‘Doom’ Beta Review: Gameplay Highlights, UI Experience, Disappointments And Hopes For Steam’s ‘Doom 3’


As the release of Doom comes close, the game creators opened up the beta to the public last March 29. Bethesda sent out email invites to those users who are eligible for the beta access.

Bethesda also extended their invitations to those users who are still eligible to join the beta, but did not reach the closing date. The beta opened up features like the “Day of Doom” to multiplayers. The Doom Beta was also made available to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One users.

Though not everyone was able to access the Doom Beta, game experts were still able to provide a sneak preview of what users can expect for the upcoming game.

According to PC Gamer’s Tom Senior and Phil Savage, the Doom Beta was definitely fast. It has similarities with Unreal Tournament, but the good thing is it was able to set itself apart from the previous Doom versions, Doom 1 and Doom 2.

Obviously, Bethesda had made changes to the gameplay as well. According to Tom, for those who have experienced playing the previous versions of Doom, they would miss the “being able to pick up weapons from the environment.”

In the Doom Beta, it was also noted that the “scouting the level for health and armour pickups is great.” However, this feature is not applicable to weapons.

The Doom Beta also had outstanding options like being the demon in the game. Phil noted that he had the opportunity to become this character and “it’s about as fun as you’d imagine being a jetpack using, rocket launcher wielding demon would be.”

The demon has been one of the highlights of the Doom Beta. Additionally, Gamersftw said that the challenges in the beta were quite exciting.

“For a Call of Duty guy, I have never died so much in one game in my entire life.”

The game was very straightforward. Action scenes can be experienced right away. Since there was only the multiplayer mode in the Doom Beta, multiple loadouts and customizations were made available.

In terms of character design, Bethesda has really stepped up. There was a wide variety of colors to choose from, and the add-on features can be easily changed. Considering that the game was still in beta, it is already impressive.

In terms of the gameplay, since the option is multiplayer, it is best to stick with the team. Since it almost feels like a real-life war as the enemies start to barge in unexpectedly, having people to depend on would be quite helpful.

Meanwhile, the Doom Beta still offered a lot of rooms for improvement. According to Phil and Tom, the guns were disappointing since they do not feel “as powerful and lethal as the new Unreal Tournament’s do.”

“In FPSRPGs numbers tend to mean the combat is a bit rubbish, but don’t worry because there’s statistics. DOOM should not be a game about statistics. I think the numbers are the amount of health you remove out of a total of 100, but I don’t know why I need to know that information.”

The statistics of the guns were confusing as well. Some of them appeared like an accessory with no purpose at all.

Moreover, the Doom Beta’s jumping and mantling were good. But, it became worse when the testers switched to the Capture Point Mode.

“Even by the standards of a genre that’s obsessed with flags and bomb carts, it’s a bizarre objective that encourages players to bunch up and eat a lot of rockets. The levels don’t seem to be designed with the required flow of chokepoints and open areas to make the escort task fun. There’s no drama to it.”

The Doom Beta certainly has a couple of polishes to go, but overall, it was able to impress the fans. Hopefully, the can clear out all the shortcomings when they finally launch the consumer version of the game on May 13.

[Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images]

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