Doom

Genre: First-Person Shooter

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Online), 2-12 Competitive (Online)

Game Company Bad Behavior Profile Page: ZeniMax Media Inc

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in the Compilation Doom Slayers Collection, along with Doom (1993), Doom II Classic, Doom 64, and Doom 3. All of these games are also included in the physical-only Compilation, Doom Anthology, along with Doom Eternal.)

Doom, specifically the 2016/2017 version of the game, is a fast-paced First-Person Shooter that is a franchise reboot of the genre-defining title of the same name. And much like that earlier game, this version of Doom is fast-paced and frenetic, with the emphasis placed more on big action than anything resembling realism.

To that end, the game has implemented an important new feature that emphasizes melee by making melee kills not only particularly gory and satisfying, but also one of the more reliable ways in the game to get health. I know, emphasizing melee in a FPS? Why would you do that? However, in practice, it works to push players to constantly throw themselves into the action rather than hanging back behind cover or taking time to think up a strategy. Like I said, this ain’t that kind of FPS.

Okay, so let’s address the elephant in the room. Doom was hailed as a hit on other platforms, and the Switch has so few AAA third-party titles and even fewer really good FPSes, so on the Switch, this must be an absolute must-have game, right?

Um… no.

The thing is, the Switch version of Doom is absolutely the worst version of this game, and not even by a little bit. While the game’s levels and features are all intact here (save for a level builder mode that didn’t make it into the Switch version), the graphics of this game are atrocious. Everything is a blurry mess, with textures that are some of the ugliest I’ve seen on the console. What’s more, while the other versions of the game run at 60FPS, this version of Doom only runs at 30, which is absolutely game-killing for a game this fast-paced.

Playing this game, I often found myself disoriented and wanting to look away from the screen because everything just looked so bad. I tried to mess around with the settings to improve things, and getting rid of the motion blur helped some, but I just couldn’t escape that this game just hurts to play.

Also, if you’re wanting to play multiplayer, be aware that doing so requires a sizeable additional download even if you get the physical version of the game, and no matter which version you get, the Nintendo Switch port of Doom is completely missing the SnapMap map builder, meaning that even if the graphical downgrades don’t faze you, this is still the worst version of the game in terms of content.

It’s a shame too, because the core game at the heart of things here promises to be a blast, and if you want to play Doom on the go, the Switch version is the only game in town. However, I just cannot in good conscience recommend this version of the game to anyone but the most hardcore fans of the series who absolutely need a portable version of the game, or people who simply have no other way to play it.

tl;dr – Doom (2016/2017) is a First-Person Shooter with fast-paced frenetic action and an inventive approach to the genre. Unfortunately, this version of the game pairs terrible framerates with atrocious textures, and the result is something that at times feels unplayable. If at all possible, get this game on another platform.

Grade: C

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