frustrating thing in the world. Because when that guy is in battle, your only choice is to just either engage him only or run away. Yeah. Or, thankfully, he has a wolf dog or a ghost dog that chase is after you. Oh, God. The damn wolf dog.

That dog is like a step too much. Yeah. There are moments where you're, well, first off. I think we should kind of go around and just say what we think really, really quick about it before we start nitpicking. Or just, you know, I think the game's fucking incredible. It is so beautiful. It's weird seeing a game on a PS4 Pro, which I think it's running at 1440P and it's uprest to 4K. But it is, it's so damn clear.

Like the clarity on the models, the anti-aliasing, it doesn't look like. uh like for example i'm thinking of when i played a jetti fall in order you know like you play that on performance mode and it's at 1080p and it's upres the force to 4k and it's kind of muddy looking and it's kind of it's kind of gross in some areas but this game it looks like i was running it on a pc it's so damn pretty uh the texture the fidelity the v effects like everything in this game is just so you could tell there so much heart and hard work and passion went into making this. I had a blast of it and I can't wait for more people to play it and buy it and hopefully we get more doom.

Yeah. Amron, what about you? What are your overall thoughts on it? I think I still stand by what I said during the preview of I am shocked at how much this is probably going to be a game of the year candidate, even in a year that I think is more than likely going to be full of amazing generation-defining games.

I think Doom Eternal is going to be up there. And I even there there are issues I had with it as we were playing it. And like a lot of those are compacted by the fact that we had to play it for a view. And you know, that causes like time depression, things like that. Yeah. But overall it's like when I finished that game, it was like, okay, yeah. I 100% got the vision they were going for. And that's not a thing you can say about most games.

Yeah. Nick, what are your overall thoughts? I really like a lot. I was not expecting to, especially after the first couple hours where I found myself being fresh. traded by the learning curve and it's not it's not something that I expected from a doom game that there needed to be a learning curve but I'm with you guys right when when the game is at its best is when you're just in that flow state and I usually think that's probably around seven o'clock in the evening but come two o'clock in the morning it's the most frustrating ever because your brain

just needs to be firing on all cylinders and that's a knock against me not the game if that makes sense no yeah I totally agree I do think there were moments towards the end where you you find yourself in the lead up to getting a cool big item that's like, oh, this is a big story beat. The lead up to that just drags on and drags on. And you're like, this should get going. You know, like it reminds you of whenever we review movies that we really like. And it's like, God, this movie's so great.

But if you just trim the fat a bit, you know, again, my biggest problem with the game is that it's a little too much. But if you're totally down with more doom, then you're going to love it anyway, I just think that pacing-wise, there's moments where it's like, man, we're towards the end. And I'm still kind of doing this very weird, monotonous kind of boring stuff. And it's really killing the vibe right now. Every time the game goes, hey, we need to do two of these things to open this door. And I was like, really, really, motherfuckers?

We're going to do this again? Yeah, most are like the few and far between like weird shoe horny stuff that they put in there. Like the whole, like, yeah, we had to do, you have to punch like the two things. things at the same time to open a door. It's like, why is this here? Yeah, for me, those more at the frustrating points. It's just it is that sort of extra, hey, you're an enclosed area, and we're just going to throw waves of bosses at you over it, over and over again

until you get to this thing that you need. It just, one fewer would have been nicer for me. I agree. But I do feel like, and again, we have to, you know, we're playing this obviously for review, so I was rushing through it. I wish I could have kind of laid back. but I don't know that I would have finished it if that were the case. That's kind of been a thing in my experience playing the game because I feel like when I first got the code,

I kind of started on it immediately because it was like a good, it was like a weird pallet cleanser after Ori and the World of the Whist, where I was getting frustrated with that game for different reasons because that game is more about figuring things out. And once I started playing Doom, I was like, okay, cool, this is perfect because this is like pure gameplay, which is what I need right now. And I found that, one, I think I paced myself pretty good for the first. I'd say three-fourths of this game for this review where I started immediately and played quite a bit

that first night, played quite a bit the next day and quite a bit the next day. And I was making good headway in terms of my path toward completion for this review. And I found that whenever I would get to a fight that seemed like it was going to be a difficult one or one that was going to frustrate me, I would take a break and then come back.

And like there's almost like a taxing that this game has on your brain where if I get, get to a difficult fight and I die over and over again and I hit that frustration. Once I like take a break and come back, I feel refreshed and reenergized. And I have an absolutely amazing time coming back to it and having fun getting into those difficult encounters because now like my brain is back to like firing on all cylinders and getting back into that that juggle of like armor and health and all that stuff. Yeah, there's nothing worse than there was nothing worse than being in the

midst of a battle and you're frustrated beyond all comprehension and then you get soft locked because you have no more ammo left and there's three super enemies like hunting you down and all you have is your chainsaw but you can't saw them so it's just like well I guess I'm just going to die here and it's moments like that where where it is like it's not the game's fault but it just it still sucks Like, if I would have just, if I would have managed my resources better in the prior fight, I would have been better. But you get so flustered sometimes that you just, you're just like, I just want to kill everything. I want to kill everything. You know, I'm so like, there's so many things coming at me.

I'm getting, I'm getting body blocked in hallways by these giant enemies. I'm trying to, I'm trying to glory kill this one guy. But this guy with the fat dudes with the fucking shields that they project up or block. to me, good Lord. Like, it just gets really, really frustrating. But I think a lot of that is just, again, the Katana Zero, um, hotline Miami mindset of you die several times, but now you know what path to take, what enemies to take down first.

And it becomes a cool little, like, dance, you know. Yeah. I got more frustrated with the platforming than I ever did the battles, honestly. Oh, really? I love the platforming. That's weird. And most of it's fine. There's like the occasional times where it's like, well, I don't, they do a very good job

by saying green lights are where you need to be. Yeah. And there's this like occasional issue was like, okay, is this a green light I'm looking for? Or is this a green light that led me here? Or I can't see the next green light because I'm going to a platform that is about to fall and I don't have that much time to look for the next one. Is that the one?

Can I make that jump? And there have been one or two times in the game. I would say three to four times in the game where that, that would frustrate me. There was one time where I just could not find my way through the area, straight up for like 40 minutes. I know exactly what time you're talking about. Is it like an office park building? No, it was like in a highway kind of thing.

And like there was a part where you have to fall down a tunnel and then there's a tunnel to the side. And I just could not figure that out for some reason. And like I was there just killing gargoyles for like 20 minutes. I couldn't like figure out how to get through there. But there's times like that where the game does an usually excellent job of signposting where you're supposed to go. So those few times where it doesn't do a great job, feel a lot harder on you.

Yeah, I've only had a couple little grives of the platforming. One of which was, and I don't know why this is a thing now in modern game design, but I hate that you have to hit a button to cling to the clingable walls. Like, I cannot,

I don't understand why when you, it used to be when you got close to an area that you could climb up, your character would automatically just grab onto it. Maybe I'm completely crazy but the fact that I have to hit an extra button to climb up a wall annoys the hell out of me. That and if you're going to introduce a water underwater mechanic, please do it earlier in the game because man, this thing pops up 15 hours in.

I was like, oh, we're going underwater now and you can't jump out of the water. And I'm like, the guy can dash through the air twice, but he can't jump out of the water. This is the most frustrating. I lost three extra lives. Yeah. Underwater because I couldn't. I was like, I can't figure out where to go. That is.

Let me get out of the water. That is exactly the part I was mentioned. earlier where yeah the game you kind of wanted to keep going and you want that momentum to keep driving you forward and you're trying to get this damn item but now you have to do the underwater poisonous toxic waters bullshit and and and it was at that point I was like I just want this to end man like I'm I am at odds of myself right now um I kind of cheated though when I played this game because I used my astro controller and I set my dash to my back paddle and that I cannot recommend that more guys like that that that way of that method of

playing these games if you're playing on a game pad instead of like keyboard mouse or whatever uh PS PlayStation makes their official back paddle attachment uh which is fairly cheap or if you have like a like a scuff or an Xbox elite controller or whatever it's so helpful I put I put my jump button on my left click because that's how I play overwatch and then I put my dad on my on that back paddle so I never ever rear I rarely took my thumb off of the right stick and that made maneuvering and getting around the world a lot of fun and it was made a little bit easier for me so I'm glad you mentioned that Andy because like so I played doom 2016 on mouse and keyboard I played the preview for Doom Eternal on mouse and keyboard I thought mouse and keyboard actually functions for

these games way better than a controller not only for the reasons you mentioned of like you constantly have to take her hand off the analog stick to do things that really should be using the analog stick at the same time. But also just like simple aiming things, like the precision bolt doesn't feel as good on a controller. Yeah, I'm with you. Like the, when we're doing the original Doom Eternal Preview, like there was the introduction of, hey, hit the Arcatron, like with the Aractotron or whatever they're called, with the bomb on the turret.

Yeah. And I could do that every single time with massive keyboard. I was fumbling with the controller until like eventually kind of get used. to it, but I still think like this game is made for a mouse, and it kind of feels a little worse on the controller. I have to imagine having the extra keystrokes on the keyboard as well for, I mean, like, it does, one of the biggest problems I have is that you have to, you have to constantly remember, like, switching between grenades, for instance, is always clunky for me.

And I imagine mouse and keyboard would solve that problem. I threw a grenade out every single time I wanted to change a gun. Like, even by the game. I never switched the grenades. I kept it the freeze all the way. I didn't even want to bother with that. And also, like, changing between the gun mods was another thing that I tried to stray away from because that, because having to hit the D-pad while you're in the middle of a battle is just kind of like, it's the same problems I have with Apex where whenever I play Apex, I also have the D-PAD is set to your health or your grenades. And I have those set to the back paddle.

So I don't have to worry about the damn D-pad. I do want to mention the one thing I really, really enjoyed and appreciated about the detail put into this game is the enemy degradation. When you are shooting them down and seeing their bodies wear away, I think it's so badass and so well done. Especially for the bigger bosses when you can see the meat on their bones. Yeah. It not only shows it without having a health bar above them or whatever, without knowing how. how far away they are from dying. I think it helps a lot visually,

but also it's just cool as shit. Like, it's just so badass. Yeah. Another thing I really appreciate about it is that in spite of everything, it's very linear, which I really like. Like,

you don't feel like, like the last game I played that had this deep of an upgrade system was rage too. And it's such an open world game that didn't really have too much going on. And the fact that they've kind of stuck to that traditional design of like, you're pretty much starting at point A and point B.

And it's for all intents of purposes, a straight line is so fun. for me at least because I don't feel the need to have to waste countless hours exploring. Because I didn't, because I felt like I had to beat it for this review, I didn't do a whole lot of exploring. I know that the, I kept on unlocking those maps and I didn't really, using the maps didn't become a part of my meta until like the last seven or eight hours of the game where I just kind of forgot that it was even there, honestly.

Like I never really opened it in the beginning, maybe. half or three-fourths of the game, two-thirds of the game, maybe. And towards the end is when I finally started using it and seeing where the, the crystals and all the stuff are. Yeah, the crystals to upgrade your suit and all that stuff. You're kidding me. I hit a blessing because in the ship, there's those batteries you can install and then you can get the perks, the weapon mods or the suit mods.

And there's a costume upstairs, and I thought I had gotten, I hadn't hit the map in the, in your ship. So I didn't realize there were two very important crystals at the bottom of us. I was like, oh, I'll get this costume right now. And then I hit Blessing up. I was like, is this thing just cosmetic? And he's like, yeah, dumbass. I basically did the exact same thing.

Like I opened that one. I was like, oh, yeah, that should be all of them because I got the top row first. And I didn't even notice the bottom row after. I was like, oh, shit, these are way more important. Yeah, exactly. I will say one of the costumes is great. The same one that Nick hit me up about. That's the same one I got first.

Like this costume is hot. How do you change him? I don't even know. I know you can do it from the main menu. You have to do it from the menu. That's kind of dumb. Yeah, there might be a way to do it in game, but I'm not sure. I think the plump says go to the main menu for any weapons.

Oh, yeah, that is. And, like, customizations. So one thing I'll call out is something I actually really surprisingly enjoyed was the story actually kept me going for some of the more, like, boring parts. Or else like, oh, I just kind of want to see what happens next. I want more of this lore. There's some of the stuff we can't really talk about. But like, it was very cool to be like, okay, I want whenever, at a certain point in the game, like, whenever I got one of those Kodak entries, I immediately hit the button to go actually read what that was. Yeah, I felt myself like ignoring some of the lore where basically like, I'll make an analogy here, basically the Silmarillion.

Where like some of the lore is like telling you like crazy, crazy old stuff that you don't even really. encounter a whole lot, but the lore that I found myself reading was more of like the current world of like, oh, this is arc, and they are trying to protect Earth and all that stuff. That's more of where, more of the lore that I read. I want to recommend to

whoever, when you start playing this game, it's easy to sort of get caught up in the heat of battles because they're so intense or whatever. But when you're done, just take a second and look around the world. Like just just fucking, take a gander. When you are in outdoor arenas, when you're in outdoor locations and it's calm and

you got nothing to do, just fucking look around and the environment artists, the the VFX artist, character models, everybody just did such a kick-ass job. Like, looking out and seeing giant doom slayer looking mecks with like sort of like a brush up against the side of a building and you could tell that it died in a big battle. And there are a giant sky. scrapers that are falling on each other with huge satanic glyphs burned in on them. It's so goddamn breathtaking, dude. This game, like, I cannot, it's such a technical marvel that this game runs this well and looks this damn good on a, on a current generation console.

Did you guys see that one bunny? No. So in hell, I fell down like this mine shaft kind of thing, and I just found a cage, and all that was in the cage was a bunny. That was it. That's psychotic. And I do not understand what the deal with that bunny was. I hope someone explains to me.

Like an inside joke or something like that. Maybe, yeah. John Carmack. But it was like the only bunny in the game. It was like animated. It was like a very alive hopping around bunny. Did you shoot it? I tried to.

It did not work. Okay. I find that this game has an interesting sense of humor also. Because like when you get certain head shots or when there's like a certain enemy, I forget what it was called, but like the floating head guy where if you get the glory kill on him you like grab his eye and tongue and rip him out at the same time and makes like like a pop sound oh the pop sound is great that's also the headshot found yeah the headshot sound yeah like that i always found that pretty funny whenever that would happen um yeah i spent a good portion of last night because

they have the uh the weapon upgrades when you get the full for the rifle one of them you have to get uh i think it's like 75 head shots and so i spent a good portion of like two levels just backing off and just pop pop pop just popping people's heads left and right and it's so clicking head believably gratifying. That and like the, I forget what the big floating ball monsters are. Caca demons. But, you know,

getting them to swallow a sticky grenade for a second and they have that funny little, oh-oh, animation is that. That became such my meta of like whenever I saw them immediately go to that shotgun throw a sticky grenade in their mouth. I think this game has a very obviously like self-aware humor like it did in 2016.

And there's a lot of cool, nods, very action movie type moments, almost like, like, it reminds you of like last action hero sometimes in a way where there's a sequence towards the end where you're running through a building and you keep falling through the fucking floor because the floor caves in. And it's all purposeful. Like you fall through to get to the next point and that's, it's designed that way. You can't really not do that. But then there was a part where you're running and you're about to fall and he catches

himself as a way to be like, fuck, I'm tired of this shit. Like I'm tired of falling through the goddamn. damn floor. And it's just it, it's little things like that that just show that there was so much love put into so many different areas of this game. It's, it's really awesome. Yeah, I want to talk about some of the upgrade systems and stuff, but before we do that, let me tell you about our sponsor. As most of us have found out the hard way, getting into debt is easy. Getting out is hard, especially if your credit score isn't that great. Thankfully, now there's upstart.com. The revolutionary lending platform that knows your more than just your credit score and offers smarter interest rates to

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too much because it feels like there's a system for everything. It's way too much. Like when you first look at it, it's like, okay, you can upgrade your guns, you can upgrade, I guess your suit. You can upgrade your, you get ruins for abilities. you can, I think there's like one that I'm missing out on now, but like there's quite a few upgrade systems and at first I was like, this is a bit much. By the time the game kind of wrapped up, I found that I had maxed out quite a few of those in a way that felt natural and

in a way that made me feel super powerful by the time I finish the game. And I think overall, like I really like the upgrade system. I think it's just the touch. Go ahead. I think it's just the touch too much specifically with the weapons mods because you kind of develop your way of playing. and I'm looking and I have like right now I'm looking at my screen I have two that I could that I could have gotten at any point I just don't use them like that so I'm not I'm not incentivized to upgrade everything fully other than

just to have a completionist attitude about it and it's the same with the suit where I'm like a lot of these upgrades I don't care if the barrels come back you know it doesn't really necessarily matter to me it's just it seems like that's that added layer of of too much that they could have scaled back to have this be a lot more of a streamlined play through

or playing the suit ones are weird because like those upgrades are not nearly as important as the animation makes it seem. Like here's just like ghost night giving you a coin that you can spend for a single suit point of which many of these are like five points. It's like, oh, it'll make your grenade like drop more hell, which is still cool. But like I feel like it should have been a bit bigger and more like grandiose considering like I guess the lure behind upgrading your suit. Well, it's the same with the runes, right?

where you can only pick three, so why are there nine, I guess? Yeah, that was a problem for me where like I didn't change mine at all after the first. Yeah. Because you get used to it. You have to train with that. And if you want to, you have to retrain your brain to have those other abilities. It's not even not good at incentivizing that. I guess it's not really that.

I just felt like the first three that I unlocked are the most, were the most beneficial to me. Yeah, because you can pick a choose. Like, you can go. Yeah. And I never really want the first three you want to go with. Yeah. I, I didn't really feel the need. to experiment with the run set because I don't need a, I prefer having this better sort of

cool down or whatever as opposed to controlling myself in air better or slowing myself down in midair. Like the other, the initial runes that I unlocked were just sort of my go-to ones. And every time I unlocked and you one, I'm like, all right, well, I guess I'll just go to this animation. Yeah, at a certain point, I stopped caring about the runes that I was unlocking because I was like, I'm not going to change the first three I picked because I picked those first first. three for a reason because they're like the best ones to me. And yeah, like Nick said, I got a certain point. It's like, this is what I've been playing with. If I change it now, then I'm not going to feel

equipped or like something's going to be off in the way I play. Yeah, you're usually, you're using a new technique that you and then have to like play, you know, you haven't played with for five hours. So it's going to be way different. Yeah. I did like the the praetor suits. Is that what they're called? Like the coins that you put into your suit for the specific upgrades because I found Ghost Knights. Yeah, like, even though I would say they should have switched, as far as like the collecting them, they should have switched maybe those around with the master tokens. Because the master tokens, which are the tokens that let you master your weapon without

having to do the challenge or whatever, like those things are just like coins in the world that you just like come across. And they don't, they don't seem consequential when you first see him. But when you pick it up, it's like, oh, no, this is a huge thing. Like, this will allow my gun to get really like a lot better. And so maybe they should have switched that around with the shrine people that would hold up the the praetor suit coin. That said, I enjoyed those upgrades.

Like, I found that being able to take those and focus them all on my ice bomb, for example, made it so that my play style was exclusive to that ice bomb. Like, that ice bomb took me, like, took me far along with, I think I got to, like, the environmental upgrades later on. And then I forget what, there was like one other upgrade thing that I put all my coins into, but being able to tailor the ways in which you're powerful, I think, made that a lot more, made combat a lot more engaging and fun for me because I got to like really focus on like, okay, cool. What's, what are the guns I prefer? All right, I'm going with the super

shotgun because now I have it so that my, my grappling hook makes it so that my enemies are on fire. And once I got that, it was over. Like, that's how I played the game from then on. Yeah, that was the first mastery upgrade that I got. And I was like, oh, okay. I see where this is going. this is a lot better. Did you guys get the slow time also for your run? No, I mean, I have it. I haven't used it. Is it good? I mean, I have it, but I didn't use it. Oh, wait, wait. When you're jumping in midair or the one where you were about to die? When you're jumping in midair?

Oh, I use the one where you're about to die. Wait, I didn't know that was one. There is a run that you could unlock that is if you're jumping in midair and you press L2, it slows down time for winter in the air. That in conjunction. with the grappling hook, in conjunction with that grappling hook being on fire, oh my God. It is incredible. It was like, it's, it legit changed the feel of the entire game to where now like, because the game is fast, right? You're going, going, going, going, going.

And then once you get to the point where it's like, okay, cool, now I'm going to slow down time because I'm going to grapple hook onto this enemy. And you get like that you get a good two seconds of being able to reorient yourself and be like, okay, cool. This is where everything's at. I'm going to, once I shotgun, this guy, I'm going after this guy over. here, be able to plan those things in your mind in the span of two seconds.

It's a magical feeling. I felt like people go for that slow time thing. I felt like every second of the game, I just kept looking at my damn ice cool down and being like, I need to freeze these goddamn snakes, dude. Like I fucking, yeah. I hate them.

I want to give the designers a huge shout out right now. I don't know if this is too big of a spoiler, but this is the best minigun they've ever made in a doom game. Before you used to get one and it used to slow you down. and you are as fast as you are with any other weapon. And I'm like, that is cheating and I love it. The second I got that shield, I was like, this is amazing. Yeah.

I back myself into a corner and I just go. So when me and Imran went to preview this game, they talked a lot about combat chess and basically like learning like the lessons of doom and all, like a bunch of stuff where I was like, whatever, like it's a bunch of fluff. It's you marking your game. I get it. But I think the like the reality is like each,

each of the enemies in this game has a specific weakness or waste, like maybe one or two ways that you can take them out easily than others. Yeah. It becomes rock paper scissors. Yeah, it becomes rock paper scissors. And, you know, every combat encounter feels like they are placing pieces on a board. And they're like, okay, cool. This combat encounter, you're going to get, you know, a bunch of the,

I forget what they call like the low-level enemies because they have like different names. Fodder. Yeah, fodder. We're going to place a bunch of fodder here, and the fodder are basically just for you to get your health or your armor or your ammo from. But then we're going to place the cockat demon here, and then we're going to place the demon with, like, the rocket launcher on his back here. And then we're going to place, like, this super demon over here. And that's going to be the first wave. And then the second wave would be this.

And they kind of have that rotation going. And they have like a specific kind of chest set that they're placing for you so you can, like, solve this problem. And, you know, when you get into the flow of it and when you get in, when you get to the point where you're like, okay, cool, this cock, I'm pretty sure it's the cockat demon because there's like two flying dead. The bigger one is like the more upgraded version. The icon of pain. Yeah. I think they called him. The icon of pain.

Yes. When you get to the cockade demon, which is, I guess, the smaller one, right? You know that you're going to use your rocket launcher or not your rocket launcher. Shotgun grenade. Yeah, your shotgun grenade or your grenade launcher that's on your back. You're going to use one of those to take that guy out. But also for the big old guy. If he has a shield on, you know you're going to have to blood punch him and get that off.

And when you have, like, placing those pieces out there and trying to figure out in your mind, like, okay, when I'm going to, say you're doing the Katana Zero thing where you're dying over and over again, right? You're going into the next encounter or you're going, you're going back into that encounter thinking like, all right, what is the approach I need to take that I didn't take last time? Because I know what worked and what didn't work. Yeah, like what worked, what didn't work? Who's coming up first? Like, who am I going to take out first? at what point am I going to use my chainsaw? Like, what's the order of operations here that's going to take me far?

And it's such an interesting type of game design because the game literally tells you how to beat every enemy. There's no guesswork. It breaks the fourth wall a lot that way. It's really cool. I've never seen a game before that I can think of where every single boss fight you get to, they're like, it pauses it and says,

this is exactly how you beat that person. Good luck. It's really interesting. And it trains you to do that. And the reason it trains you to do that is because they want you to know the mechanics of it and you have to work that into the bigger strategy of that chess match. Yeah, I think that definitely lessens the frustration. But I think a big reason why they do that is because not only does this thing have very

specific things that it's weak to, but there's also other fodder around fucking you up while you're trying to do the thing specific to killing this demon. And yeah, and those, I was watching the no clip sort of video with, with Hugo Martin on Daniel Adwheres, YouTube channel. And him just talking about how the big enemy encounters, you know, they're very specific and they have certain ways to take them down. But what makes it harder is, you know, those small shitty demons that are now super easy to kill, now they are just pests and they're annoying you.

And how are, and you have to use them for resources. They are your ammunition. They are your armor supplies, you know? And it's just, it's really cool. It's a really interesting way on how to build. build boss and big enemy encounters. And that strategic, like, chess idea behind the game is, like, one of the things I appreciated towards the end of the game, even though it became overwhelming at some point, but the fact

that, like, there were occasional monsters that were, oh, shit, I just got to drop everything, and this is the guy I have to focus everything on right now. Like, I constantly kept at least some BFG ammo in the chamber for, in case there was a arched vial that came up. And he's the guy, has, like, the big flame and makes the big army. of flame enemies. It's like, oh, those guys. If anything happens, like, if he ever comes up, I need to have a BFG gun ready for him. That was the first time I put the game down to the easy difficulty, because I was confused the first time he showed up because they have, they didn't explain

it. Yeah, I thought it was a totem. I thought I had to find one of those totems. I was like, why can't I find this thing? That's the exact thing that happened to me is I got to that combat encounter and I thought there was a buff totem, and I searched and searched and I couldn't find it and I was like, why am I not finding this buff totem? And so I put it down to easy because I was like, all right, we're getting to the bottom of this. I'm going to find this thing. And then I realized that it was him that was like doing, that was having a similar effect.

Um, but yeah, is he the only enemy they don't really introduce you to? Like big enemies. Yeah. They do it after you kill him, I think. He's son of a bitch. I saw it. I looked it up at codex later because they have like, the more of an enemy you killed, it shows you like tips later.

So I just wanted to see a tip to see what it was. It was like, yeah, just kill him. Like he's the, he is the, he is the main. problem we're going to have. So just go behind the flame. He's the ringing bellwoman in Bloodbourne. Just been Bloodborn over the weekend. What a great game. Which is why I knew how to do like what that was immediately. I was like, oh, this is a Bloodbourne shit born shit. So I had to go look for whatever new thing I had not seen yet. But it's, it's funny how towards the end of the game, it feels like they start giving you, you feel like you have multiple cheat codes at your disposal

with like, you do literally have cheat codes at your disposal as well. You do have, you do literally have cheat codes, but there are like, you have multiple weapons that are like one-hit weapons towards the end of the game. Oh, yeah. Because that's the level that you're playing at towards the end. You sort of start hitting these curves where, you know, the game gets difficult towards the middle. And then once you have the adequate power-ups, then it becomes easier again. But then these next guys get introduced.

And then you find the next thing to bring up your armor and your health. And it all becomes sort of like this give and take. And yeah, yeah, I found myself towards the end kind of fairly first. frustrated with a couple of the boss fights at the end, where I was literally saying out a lot, like, what the fuck is happening right now? Like,

there's just, there's so much going on. But one thing that was really impressive performance-wise is that I had, like, maybe two times where frames dropped. Yeah. The game just runs so goddamn. Yeah.

I don't think I don't think I ever experienced frame dropping. Though my game did crash a couple of times. Oh, really? I didn't. I was also like, I was also like doing some things where I was fucking around. And at a certain point, I was like, I might have deserved that crash because I, like, was in a very heavy combat encounter.

And then I then started up, like, a secret encounter, which you can find in the world. And then I went to like a, like started no clipping on a certain, or I tried to start no clip clipping on a certain part of the map that I definitely shouldn't have been doing. But I was trying to like see if I could progress the objective without going through the combat encounter because I was being ignorant. And then my game crashed. And I was like, I deserve that. The game, it's really rewarding to go. exploring. Like I found a lot of moments where once I got into the groove of looking forward the extra sort of nook and cranny that I didn't explore earlier, finding that cool new power, finding that

cool collectible. It is, uh, did you all go down in your ship and go to your room? No, not yet. Yes, I did. Yeah, I didn't do that until the end of the game. And it's just cool. It's so funny and so it's just so silly to personify, and I love, by the way, in the notes, how it's, if you read some of the codex from the people who run, oh, arc, from the people who are kind of running arc and they're like, there's been, there's been sightings of Doom Slayer, aka Doom Guy, is what he goes by sometimes. And yeah, if you go, if you go down to your room, you basically just have a little like kind of bedroom office set up and, and you have a little computer desk. and it's really adorable. It's really cool.

There was a really well-acted, like, I'm usually not a fan of, like, those personal voice-acted diaries and games which they have to, like, stand in one place where they, like, exposit a monologue to you. But, like, it was, like, Jennifer something, the scientist who was describing her, like, research on the Doom guy.

And it's, like, surprisingly compelling because it's so well-acted as she slowly starts to understand, like, yeah, this is not just a human. He actually might be a god. They were so long, though. They were very long. That's a great number. pet peeve and I'll never forget him saying that he's like one of my biggest pet peeves

is when you start playing a voice log and you walk away and you can't hear it anymore I'm like just let me hear it because I did the first one in the second one she once you starts talking about maybe he is a god I'm like all right you're not a scientist anymore I don't need to listen to you're ridiculous also who are you you're like new and character that he's pop up in the game whatever I found that like some of the story stuff like I I appreciated the fact that they kind of tried to to go some places with the story, but overall I felt like it was, one, it feels like it very much takes the backseat similar to how Doom 2016 was. And then two, the stuff that I was paying attention to during

the story sections, I, I found entertaining. I never really found compelling personally. Like I always, I always felt that like, you know, during the voice lines, whatever, she has a specific line that she delivers towards the end of her voice logs where I was like, I thought it was, I thought it was cheesy, but I thought I was like entertaining at the same time. I was like I just do it in a nutshell. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I didn't listen to when I walked away. It's more, it's more that it was, and that was one of the few ones I listened to, by the way, but that was towards the end.

And it, uh, it's, it is cheesy. It's over the top. It's fast and furious. Like, we're, this is like, uh, silly ass popcorn action shit and ultra violence. And, but it's, it's kind of a mockery of it. And it's just really funny and, and bad. By the way, this game has one of the best starts of any game ever. I sat down and I knew that this game was going to sort of be like that.

So I put my sound bar up to like fucking, I don't know, 11. No, it's probably too loud for my neighbors downstairs. But I put my sound bar up hell high and I had like the booming base and just the sequence of how the music is playing to the camera cuts. and I'm sitting there with like actual tears of my eyes because I'm so fucking stoked. It was just sick. They do a really good job with music as well when you're about to like,

the music starts ramping up in parts where you're like something is going to happen. And then right as you pop out into like into one of the bigger fights, it just hits and it's death metal. And I don't even like that metal that much, but it gets you going. Oh, it's so sick, dude.

The soundtrack is great. It's great. It definitely lives up to the first game. Like by the time I got probably halfway through, like, there were portions of the game where I, we'll listen to a podcast while playing because any game that doesn't have much story,

I kind of like to do that because it helps me play more, like it helps me get through more of the game without taking breaks. And so after I, after I finish the podcast, put my headphones back on so I can hear the game music again. And legit, like, it makes a world of difference

when you're hearing that heavy metal. like blaring. And I think I think the fact that it's so over the top. And that's for me, I didn't play, I didn't play Doom 2016. So I don't, I really have zero context with the story other than what I can kind of extrapolate from the first 15 minutes of the move of the game. But realistically, that's kind of all you need. Because what you know, what you're, what you're going to get is an ridiculously over

the top of violent hyper like action packed experience. And that's all that matters. Let me just tell you this, Nick. There's a, there's a woman and she's piss. stuff and she's like we need to harness this energy called argent energy and then Samuel Hayden's like no we can't do that we got to use it for something else and then you kill her and then Samuel Hayden kind of sends you into this game and that's all you need to know bro.

That's all you need to know man. Yeah. Okay. Well. Demons. Angels. One thing I loved is there are some moments towards the end of the game where the and by the way I'm probably way wrong on the lore so I know people will

correct me in the comments. I'll never know. I won't know. There are some really sort of drastic soundtrack changes towards the end of the game that I really enjoyed where suddenly it's, it is not heavy metal at all and it is sort of weird and eerie, but like it's sort of that weird sort of positive creepiness to it. There's just a lot of really great stuff done with sound design in this game. Before we get into the listener questions, do we have anything left to say specifically about Doom Eternal. Nah, man. Play Doom Eternal at fucking Rockstar.

Yeah, definitely, like, it's going to be very easy, especially with everything else going on in the world, to kind of let this game slip by. But honestly, if you love Doom 2016, or even if you didn't,

if you just want a good first-person shooter, definitely give this game a shot. It's, I think it's well, it's one of those first-son shooters, bless we talked about this the other day, like, what was the last, like, really great first-person shooter, like a 10-10?

This is not quite a 10-10, but I feel like it's probably up there. It's up there. like Titan Fall 2 for me in like great first prison super campaigns. Yeah, I have a reader question for you guys. Was there a Slayer map on that?

Was there a Slayer gate on the first map? Did I miss it? Dude, I didn't do any of the Slayer Gates. Me either. At some point I was like, I got to review this game. I need to get the fuck out of here and just go. Yeah. Oh, I did five. I don't know if there's a sixth one

in the final mission. And I'm like, if I can't get this stupid thing now. Just don't do it. Bro, just don't even worry about it. Bro, I'm one away. You're able to, like, mission select, though, right? Yeah. You might be able to go back to it.

And you can go back with cheats, but you can't do Slayer Gates with Cheats on. Okay, but you have to do that from the main menu? You can choose your level from, or you can level select from the ship. From, yeah. Ah, cool. I'm going to do that real quick then. See, there is a thing, though, about the story that I, like, even though, I played Doom 1, I'm very much on the side of Bless where I, like, it doesn't,

really mean a whole lot. It isn't hitting me like it should. Dude, bad guys are bad. You got to get bigger guns to beat him. That's the story of yeah. Yeah. Like those, I think there are some significant sort of story beats that are supposed to hit you and you're supposed to go, holy shit. But for me it just doesn't, it didn't really hit me in those

ways. There was one aspect that like I really did like as somebody that like does remember Doom from the old days. I was like, okay, that's really cool. But aside from that, I was like, okay, I just want to see what this is going. because they're doing a pretty decent job of at least leading me on to tell me the immediate relevant lure and that's what I want to hear. Yeah, there are a couple sequences where you get story beats that I thought were well done. But again, like the rest of the game, it's kind of so straightforward and like let's get in, get out that I didn't mind every way.

Yeah, it feels way more aesthetic to me than like it doesn't feel like real meat to the story. They're not trying to evoke any emotion other than adrenaline and testosterone. run. Yeah. Like, I feel like whenever you go to like a new location or they name drop like, oh, like say like, okay, you're going to hell on earth or whatever. Like it feels purely aesthetic in a way where I dig because like it's hitting me on that pure like, oh, this is metal. Oh, I'm going to go shoot some demons kind of way. But in terms of like actual story story, I'm like, okay, cool. Like it all feels background, which is what it seems like that's a lot of what they're going for. But at the same time, like there are certain locations you go to in this game where I'm like,

I don't even understand why I'm here. Like, I don't know what, like, what this place is this heaven? I don't know. To Andy's point, it looks cool. Yeah. It looks cool. Yeah. There is this, like, super cool part, though, when you go to Mars.

And like, this is a public thing. This is at Judges Week last year, so people already know about it. But, like, when you're like, how do I get to Mars? And the answer is, what if I got in a big can and just shot myself in there? And again, going back to the humor of the game, I'm like, they can't do that. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's so fast and furious, man. It's so fast and furious.

It is so over the top. And I just have a, I love it. If this had a GTO in it, it could actually be in the fast and furious. Yeah, I, I loved it. I think it, I cannot recommend it more. It's, it's beautiful. It's fast. It's frenetic.

And it just, it feels damn good, man. There's so much, there's so much immediate satisfaction that the game that you can get from the game, whether it's just from doing a cool glory kill. I found myself trying to figure out every different angle to get a glory kill. There's so many. There's like three in front and like one behind for every monster. It's great. There's glory kills for like coming from the top of them. Like landing on.

Oh, yeah. It's top of it. It's incredible. In a similar way I feel like when I beat Shadow of Mordor when like, you know how for that game, right? You like mess around with the nebiscis system and just messing around with that system itself was fun. For me, it was so fun that I kept playing Shadow. game within the game. Yeah, like, it's, yeah, the game within the game, like, it felt so fun that after I beat that game, I was like, I'm just going to keep playing because I really enjoy messing around

with the system. I feel a similar way about Demi Turner right now where I want to just go back and play encounters. Like, I don't necessarily want to, like, replay the whole game, but I want to go back, and I know there's like a battle mode or whatever. I don't know. I didn't touch it at all, but, like, I want to just go back and play, like, like, you know, throw some chess pieces at me. Let me just shoot at them. Like, that's how fun the actual systems and mechanics in this game are. and so that's kind of where I'm coming at it from we should say that we played this pre-release which means that the servers were not on

so we couldn't do any of that like soul'sy like the parts of they take control of the monster and invades another world kind of thing yeah we weren't able to do to do any of that and then did you guys mess the battle mode at all no I think that wasn't on either

I don't think that's on yeah I think I tried to play it but then like it searched for a match forever so I just like gave up I think that's the thing where it's like four people or monsters and one player's the Doom Slayer. And like, yeah, like that's a multiplayer mode. And that sounds like a good solution to how kind of not great Doom 2016's multiplayer was. But I don't know that I'm going to ever try that, honestly. Like, once I finish the campaign, I feel like I'm, I got out of Doom Eternal when I wanted to get out of Doom Eternal.

And I think it was worth the 60 bucks to do that. I agree. I'm, as usual, I'm always, like, I love first person shooters. Don't get me wrong. but I always go back to Overwatch and right now, called the New Modern Warfare. I'm so addicted to it. So like I don't find myself feeling the need to want to play this game's multiplayer.

But who knows? I just depends on one day. Like if it's one day during this, this downtime that you all say, hey, we're hopping online. Come join it. I'd be like,

all right, sure. But it's not something I'm seeking out. I'm super excited for. Andy, you don't want to be a monster with me? No, not really. Not at all, actually.

Now it's time for listener questions. You can write into patreon.com slash kind of funny games where you can get the show ad free, just like Brett Harrison, who writes in and says, Doom Eternal, how difficult is it compared to the first one? I played the first one on Hurt Me Plenty

and had a great time with it, challenging but not rage-inducing. I finished Doom 2016 on normal difficulty. I had to bump this down to easy pretty early, and I had to for several boss fights do the easy, easy mode. where they're like, just you don't take damage.

It's fine. Whatever. But there's that mode? Well, if you die twice, it gives you super sentinel armor. Oh. You take almost no damage.

Wow. I beat this game on normal and I dropped to easy baby-ass mode or whatever. I'm too young to the games calls it. I dropped it to the easiest mode for, I think, two encounters and then bumped it back up. But it's,

It's hard. I will say it's hard, Brett. Like, I think this game is, uh, I think it's harder than the last one. And it could just be maybe I didn't have the right, the right flow. I felt like it did in some moments, but at some moments I felt like I was just, uh, you know, up against it all. And I was like, it's almost as somebody else was playing and I was just sitting watching. Like, I felt so helpless in some moments. Yeah.

Yeah. If you're between two monsters, you're just fucked. Like, you're not getting out of that situation. Yeah. Yeah. That was actually kind of frustrating there a few times where like, I was caught in the geometry between a few monsters. I would like trap me in a corner and it's just like, well, I'm just done because like I somehow got myself in that situation.

Yeah. Like at the end of the game, like that big section with tons of monsters, if you end up getting stuck like in any way just as they move you around, there's nothing you can do. Yeah, a lot of, a lot of Pierce told me she was playing it on a nightmare because she's a true gamer. And I was like, I don't know how you're doing it because it's just like, I, I want to beat this game. That's what it came down to is where there were some moments where I probably could have been it on normal, sure. But on my sixth of the temp, I was like, all right, I'm just kind of wasting time here.

Like, I need to kind of get this going. Yeah, I just don't like to be that frustrated. I played it on Easy predominantly. I did the same thing as Andy, where I played it all on normal, but I did like two, maybe three encounters on Easy and then bumped it back up. But that said, if I wasn't planning it for review, I probably would have kept it on normal. And that's kind of the way I'd maybe recommend. If people prefer playing this game on normal, I'd probably recommend keeping it there because, like,

I feel that the satisfaction and like the galaxy brain moment of being able to kind of power through and like get that, I feel like a God moment in this game, I feel like it's so good. That said, like, you know, I, I think there's something there to also want it to feel like, you want to feel the power fantasy of being able to murder all these demons. Oh, sure. I mean, it does, you do get that satisfaction from him.

taking down a giant boss that is giving you a lot of issues. I did drop it to easy mode for two encounters, but they were about three other ones that I thought about doing it. And I powered through it. And then I finally did it. And I like audibly said, yeah, fuck you,

dude. Like I was just so mad at the goddamn marauder with his stupid shield and this stupid dog and his fast-ass legs. How are he so fast? Jesus. That guy's so fast. You know why? Because he's tall.

Yeah, that's true. I used to like, I use a super shotgun. on him exclusively and it still took like, I want to say around 10 shots. Oh, I ended up switching to the, the precision bolt for it.

Or the, really? I was like, how'd you tie that? The ballister. What's it called? Oh, the a ballista. Yeah, the ballista. Yeah, I used the,

the one, I guess just the standard shot for it without charging it up. Yeah, I use that. And like, I would, again, you know, I fancy myself a pretty decent first-person shooter player. But it felt really, really good to not only hit him in the head whenever he was coming at me, but there are some enemies towards the end of the game,

kind of like fodder enemies that when you hit him in the head, they drop hell of ammo. And those always felt really, really good to nail those headshots. Yeah, I feel like those enemies are the ones that finally justified the precision bolt because I didn't use that until then. What the fuck's the precision bolt? I got to look. It's the signer.

It's the mark for the assault rifle. Oh, the sniper. Oh, got you. Yeah, yeah. The sniper. Okay, got you. No, yeah. I predominantly use the ballast. The ballista. I don't know what the fuck it's called. It was called the aeroblast, I think, was the actual gun name. Oh, gotcha. Not the ballista or something like that? He's talking about the ballista, yeah. Oh, wait, maybe I'm thinking the wrong thing. No, the aeroblast is the secondary of the ballista. All right. Cool weapon. Cool as hell. I mean, every weapon looks so great. And one thing I really appreciated design-wise is, not only did the weapons look beautiful and like really nicely modeled and textured, but I love how on your ship there's like brick walls and shit. Like you're on a ship in space and your walls are brick and iron and stuff or like stone walls. It was just a really weird kind of silly ass doom thing.

Yeah. I use silly as doom things. Put that on a shirt. Silly ass doom things. I use the plasma gun primarily because it was such like, If you got the right mods and upgrades for that thing, it was ridiculous how strong it was. Which mod did you go with? Do you go with one that like you can have a little shock on blast in the end?

Yeah. If you, I had one that if you do it, a fully charged blast, it then powers up the next like three seconds of the shot. So basically like those big bull demons that doom hunters, you just like completely unload on them. You can kill them in just one clip, basically. I loved charging up the ballista to do the really wide shot. Oh my gosh. It was so good. Yeah, because I ended up getting the upgrade to that that quickened up the recharge and cool down time. And yeah, there would be six enemies in front of me all, like whether it's a super demon or a little tiny just pawn or whatever. And I would just charge it up and basically nick it instead of shooting like that bolt or like just single shot, it gets like it becomes a giant horizontal line. It just clears them out. It felt so off. Awesome, and it looked great as hell. Oh, man, maybe I'll use that one from now on.

Nao Biologist writes in and says, Hey, guys, one of the best features of Doom 2016 was the soundtrack. It fucking rocked and kept the gameplay fun, but after a while, it felt tiring and somewhat repetitive, after playing a good amount of the game. How is it in this version? Do they keep it fresh? Does it feel like it's really reacting to what you're doing

and not an on-off switch like in the last game? Thanks to the nail biologist. I think it does. There were several moments where the music cooled. down and it felt very natural and very organic. But there were several moments where I'm kind of waiting into battle. And I put my control down and I pause it because I think I was ordering food. I didn't pause it.

I just, I left the game running. And it was playing like this sort of synthy music. And it's almost as if like the game wanted me to get to the next spot a lot faster. And I thought it I'd get to the next spot faster than I did. But I just sort of sat there idling. So when I got to the next battle, the guitar music kicked in, but in a way that it faded in kind of really weirdly

where like it's just, yeah, nah, nana, chagoo, chagoo, juke, and it kind of like,

it popped in in a way that it was like, oh, finally, fuck, he's here. Like, we've been waiting for you to get here, dog.

Like, I've been trying to start up this. God damn, I've been as guitar and I thought you'd get here a lot sooner. I had the opposite, though. I had moments where there was nothing in the environment, and it was pulse pounding,

metal in my ears to the point where I had to go in and just turn it down a little bit because I'm like this is giving me this is jacking me up and I'm just looking for like a one up I'm not even trying to kill anyone I had that's a thing like where I didn't know if a battle was over because the music kept going and then at some point it would like five or ten seconds later it would just stop I was like okay now I know the battle's over I just took a while for the music to stop I wish it would have been a bit more timely because I I didn't get like that full cathartist from that move or that music ending and the battle ending is like i don't know if there's anything around here i'm going to keep searching around just in case that's how all this layer gates end we're like there's still a couple

like the minor demons left but the music's still going and like do i really have to kill these and then then the icon pops have this as you did it but the music's still going and i'm like well yeah i don't need to kill these other things it's fine yeah i agree i i i think the music itself is great like the music itself i think is as good as dune 2016 but i'm kind of i'm i'm with emron that where like, yeah, there are moments where I would finish an encounter and the music would keep going. And I'm like, is, am I still here? Like, what's going on? Are we still fighting?

And then, like, a few seconds later, calm down. And like, oh, okay, cool. We're done here. But overall, like, I think the soundtrack is still incredible. Oh, yeah. And, but here's the thing. Like, it's one of those things where I couldn't differentiate it from last Doom soundtrack. Yes.

But it's still fucking rules when you're in the middle of a battle and you're hearing this goddamn drop B guitar. tune and it's just nuts. It sounds so sick. Yeah. Before we wrap up, any final thoughts on Doom Eternal? Play it? Everybody needs to play it. Yeah. Oh yeah. It is an absolute must play.

Like, you have to play this game. It rules. It's gorgeous. It feels great. And you could just tell that there was so much passion poured into this goddamn game in every corner that you explore. You know, like there's

there was so much love and it doesn't feel like it doesn't feel like anything was half-assed at all you know like there's always there are always some moments in games where you could tell oh okay maybe this area didn't get enough love because they have to put love in other areas but I think this game just top to bottom just absolutely kicks dick yeah I agree I think there are certain points where the game maybe through too much like in terms of combat encounters

and in terms of how many things are going on on screen and on the controller at the same, like in terms of that, I feel like there are moments where the game kind of maybe pushed things a bit too far and made it feel like, you know, like you, like it was overloading your brain in some senses. But overall, I feel like the whole balance they had going as far as every combat situation feeling like a puzzling to solve. I think they nailed it for the most part. And yeah, I think it's a definite bus play for this year.

Yeah, that's like that's what the thing you're saying. casual either. It's like, oh, this really changed up FPS mechanics by making it a puzzle game, which is a really interesting idea that I don't think most games really do these days. They made Doom, and we talked to Hugo Martin about this at the

like at that preview event that he was saying like they wanted to make it a thinking man shooter. They didn't want Doom to just be like the idea of just rip and tear and that's the only thing that you know about the game. They made it an actual very deep game, which is shocking. And honestly,

really laudable. Yeah, I really enjoyed obviously the combat and everything is super super great, but I truly enjoyed the platforming. Because of how I had my controller setup, it just felt so great to jump and dash through once towards the end of the game, they started introducing a lot more obstacles and I was like, fuck yeah, this feel like, I love this shit, man. It was awesome. Yeah, I was not expecting this deep

of a game and I was pleasantly surprised. Even though it was frustrating at points. I'd rather that than what I encounter with Doom 2016, which is that there wasn't enough meat on the bone for me, really. Yeah, whatever you think of Doom Eternal, it is never boring. That's for sure. Yeah, and I feel like, you know, piggybacking off of that Doom 2016 comparison, right? Like, Doom 2016, I feel like it's so laser focused on just the shooting and just the arenas. And, like, in comparison, Doom Eternal makes Doom 2016 feel a lot more simple. For a game where if you asked me before I played Doom Eternal, I would have said that Doom 2016 is the best first person shooter of this gen,

which now, like, I guess I'd say, yeah, Doom Eternal, for me at least, is my favorite first person shooter of this gen. Like, I think it takes everything that they established in Doom 2016 and just furthers and adds on it and makes it feel, like, makes it feel more of what it is, or it feels like the natural progression of what Doom 2016 is kind of building towards. So with that? Damn, over Titanfall, too.

Yeah, I wouldn't put it over Titanfall 2 personally. You all would put over Tydenfall 2. I love Titanfall 2 I think what I enjoyed more about Titanfall 2 is, was the story and sort of the mind fuck moments in terms of, you know, level design. This game

blew my mind aesthetically a lot, but story-wise, and it's mostly my fault because I'm just not a... Well, it's not like I'm a huge Titanfall fan either, so I can't even really say that. I agree that Titanfall 2 made me feel more and showed me certain moments that I was like, whoa, that is fucking clever as hell.

And this game just kind of more impressed me on more of a surface level of like, God, this is gorgeous. Holy shit, this is fun. Like this game's still fucking rules. Don't get me wrong. Like at this point, we're sort of just mincing words here. But yeah, I still love it.

Titanfall 2 is more of a power fantasy to me. And Doom is not, like, doom is you're scratching and clawing for every inch you get, and that is a hell of a game design. It is absolutely a valid one. It's just not the one I prefer. Let's talk about the best first special shooters of this generation in the post show. Of course, this has been the Kind of Funny Games cast each and every week four, sometimes five best friends,

gather around this table to talk about the big topic of the week. We have a Patreon post show for those that are subbed at the silver level of Patreon.com slash kind of funny games. So stick around for that. Otherwise, until next time, rip and tear.