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Doom Closed Beta Impressions
by Brent RobertsClick... Click... Boom! With May 13th rapidly approaching just a few weeks away, the time has come for the first Doom Closed Beta! Here you will get a very rough and limited glimpse into the game that's been on millions of gamers' radar for a very long time. So let's strap up and grab as much ammo as we can carry because this fight is going to be intense.
Starting off I noticed that the closed beta does have quite a bit of customization for a console FPS. Going through the base types of armor provided, you can customize colors and patterns to make your soldier unique and to your liking, and just like other FPS games, the more you level up the more you will unlock. As of now the armor is purely aesthetic and does very little outside of looking badass. The same customization also applies to your weapons and that helps give it a feel like the weapon actually belongs to you. Nice little touches like these don't go unnoticed or unappreciated by the gaming community.
But while that customization is nice, the real fun comes from the hack modules. What are those you ask? These are where you will find your bread and butter as they provide you a wide variety of bonuses that you can use in your matches. Earned throughout the levels and your gameplay, these can be manually equipped or you can even set them to auto equip, which can be quite handy once you find some hack modules that fit into your playstyle and corresponding weaponry. This leads me to my next point of interest.
Doom has always been about having massively overpowered weaponry that unleashes gory demise with each pull of the trigger, and this latest game is no different. Weapons such as the rocket launcher, heavy assault rifle, shotgun, and more are all at your disposal; however, I did notice that the hit detection seems to be a bit off with the shotgun. For example, in one match I was running up a ramp when an enemy came around the corner, I fired my shotgun at point blank range at his helmet, and he didn't die. Instead, he hit me with his assault rifle a couple of times and killed me. This was just one example. Hopefully this will be tweaked in the final version of the game, but for now there is nothing is more satisfying than a "Glorious" kill.
What is that? Well, you know the assassinations in games such as Halo 5 right? Now imagine that the developers got themselves a bottle of Jack Daniels, a shotgun, and were locked in a room to create some of the most brutal NSFW animations, and that's what you have here. Seriously, I almost feel that Mortal Kombat could learn a few things from this, because ultimately in the end how many different ways are there to kill someone? We have yet to find out.
There are two game modes to experience in the beta. One is your typical team Deathmatch mode while the other is a unique twist of a King of the Hill, where the hill is mobile and ever shifting. While the basic shoot and kill everything principle applies, there are some new features such as a demonic ring that appears on a timer. If you're able to claim it you turn into the iconic demon that you see plastered all over the advertisements. This gives you the ability to not only jetpack, but fire your dual shoulder cannons, along with having enhanced speed, strength, and health. This really turns the tide as you have a very limited time in this phase, and should you be killed while in that mode, your demon ring drops and whoever picks it up will become their corresponding demon as the cycle begins yet again.
Fast, faster, fastest: This Doom beta blazes along at a blistering pace and that's partly in thanks to the dedicated servers that are already up and running. Oh how I wish this would be a requirement of almost all multiplayer PvP games, but thankfully you have them here. The framerate does seem to be relatively constant even though the graphics of both your surrounding environments and the character models in game themselves aren't visually orgasmic. Yes, I know, it's a beta and that's why there's only a couple of levels to play on, but hopefully the final push to 'gold' status will remedy this on the final product.
Thie Doom Closed Multiplayer Beta is a fast paced, gory as hell, FPS experience that will leave you glued to your TV as you uncover just how many ways a skull can be destroyed. As Doom nears its launch you can expect more fine tuning, tweaking, and overall improvements as balancing is concerned. One thing is for sure, when Doom launches on May 13th, you have one goal: kill everything you see.
