Be Excellent To Each Other

The Oh, Shit Kit.

Edit -- also, for my money, the gauss gun was a much better place to use cell ammo than the plasma gun. (Ditto for the chain gun over the assault rifle.)

Sod the chain gun, you'll pry my micro missiles out of my cold dead hands.

The micro missiles are great, but not for all situations.

I'm nearly done on my second playthrough now (just Levels 12 and 13 left, sob), and having done the whole thing twice, including now on ULTRA VIOLENCE, I've realised that there's more subtlety to the combat that I originally gave it credit for.

Whilst the game is basically one arena fight after another, connected by little skirmishes and having a look around for goodies, there are huge differences in the composition of both the arenas themselves, and the baddies found therein.

Also on ULTRA VIOLENCE, splash damage really is a big thing, so you don't want to be getting too up close and personal with anything that's particularly explodey.

As I've got 100% of the weapon upgrade tokens on this run I've been able to get the 'not so good' weapons maxed out earlier than on my first run, and a couple of surprises as to what turns out to be really good, even stuff that I'd basically ignored such as the plasma rifle's stun bomb, which has a surprising amount of utility. Oh yes and remote detonation on the rocket launcher, that's great when maxed out with the mastery.

So I take each battle very much on its own merits, and choose my weapons accordingly, there are some where the micro missiles are insane (a decent sized arena with a quad damage available for example, although I have a soft spot for the chaingun in those situations too), but others where they're just not an efficient way of getting the job done, and I won't use them at all for the whole battle. There is definitely a divide between battles where you want to lean more towards ranged weapons, or more towards close quarter weapons. The gauss gun's siege mode can be fucking insane too.

In other news, the second boss on ULTRA VIOLENCE, that's a bit of a spicy meatball. I found phase one quite a bit harder than phase two - definitely a tough fight.

And that's game complete on ULTRA VIOLENCE.

Would have had it finished last night but I was determined to get the last combat challenge nailed which is 'Kill two Barons of Hell with a single shot' (which also got me the 'What Else Ya Got?' achievement as I'd done every other combat challenge on this playthrough), and there's basically only one area in the last level where you can get that done, and last night I just didn't quite manage to get my eye in on it. (I knew what I had to do, but I couldn't manage to pull it off somehow, including getting ANNOYINGLY CLOSE several times.) I could have got the fight done fairly easily without completing the challenge, but of course the game checkpoints at the end of every major battle, so I'd have had to fight through the entire level again to get back to that point.

This is a remarkably good game, for example from one extreme to the other, it had me shitting myself on HURT ME PLENTY the first time I clamped eyes on a single Hell Knight, and yet by the end of the game second time around on ULTRA VIOLENCE I'm actually rounding up Barons of Hell like naughty demonic sheep just to try and get a challenge completed. (And from start to finish it's ruthlessly harsh, and yet scrupulously fair, which is sort of a contradiction in terms I know but still makes sense.)

Also, the final boss fight is tough on ULTRA VIOLENCE as well, no two ways about that.

Only achievements left now (which aren't multiplayer) are IDDQD which I might do but is pretty much a routine stacking up the numbers affair, of more interest might be 'A Toe Into Madness' which is 'Complete The UAC on Ultra-Nightmare' - I think I'll have a crack at that.

This game is properly up there IMO, absolutely stellar stuff, wasn't quite expecting such a straightforward guts 'n glory FPS game to really get me going at my ripe old age - but this has been a fantastic blast every step of the way.

DOOM - I doff my cap to you.

Very good. Now do it on a pad.

Oh you are funny.

Bet you had your lag switch on max.

Curio does these days.

Title of your sex tape.

DOOM update rolled out on PC today that supports the Vulkan API, apparently there are pretty substantial performance gains to be had across the board, which would be great if I hadn't just finished my two full playthroughs. Nothing fancy involved, just select the alternate API from the graphics options menu.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/0 ... rt-update/

Also, someone has done an ULTRA-NIGHTMARE playthrough without using any upgrades at all. So, erm, yikes at that.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016- ... y-upgrades

Jeez, the weapon switching to avoid reload time is amazing. (see, for example, the cyberdemon fight at 135:00.)

I'm inspired to play through the whole game again, on NIGHTMARE difficulty.

There's nothing else that's really interesting me at the moment, or at least, nothing that I fancy more than another DOOM playthrough.

I have finished this. What a bloody great game it was. Some really frantic mass carnage melees, the one when you get off the train on the penultimate level was batshit.

Should have it rattled off myself this week. Been nice playing through it in chunks rather than hammering through the whole lot.

I'll be giving it another bash on a harder setting I'm sure.

I would strongly recommend ULTRA VIOLENCE as it's genuinely a better game at that setting IMO.

I'll reserve judgement on NIGHTMARE until I've given it enough playtime to pass comment.

Watching the videos of the ULTRA NIGHTMARE playthroughs though, I think it'll be doable, even by an old fart like me. (ULTRA NIGHTMARE and NIGHTMARE are the same except ULTRA NIGHTMARE has permadeath.)

Romped through Hell some more and got to the Crucible.

Took a few goes getting boss fight(s) done, very good though.



Back on Mars (again) and taking a lovely train ride now.

Nice piece about the game mechanics design of glory kills: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/0 ... -mechanic/

Some amusing butthurt in the comments, too. Apparently the glory kills aren't Doom... if you're a tit.

That's a nice piece, interesting read.

From a very different perspective but also a good read IMO is this technical interview with iD at Eurogamer.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digit ... -interview

It applies to all platforms, so it's not PC-centric or anything like that.

DOOM has been a real eye-opener for me, I'd been forlornly accepting that the time had come to either drop down to 1080p and/or make graphical compromises to keep 60FPS in games on my PC (or spend £1500-£2000 on a new PC), and then along comes DOOM, 1440p@ULTRA@60FPS right out of the gate, and I'm like, 'What are iD doing that everyone else isn't?'

Equally of course, the game is a technical tour de force on consoles as well.

Anyway, the piece linked above give some insight.

Still have THE BIG END BADDIE to kill. Gave up due to time/knackeredness but had sussed out the patterns and what best to do after several attempts. Had her down to under 1/4 health left a few times.

Seems the Plasma rifle turns into a water pistol in this fight for some reason ...still the super shotty, micro missiles, rockets and BFG still do the hurty.

Plasma gun is underpowered. Gauss gun provides considerably more punch for cell usage.

Use the health grenades and it gets a lot easier.

See, I didn't find they helped at all

Every time I was low on health, I bunged a couple of them at her and I was back to 200. Felt a bit cheaty, to be honest.

It's the only time I used them, though.

Actually I was put off by trying to use them on the stompy Titan dude(s). They do fuck all when they've got their shields up - so I got out of the habit of using them.

I'll get my Gauss on.

I found the healing grenades pretty useful during the boss fights and the more hectic arena fights, in particular the one at the end of a train line which was rather frantic.

I came to this conclusion too, and it was one reason why I stopped using the plasma gun entirely.

That was my most hectic fight of the game, so many fucking things chasing you around the very small area. Top fun, that was.

Due to the way I play I find the Plasma rifle really useful for whittling down the larger regular enemies like HK, BoH, etc down for a glory kill though. The heavy hitting weapons can leave you with a pile of mess when you just needed them stunned to replenish energy.

Yeah, took a fair few goes at that train station.

Heh. Finished it first go just by using the gauss instead of the plasma.

Top game that.

The boss fights are pretty much zerg-fests on HURT ME PLENTY (I'd estimate you only need to hit about 40-50% of the mechanics moves to survive, if that), they're a real step up on ULTRA VIOLENCE and I have to be honest I'm really not looking forward to them on NIGHTMARE....

One thing that surprised me is how much hurty the frag grenades do to the bosses, they're a genuinely useful source of extra damage.

As soon as I finished it I mopped up a couple of weapon masteries in The Foundry.

Think I'll give this a rest for now rather than play again on a higher setting.

Game of the year so far.

Better than Dark Souls 3?!

I haven't played that yet. Felt very Souled out after Bloodbourne then playing through DS2 straight after.

Plan on going back to finish MGS5 then I'll pick it up.

Probably the best level to do the masteries (and runes) I found was the Argent Research Complex. Think it's called that, the one where you start on the tram and it takes you into the complex with Samuel saying over the intercom it's time that you met.

Right from the get-go there are loads of possessed enemies where you can get them into nice clumps, there's a Mancubus, a Hell Knight, and other goodies all before the first checkpoint.

The Foundry is good, but once you have access to it, the Complex is better.

For the one where you need to get a Summoner for a rocket launcher mastery, you can get to one pretty quickly inside the first hell level, Kadingir Sanctum (sic?) or something.

I got the summoner / rocket mastery just playing through the game. It was by far the best way to deal with them.

Nah. Assault rifle, hold down left trigger, hold down right trigger until it clicks empty.

Nah. Too wasteful.

Mini missiles are for all the other bigger baddies.

I'm very anal about it though, if I get a mastery unlocked during a level and I've not completed it by the end of the level, I then can't bring myself to start the next level with the mastery unlocked but not activated, so I re-visit previous levels (Foundry/Argent Research Complex usually) to get the mastery done, and then begin the next level of the game.

Yeah well, you do lots of weird things though.

I've seen his screen tearing first hand. Odd bastard.

Also his collection of heads.

I have decided the biggest reason Doom is so awesome and refreshing is that for once you actually get to see what you are shooting in a modern game. I fired up Battlefield 4 last night for a quick spin and you end up shooting arms / heads from 30 foot away as they poke out over crates - the game has to give you a visual reticle indicator that you've hit your enemy and again when they are dead. With Doom you run up to them and shoot them in their stupid faces with a super shotgun and then rip them apart and move onto the next one. You know they are dead and you know you did it and you also know you are FUCKING AWESOME when the battle finally ends.

Being far away from an enemy is generally a bad thing in Doom because the weapons are geared towards close combat and you can't sit there and snipe thanks to things appearing behind you and tearing you apart in seconds.

That's the one thing that irritated me a little. Some of the weapon mods are geared up for long range gameplay - the sniper scope for the assault rifle and gauss gun, and the minigun - and the game really doesn't lend itself to that style of play very well. I mean, I don't care that much because shoving two barrels up a hell knight's arsehole is a load more fun, but it seems like it offers you the option of play style choice but doesn't really live up to it.

Yeah, there are a few areas where you see cannon fodder in the distance (fun to pick off with headshot) but it's at odds with the rest of the action.

I think they ran out of ideas for weapon mods on some of the guns so slapped on the long range gubbins and made mastery challenges for them.

Some lingering detritus left over from a game that spent six years in development hell, perhaps. Earlier game designs made more use of them, but the mechanics changed and the guns were left in for whatever reason.

I certainly found the assault rifle scope to be useless, and only rarely used the gauss gun zoom (for long-range Cacodemons, mostly.)

Like I say, it's no big deal, but it almost makes you think that there would have been more fun uses for weapon upgrade slots. By the end I was basically putting points into things I knew I'd never use.

I didn't hate that so much because that meant even players who weren't diligent about looking for secrets could get a fair shake at upgrading their weapons.