DOOM

[giftheck]

Has anybody picked up the new DOOM game? I have and I have to say, it's very much in the spirit of the first game (though with bigger levels the mow-things-down nature is spread a bit more thin). The story is somewhat light: Doom Guy wakes up to find himself strapped to a ritual table in the middle of a demon invasion of the UAC facility on Mars. I won't spoil much more than that, but it's quite cool that Doom Guy just doesn't give a Diet Dr. Pepper about the UAC - he just wants to kill demons. And let's be honest - who played Doom for the story? Doom's story was just text at the end of each chapter originally. The light story is in contrast to Doom , which was pretty much all story, and I have to say, it makes the game better for it. Also back is the ability to carry all weapons available in the game - though the Chainsaw has been changed to an insta-kill weapon that requires fuel to operate. Weapons also have a secondary mode through weapon mods - for instance, the shotgun has a explosive shot mod and the heavy assault rifle has a scope mod.

The demons are very dangerous. The Imps move much like they did in Doom 3, running on all fours and climbing up things. Hell Knights look like their Doom versions but they are not lumbering brutes - they are fast and have an area impact attack. We also see the return of demons not seen since Doom 2 such as the Baron of Hell and Spectre.

One of the biggest surprises is the versatility of the SnapMap feature - sure, you're restricted to prefab room pieces but I've seen some very interesting maps created with SnapMap - which has fully-integrated logic programming. There's a version of Whack-A-Mole called Whack-A-Soul created with Snap Map, there's a demon farm called Harvest Doom (yes, it's a play on Harvest Moon) where you raise your demons, there's even a map that has 0 combat - you're just racing against your own depleting health bar to get to the exist, and there's a friendly Cacodemon running a shop in the map.

[Kingpin]

I got it on the cheap and love it