{"id":2511,"date":"2025-05-09T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scubadiscounters.com\/?p=2511"},"modified":"2025-05-12T02:55:22","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T02:55:22","slug":"doom-the-dark-ages-review-heavy-metal-first-person-shooter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.scubadiscounters.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/09\/doom-the-dark-ages-review-heavy-metal-first-person-shooter\/","title":{"rendered":"Doom: The Dark Ages review \u2013 heavy metal first person shooter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\"Doom:\t<\/div>
Doom: The Dark Ages \u2013 the Doom Slayer rips and tears once more (Bethesda)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The shooter franchise from Hell returns, as the sequel to Doom Eternal aims to be more accessible and closer to the original 90s classic.<\/p>\n

The Doom reboot trilogy may have the worst storytelling ever in a triple-A game. It absolutely doesn\u2019t matter, because it\u2019s Doom and you don\u2019t need a story, but we had no idea what was going on at any point in The Dark Ages, and we\u2019ve played and enjoyed the 2016 reboot<\/a> and 2020\u2019s Doom Eternal<\/a>. Admittedly, we started to zone out on the plot halfway through Eternal, but this third entry does such a poor job of explaining itself it feels like an act of self-sabotage.<\/p>\n

But, like we said, it doesn\u2019t matter. Doom is the game that popularised first person shooters, back in 1993, and it\u2019s about one thing and one thing only: shooting demons from Hell. Well, that and looking for secret areas that contain items, that make it easier for you to shoot demons from Hell.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re not been factitious in that description. Not only is that how the original Doom worked but it\u2019s very much what The Dark Ages is trying to get back to. Doom Eternal was a great game, but it didn\u2019t seem to sell all that well, so The Dark Ages is presented as a significantly easier and less complex game. However, that\u2019s not the criticism it might sound like.<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t like the 2016 reboot quite as much as some people and felt it lost steam towards the end. Doom Eternal\u2019s director<\/a> agreed with us, and we had hoped that The Dark Ages would show further advancement by smoothing out Eternal\u2019s pacing and difficulty issues, and the poorly judged platforming sections.<\/p>\n

In a way it does but its approach is rather blunt: the platforming sections are removed entirely, to the point where you can barely jump at all, and the game\u2019s default difficultly level is significantly easier than Eternal \u2013 to the point where we\u2019d advise avoiding it if at all possible.<\/p>\n

The idea of trying to take the series back to its roots is a reasonable one, since neither of the two previous entries played all that much like Doom, even though all three games stick with the conceit that you never need to reload and there\u2019s no aiming down sight. However, The Dark Ages portrays the mute Doom Slayer<\/em> as much slower and heavier than before, while enemies fire projectiles that are also slower and often need to be avoided by strafing left and right.<\/p>\n

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