DOOM Hands-Off Preview – One Hell of an Old-School Rebirth

Post by Dan @ 02:42pm 18/07/14 | 20 Comments

Following up on the details we gleamed from Twitter accounts of those present at today's DOOM reveal at Quakecon 2014, we now have a first hand report on the event from our own man on the ground.

One of AusGamers resident PC shooter aficionados, Nathan "nachosjustice" Lawrence is currently kicking on at QuakeCon 2014, and was suitably impressed by the fifteen minutes of DOOM that the crowd at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Texas were treated to earlier today.

While the live demo didn’t offer anything particularly novel to the FPS genre, it was refreshing to see Doom steer away from the faux-survival-horror gameplay of Doom 3 and back towards what made it feel awesome to play shooters back in the ’90s. If you’re a fan of the original games or old-school shooter mechanics, the first-look at Doom absolutely ticks the right boxes.

Find out all his thoughts in this in-depth hands-off preview writeup.

doom id software bethesda doom 4 quakecon preview

Latest Comments

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Trex0321
Posted 06:17pm 18/7/14

damn... i was more of a fan of Doom 3 than 1 and 2. I just thought Doom 3 was the game id would of made Doom 1 + 2 if the technology was available in the early 90's. Either way I'm psyched for a new DOOM, whichever way they choose to go.

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Crakaveli
Posted 07:52pm 18/7/14

How does ID even exist anymore?

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Everlong
Posted 10:03pm 18/7/14

Selling code and collecting patent cheques I guess

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nachosjustice
Posted 11:34pm 18/7/14

That's interesting, Trex0321, I was under the impression that Doom 3 was less popular with fans. There were certainly hints of some slower, moodier sections, and I doubt it'll be 100% run-and-gun throughout the whole game, as I doubt that will work. This reveal was firmly focused on combat.

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trog
Posted 12:28am 19/7/14

Selling code and collecting patent cheques I guess

id have never patented any software; Carmack is famously anti-software patents. (No, he's no longer at id, but to the best of my knowledge while he was there they never patented anything.)

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Trex0321
Posted 02:43pm 19/7/14

nachosjustice: sure i was a huge fan of doom 1 +2 back in the early 90's... but i REALLY loved Doom 3. But I'm unusual, most doom fans really dislike doom 3. but i really enjoyed it, esp the bfg edition. Still, i'd love a new Doom with original Doom 1 n 2 gameplay and idtech 6 graphics! i'd play the s*** outta that!

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demon
Posted 03:27pm 19/7/14

while doom3 wasn't a big hit with original doom fans (or gamers of any ilk) it still had it's fans. i liked doom3 & resurrection of evil. great single player games imo. so i dunno what they mean when they say "faux-survival-horror" .. how is it any more fake than any other survival horror game out there. one of the best i rekn.

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Reverend Evil�
Posted 03:55pm 19/7/14

The thing that ruined Doom 3 for me was having to switch from flashlight to weapon so much. I remember a mod coming out so you could have the light taped to every weapon but by then I just couldn't be bothered.

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Toxus
Posted 05:08pm 19/7/14

I hope this is not horribly short with no replay value like Wolfenstein was..finished that in a few hours

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copuis
Posted 06:18pm 19/7/14

I hope this is not horribly short with no replay value like Wolfenstein was..finished that in a few hours

s*** dude, what did you do, throw it on easy and run as fast as you could through it???

i'm well into 7 hours and I've yet finish, and I plan on playing it again to see the differences if I save the other dude

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Trex0321
Posted 06:23pm 19/7/14

That's why i liked the Doom 3 BFG Edition. aside from the graphical enhancements, it had the duct mod included(built in). Which really took away from doom 3 in some sense as the game was designed with pitch black areas where you had to choose between a flash light and a weapon... but never mind.

Toxus: how did u finish an 11 hour game in a few hours? or did u mean the 10+ hour mark? thats pretty decent for a game these days. Esp an FPS. think about it, all those assets and story line pieces etc etc. pretty big dollars to put together anything much longer than that.

And i thought wolfenstein had tremendous replay value, for instance you could go through the whole game and play it a total different way, make all different choices, who to save etc and play stealthily or guns blazing. Plus its packed with secrets galore.

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nachosjustice
Posted 10:43am 21/7/14

@ demon--By "faux-survival-horror gameplay, I mean that it was trying to emphasise the horror angles more than the run-and-gun history of the Doom series. It had the bulls*** thing where you had to switch between a weapon and a flashlight, which was an artificial difficulty enhancer (I'd compare it to Resident Evil games that didn't let you move and shoot, but I understand that may be controversial), and there was an abundance of ammo. The pace really made it seem like they were targeting a survival-horror feel, but it didn't work in that space, in my opinion.

@ Reverend Evil--Yeah, that was the worst. It's incredible how differently it plays when you can have weapon and flashlight equipped at the same time.

@ Toxus--I call bulls***. You could speedrun in it in around six hours, which is still longer than your average CoD campaign.

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ravn0s
Posted 11:32am 21/7/14

I hope this is not horribly short with no replay value like Wolfenstein was..finished that in a few hours

bulls***. took me 14hrs to complete.

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glynd
Posted 11:46am 21/7/14

I hope this is not horribly short with no replay value like Wolfenstein was..finished that in a few hours

lol wut. I think I'm 4-5 hours in and nowhere near finishing it.

http://www.howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=16886

Main Story + Extras:

Average: 14h 39m
Median: 15h
Rushed: 11h 22m
Leisure: 20h 30m

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Reverend Evil�
Posted 11:47am 21/7/14

Maybe when he says finished he means he didn't like it and was "finished" with it after a few hours?

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zaraq
Posted 11:59am 21/7/14

Some people just speed run eg Half Life in 45 minutes not me,i like to take my time look for Easter eggs and discover how many different ways there are to blow something up eg Far Cry 2.

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trog
Posted 03:41am 22/7/14

Without following Blizzard's approach to game design I remain skeptical about this game. I would love for it to be awesome but given 99.9% of the talk about this game so far is about the SP I have low expectations :(

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zaraq
Posted 10:26am 22/7/14

I can't see any future if it (Doom) is just another corridor shooter, there needs to be a paradigm shift in the way games are developed the deterioration in game development is starkly highlighted in the Battle field and Call of duty series where there is 0 re-playability.

When Doom 3, Half Life2 ,and Splinter Cell came out gaming was a challenge with Mr sparkle gpu's and celeron cpu's in fact my computer couldn't get the truck to drive up the hill at the regulator in Far Cry .

While graphics, O'S and other peripherals have move ever onward and upwards ever twirling......games have stagnated eeeh wait a minute a cut scene is,the fun of Easter eggs and really bizarre AI behavior is being removed so that games have become a commodity rather than a work of art not afraid to poke fun at itself.

There are the odd game's like Machinarium,Limbo and Portal that leave the well worn path, every thing else is just unacceptable uninspired slops.

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Raven
Posted 11:33am 22/7/14

You an almost tell from the trailer the gameplay is going to look nothing like the rendering/motion quality of the trailer. I call bullshot.

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EdG
Posted 02:35pm 07/8/14

@trog
Posted 03:41am 22/7/14
Without following Blizzard's approach to game design I remain skeptical about this game. I would love for it to be awesome but given 99.9% of the talk about this game so far is about the SP I have low expectations :(

I don't get that - what's so good about Blizzard games? Other than rampant fan-base and cartoony graphics? I hope this is as far from a blizzard game as possible.

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