Doom Eternal Review

 Rip and Tear

In 2016 Id Software took their resurrection powers towards one of the most iconic 'Boomer Shooters' of the gaming industry and brought it back to startling vitalisation through one of the most intense, visceral, intuitive and flowing First Person Shooters of all time. DOOM totally rewrote the book on how to capture and conceptualise level design, enemy encounters, battlefield tactics and enemy design. It was a masterpiece of several distinctions, excelling in some many new areas that even the original Doom games had become dated examples of, once again putting the DOOM franchise on top of the pack in terms of quality gaming shooting majesty. And I totally loved that original 'New DOOM' experience in that special sort of way that clings to you more than just any old good game does.

That DOOM came to me at a time where everything in my life felt disorganised and spiralling out of control, and provided me with the perfect encapsulation of the 'power fantasy shooter' to help set my heart back in rhythm whilst in life I worked on everything else. Tight challenge that demands as much for you to put in as you want to get out of it, a cavalier 'screw the story let's just kill demons' attitude that felt like a breath of fresh air in an industry that was starting to drown in it's overbaked over-elaborate narratives for games that don't need them and a light replay value softly calling towards the allure of 'mastery' that kept me hooked long enough to become actually pretty good at the game. Clear the thing on Nightmare, boss through the timetrials and even get a decent way through the game on a few Ultra-Nightmare runs. (essential one life playthroughs were you have to restart the entire game if you fail.) That's not the type of dedication I devote to any old game which turns up.

Which is probably why I didn't feel the need to run out and immediately scoop up the new DOOM Eternal when it hit store shelves back in 2020- not least of all for everything else that was going on that year. 2016 DOOM was pretty much everything I need out of a game like that, the ultimate evolution of arcade-like shooters, elegant in it's apparent 'pick up and play' simplicity and enthralling in it's inherent high skill-ceiling mastery. I scoped out a bit of the new ideas that DOOM Eternal played around with and found myself mildly interested, but that part of my gamer stomach was still truly satisfied with what I had- by the time I finally came around on Eternal it was 2023 on a whim as I was merely collecting titles that would show off the power of my new Current gen console. But be that as it may, this year has been my catching up to where DOOM currently rests. So how has it held up?

Firstly when I describe DOOM 2016 I call it an 'arcade shooter', and I want to describe why I evoke that label. Despite it's grit and gore, DOOM 2016 revolves not around crouching beneath waist high objects, pulling off pot-shots and clenching onto whatever slivers of health you can, but rushing the forces of your enemy, jumping and weaving around projectiles, and damaging and 'glory killing' enemies in visceral hand-to-hand finishers in order to replenish your health and keep the pace of the game going. It mimics the 'constant flow of action' approach that arcade machines would demand in order to keep the attention of a consumer that might have other options around them to draw their attention- that game boasted an experience that never let itself sag, provided everything you needed to push through every fight and demanded your constant attention to keep moving so you don't have an opportunity to cast your eye towards the next game cabinet being installed right next to this one. DOOM Eternal has not lost this heart at all, rather it's solidified and redefined what it means to be an arcade-style shooter in visual style as well as gameplay.

Visually, DOOM Eternal speaks a language much less gritty than it's direct predecessor and much more in line with the colourful floating icons and geographically unorthodox level layouts of yesteryear. 2016 had it's floating shields and green pick-ups strewn about it's levels too, but they were designed in such a manner as to blend into the dark hallways of the Mars Colony or the twisted membrane walls of Hell, they fit the colours and lighting, almost in shame of their video game-like reality. Eternal, on the otherhand, embraces these video-game pick-up items, rendering them in bright colours and luminescence to garishly stand out in any environment they're placed in. New floating platforms adorn these levels with light platforming puzzles, and they'll be covered with spinning fire wheels and procedurally firing turrets with absolutely no sensible narrative context for their existence beyond 'it's a game and this is a game thing'. In some ways DOOM Eternal feels like a whole other art team went to work on it.

Not least of all for the environments you travel through  . Eternal pays a little lip service to the flickering lights and grimy industrial tech corners that 2016 loved so much, but for the most part you'll be dancing around sci-fantasy gleaming silvery towers set in fantastical alien mountaintops or bizarre scarlet forests. There's a distinct drift off into the whimsy of high science fantasy with the direction of Eternal that turns the game into something of a high budget sight-seeing trip in it's later levels rather a grim and foreboding broach into the deepest recesses of hell à la DOOM 2016. Id Software are absolute masters of visual design at this point so each location is a glittering beauty to behold, but whether or not you prefer this approach or the more thematically dire hints of the last game is going to be down to taste rather than objective quality. I felt the consequence of 2016 building in my heart more, but the grandeur of Eternal soundly surpasses it. 

That shift in tone is not exclusive to the visual pick-ups either, DOOM boasted a plethora of killing implements with special alternate firing modes built for the sole purpose of ripping the various demons to shreds- every weapon could theoretically kill anything if you used it enough and situational preference ruled the roost. Of course, that would mean some weapons or power-ups for weapons would see preference over others, but gameplay variety is rarely a detriment to the gameplay cycle. Eternal, naturally, boasts a little more variety in it's guns and a lot more in it's ancillary tools, but the way the game approaches them is distinctly different. I've seem many in the community refer to this as a 'Chess combat' system or 'Rock, Paper, Scissors'. Basically, with the vast variety of Heavy Demons the game throws at you, the player will be specifically told which Demon is weak to which tool and expect you to juggle that knowledge throughout the game. Complex fights can resort to players dancing around the battlefield whilst switching to the correct counter weapon for the confronting demon, leading to a more direct 'answer/response' approach to encounters.

Of course there is still a some sense of freedom to combat encounters in the standard slate of Demons and how you take them down. 2016 introduced the vampire-like mechanic of whittling down an enemy and then Glory Killing them to burst health pick-ups out of them, and Eternal has expanded that into a whole cornucopia of abilities. Your shoulder mounted 'flame blech' flamethrower sets enemies ablaze causing them to drop armour when damaged and your slow recharge chainsaw allows you to quick-execute enemies but shoot out ammunition. There's also cluster grenades and freeze grenades, and certain abilities like the burning hook-shot of the Super Shotgun that allows you to pull yourself towards an enemy whilst setting them on fire with a double barrel surprise waiting for them giving a quick burst of armour. Essentially you have all the tools to pull yourself from the brink of disaster and back to full ammo and health if only you master all the synergies and buffs available to you- it's quite the menagerie of gameplay possibilities.

But it's also a lot. You might hear that quick run through of all the different gameplay options you have and wonder how you're supposed to juggle all that in every encounter, and the honest truth is that in the first two or three levels of the game it is honestly overwhelming. Remembering what buttons correspond to what ability, on top of where you need to flick on the weapon wheel to snap to an energy weapon against shields or a rocket launcher for the big heavies- it's stops feeding into that sense of intuitive flow of DOOM 2016 and begins to feel more like a tense management game. God knows I wasn't expecting to get 'Paper's Please' vibes from my DOOM game! It doesn't help that the game presents no natural solution for introducing these gameplay systems beyond feeding them to you one by and one and dumping a user manual text box everytime you get a new item. There's actually too many new tools for the game to leave you to learn them naturally.

There are a few universal design rules that speak to the player in the base game. Glowing blue shields are best killed by energy weapons and an enemy that glows green before their swing can be interrupted with a shotgun blast- but the game relies on Textboxes more and more as the number of enemy variations and weapon specialties balloons to an unreasonable size. Cacodemons are weak to the Ballista gun. Why? I dunno. Does the game translate this to you in any way intuitively? Not really. Certain Demons can have their mechanical weapons blown off their body with a precision shot, but not the mini-gun toting Tyrant Demon for some reason. For Mancubus enemies you are literally told to destroy their two artillery arms before closing in for the kill, but for the Cybermancubus those appendages are indestructible. There's just a breakdown in tutorial and visual language cohesion that turns combat into more of a memory game as it stretches out.

One of the issues that the team specifically strove to repair for this sequel was the way in which half-way through DOOM 2016 the game kind of runs out of new tricks to throw your way. There's new locales, enemy density ramps up, some bosses litter the final few levels- but there's nothing wholly fresh added to the battlefield. DOOM Eternal, on the otherhand, is constantly throwing new enemies at you every level or so- or new items that require new powerups or just more content that breaks that general gameplay rhythm you were settling into by shoving something new to consider. Personally I never found the 'lack of new tricks' for late game 2016 to be a bother, because that late game was really more about mastery of the challanges you had met and testing your playstyle on increasingly large groups of enemy mobs. DOOM Eternal makes you feel like you're constantly a novice throughout your entire first playthrough and refuses to let you off the hook and give you that space to start becoming a master- you have to wait for the DLC to start that journey.

One of the more controversial changes to the layout of each level has been the structure of how enemies are presented. Before they would largely be scattered around levels in various locations, sometimes ambushing the player when they least suspect it, sometimes blocking progression until you've wiped out a 'gore nest' arena battle. DOOM Eternal bases it's entire game around those arena-style battles and it presents them as ineloquently as possible. Whereas in 2016 you would at least be fed the fiction that 'Unsafe demonic corruption' levels were locking down certain parts of the facility, in Eternal you'll just find giant sod-off energy walls forcing you to jump around the battle arena taking out waves of enemies to progress.

In theory this isn't so much an issue; Gore Nests were some of the best snippets of gameplay in DOOM 2016- highlights of all the skills you had built surviving the level in tense dances driven by flowing instinct and punctuated with splashes of skilful violence. In Eternal it feels like every room is a gore nest, which drag on longer and longer as the game becomes more confidant in throwing enemies at you. By the final levels the arenas you clear are genuinely exhausting as wave after wave of enemies assault you at every turn, dragging out that narrative climax as long as humanely possible. When the DLC starts up these arenas become just frankly too long. I'm talking ten to twenty minute affairs to clear every room in decently large levels, all the while requiring more effort to juggle the games dozens of combat systems and expectations in a depreciating scale of benefit. By DLC 1 I was no longer really enjoying the feeling of clearing a room, but rather basking in the frustration that it took so long and weighing that against how long the game is going to keep me in the proceeding forced areas.

In fact, DOOM Eternal's DLC seems predicated on the ideal that 'challenge and fun are perfectly linked'. I'm a lover of challenging experiences, mind you, The FromSoft games are my catnip, my typical DOOM difficulty level is Nightmare- I understand how challenge can be exciting and rewarding: I just don't see that equation bore out to it's fullest in 'The Ancient Gods' DLC. These levels are sadistically long and packed with endless rooms filthy with enemy waves and deeply frustrating enemy buffing hazards and heavy demon combinations to the point where every fight is resplendent with constant weapon switching to meet every demon with it's exact weakness. It's a strong spine for gameplay pushed beyond it's threshold into a repetitive chore, like what you would expect from a mod developer who is so deeply religiously devoted to a single game they can't understand how other people might find a single hour long boss fight with the same core mechanic flooded with nothing interesting except for 'trash mob' spam tedious because they just love doing the same thing over and over and why wouldn't anyone else? (That may or may not be directed at the final boss of The Ancient Gods.)

One honest surprise I had going into DOOM Eternal was how seriously is actually took itself from a story standpoint, especially considering how 2016 seemed to spurn the face of unwelcome narrative exposition with gusto. You start Eternal with a giant flying space fortress you've gained out of nowhere, embarking on a war against hell priests you never knew existed until just now and fighting through the deluges of broken sci-fi medieval societies illustrated with vomits of operatic speech. At first I was so assaulted by the haphazardly flung narrative and lore content that I instinctively assumed this was another sly jab at overstuffed narratives from the development team, but as the game carried on and objectives weren't getting any simpler or more neatly explained I realised that "No, DOOM Eternal has just adopted one of the most overstuffed narratives a title like this could hope for."

Eternal wants you to actively engage with it's narrative but does not quite know how to present to you a world wherein the typically hands-off story of DOOM is suddenly a lot more tied to the core experience. Eternal just throws you into the middle of a vast invasion of earth, on what feels like chapter 10 of a 30 chapter novel, expecting you to make up the difference by reading the dozens of lore text pages scattered haphazardly around each level and constructed to drip-feed the setting, characters, factions and lore as though extracted from a wikia article. Seriously, the way DOOM presents it's narrative is by literally telling you everything in small chunks from level to level in giant walls of (optional) text that are full of just enough overly verbose 'in universe poetry talk' that by level five I was basically scanning them quickly for pertinent snippets and then jumping back to the actually important action.

You can just skip past them, but the narrative cutscenes you'll be subjected to across your adventure clearly lie very heavily on the belief you're going to study all the text to figure out who everyone is, why they're talking to each other like that and why that big weapon they just announced is significant and you should care about stopping it. It's as if Dark Souls presented it's narrative exactly the way it does, but then peppered cutscenes full of situational characters and events that reference the more esoteric material as though you've already been formally introduced to all of it. Even a basic introduction paragraph at the onset of Eternal explaining where the Fortress of DOOM came from would have worked to set players in the mindset they needed to be in more.

By the time you've reached the Ancient Gods DLC you might be quite surprised to discover how the big invasion plotline of the main game has been soundly trumped in scope by what appears to be the actual finale to the DOOM narrative, for seemingly good. Whereas most franchises build themselves up for a trilogy, it appears that Id honestly looked at what they did with DOOM Eternal and realised they threw absolutely every single errant idea the team ever had at the wall with this one and there was nowhere new to push the franchise further. It almost feels intrinsically abrupt for Eternal's DLC to suddenly introduce the universe's God and Devil and place you against them in a final climatic showdown- like if Wolfenstein: New Colossus just dropped a 'Let's kill Hitler!' DLC in lieu of the third conclusion game they're presumably mid brain storming.

Then again, I guess the promise of a climatic finale is the only thing pushing people through the utterly painful DLC missions that feel constructed by one of those people who min-max overpowered builds they use to steamroll endgame content in MMOs and then turns around and demands the game produces new content specially to challenge their build because that mathematically constructed uber class they no-lifed had an easy time with the content- all other players be damned. Ancient Gods has that level of almost experimental-feeling challenge, wherein you're on minute twenty five of a single combat encounter thinking 'did any real thought go into this encounter beyond: what's the biggest mob I can fit into this arena'? The amount of waves that end in Tyrant + 'Doom Hunter' would suggest otherwise. 

Summary

DOOM Eternal is the culmination of all of Id Software's talents in bringing DOOM back from the dead and on a technical standpoint, both in ambition and achievement, the game rules supreme. It looks gorgeous, it plays brilliantly and there's more combat freedom than ever before. But in the actual meat of the meal, the composition of the canvass- so to speak, Eternal lacks that dignified elegance of it's simpler yet more focused predecessor. Eternal troubles itself so much trying to throw new gadgets in the players hands, new enemies demanding different approaches and a newly centrally imperative plot at you that somewhere along the line that intrinsic pleasure of being the whirlwind of beautiful carnage that is the DOOM Slayer becomes muddied. Not lost, at all. More tarnished and rough, resulting in an ambitious sequel that seems to have piled on too many plates and feels a little clumsy and less masterful than it's father. The DLC, on the otherhand, is just a messy challenge gauntlet of endless ramping difficult lacking a satisfying finale. I enjoyed 'The Ancient Gods' to the degree that I'm glad I beat it, but I would never bring myself to play it again on future Eternal playthroughs. There was achievement in the DLC, but little genuine fun. Overall I guess that leaves me giving DOOM Eternal a respectable B + grade on my arbitrary review scale, which would have been closer to an A- before I played that DLC, which admittedly left a soul taste in my mouth. Still, I absolutely recommend the game for being a prime First Person Shooter with a great flow that many other games could learn from, and a cautionary tale about why sometimes just a little less can mean so much more.

So the Doom Soundtrack situation

 You're tearing me apart, Id!

I've actually been avoiding talking about this because it really didn't seem like my place and had turned into a real mud-slinging battle of 'he said, the other he said'. The last time something like this made headlines in the news it was the whole Bayonetta 3 pay debate debacle and that whole situation turned itself inside out like a slasher movie victim; and I didn't want to be in the middle of that kind of trap story again. But then people didn't stop talking about it, and then Bethesda threw out a statement! Why, you guys could have kept your head down and let Id handle this internally! I mean sure, Bethesda got shame rightful shame for this situation, but just cynically and corporate-mindfully; sometimes ignoring the bubbling drama is just the correct way to go about doing business! In fact, most of the time I'd say things turn out that way! But I guess now the matter is too bloated to rest.

Now first of all, I'm not exactly in the best of moods right now so forgive me if I get a little unfair with my characterisations. Let me preface wherever I'm about to go with the information that everyone is human here and no one person is some demon in human skin that lives only to disadvantage others; now that's out of the way, why did Id Software go out of it's way to screw Mick Gordon? If you're unfamiliar, Mick Gordon is the talented Australian composer behind the incredible DOOM (2016) soundtrack, the upcoming Atomic Heart and, until recently, believed to have worked on DOOM Eternal. I mean he did. He did work on DOOM Eternal. But it seems he less did work on that game, and more 'struggled to bring that game to life in the soundtrack' whilst battling the business deal from hell, from the sounds of things. Of course this is the follow-up to the whole debacle surrounding the DOOM Eternal OST which disappointed some musically intuned fans, stirring up a mud-slinging saga which has somehow persisted to today.

It started with Mick throwing fingers at Marty Stratton who in turn published a damning condemnation of Mick's professionalism and punctuality, throwing his credibility into question and stoking the fires of the more 'unhinged' fans out in the world. (People were legit sending verbose death threats over a video game OST. I have no idea how these people avoid getting institutionalised in daily life.) Now after years of the matter being settled, Mick has risen from the Twitter ashes to point fingers back at Marty for misrepresenting the issue and laying blame where it was not perhaps deserved. Or at the very least, totally dissolving himself of any rightful blame for the failure of the OST. Again, a failure that only seems to have been perceived by the musically attuned. Really does seem like a lot of chaos to stoke over such a niche issue, but them's the breaks.

The original slap by Marty claimed that Mick was unprofessional and couldn't deliver to the timeframe that they expected. He was uncooperative and ghosted them at the most inopportune moments. But Mick dips a little more context into the situation by explaining why it was that the set deadlines proved inopportune for the work on the soundtrack. According to his side of the situation, Mick was tasked with creating music at a crunch-rate in order to match the pace of development. The task before him was to create music that closely matched the gameplay, only to be given a timeframe in which he'd be making that music months before the levels they were for would be built up and worked on. Which is- difficult to say the least. When Mick bought up these issues and proposed a revised schedule that would better benefit the creative process, Stratton became incensed at his, presumably cost effective, schedule being questioned and immediately took to attacking Mick's credibility. For suggesting an improved work schedule. Sounds like a very 'hinged' man to me, I don't see what the problem is. (That's sarcasm, by the way. The man sounds very un-hinged.)

Claims go on to say that Mick wasn't paid for many months of his work, but he persisted anyway, even to the point where, thanks to the bad time scheduling, some of his tracks ended up being unsuitable for the levels they were blindly scored for, wasting months of work. Then, as Doom Eternal started to become more ambitious, the breadth of required soundtracks also expanded, further adding to the man's workload. From how it sounds Mick was just constantly at the receiving end of a kicking machine that didn't value his contribution to the game enough to take any of his concerns and tribulations seriously, resulting in a rough experience. And from the way he tells it, none of these issues are tied to his working competency, but merely unrealistic and ill-thought out expectations running afoul of immutable reality.

But heads butt into each other during the crazy task of making a game, and one might be able to see scenarios where the bull rush allows an element to slip out of sink. I mean, making sure that doesn't happen would be the job of a competent producer; but let's not start questioning anyone's competency, eh? That never ends well. Where it starts to get vindictive is where Mick tells that after a falling out in which Mick learnt some of his pulled tracks were being used in marketing for the game without him being compensated, apparently Stratton reached out to offer a six figure settlement to encourage Mick not to speak about this situation publicly. Which would seem like a nice way to bow out of this total mess, if one of the conditions wasn't also that Mick had to publicly accept blame for everything that happened, including the poor mixing of the OST that apparently happened after he cut ties with the developers, basically tanking his own reputation in the industry forever more. Stratton basically offered him a retirement settlement; which is actually a little evil, if true. It doesn't matter how much you pay an artist, if they're blacklisted from the industry they love and have to struggle to book new roles from that point forward; you've destroyed that person. Mick really does paint out Stratton as a cartoon super villain in his take of events. 

Furthermore, this is just his take isn't it? As such, Bethesda went out of their way just recently to condemn Mick's statement as 'one sided' and 'incomplete'; whilst just hand-waving the fact that Stratton already provided his side on the matter. Heck, if we now have Mick and Marty's side on the same situations, why then that would make this a... two sided debate, then wouldn't it? But Bethesda haven't exactly made themselves out to be paragons of intelligent thought recently, so this utterly unhelpful and self-sabotaging butting-in to a situation in which they had nothing to add really does just fit their recent MO, doesn't it? Seriously, some one needs to find Bethesda's PR manager and have a real sit down about when exactly it's appropriate to self flagellate oneself on the public square. Which is never. It's never appropriate for a company to do that.

Soundtracks for video games should not be controversial, and I definitely shouldn't know the full name of your senior producer and composer. Mick Gordon is big enough for someone like me to know his work, but the second Stratton starts making headlines you know something had gone sorely wrong. Whether this story blossoms, if Stratton can claw any respectability back for himself, everyone is coming from this embarrassed and covered in egg over a game that was, let me remind everyone, a huge success. Widely loved and adored. I'm not saying that the success of the game in anyway invalidates the struggles that the creator's took to get there, Cyberpunk 2077 demonstrates what happens when you adopt that mentality; but you'd expect controversy this deep to be attached a train wreck like Saints Row or Gotham Knights; not Doom Eternal. Maybe after this is out of everyone's system, we can stop review bombing a frankly fantastic game and get to enjoying the love of the craft; that'd be really nice.

Enemy spam in game design

There coming out the wall!

Enemies are a staple of a good many video games out there today, and for very good reason; they represent an active trial for the players to overcome through strife that can feel exciting and dynamic in a way that's hard to replicate with static puzzles and gradual progression. That is, of course, just a general overview of their potential role in gaming; enemies can serve many different roles for their respective games and that's what makes them such a universal aspect. That does not mean, however, that there is no etiquette or widely excepted methodology to the creation and implementation of said enemies; but I'm only interested in one specific set of rules and that's those that go into deciding the sheer quantity of enemies. What counts as just enough and what crosses into the borders of 'Enemy Spam'.

'Enemy Spam' refers to a situation in video games wherein the player meets an enemy force that vastly eclipses their ability to handle it. As such, what actually constitutes 'enemy spam' can vary wildly from game to game; it comes under the banner of balancing for the title in question. In some games, enemy spam could be considered having a group of five enemies thrown at a player in a very one-on-one style game, or having a constant barrage of enemies thrown at them again and again in a very resource heavy style game. What's important to note and make distinction of is that 'Enemy Spam' isn't used to denote a moment at which a player's ability is heavily challenged, even when it's to a degree outside of their supposed limits; but rather a time when the amount of enemies, or the type in question, are so consciously geared to be disadvantageous to the player that it starts becoming frustrating, and loses that hard-but-rewarding edge. (It's a fine line to walk.)

Personally, the first time I really came up against 'Enemy Spam' was in the party-based RPG 'Dragon Age: Origins', which I'm sure you all know so well. That was an entire game built around the core concept of intelligent use of character skills and positing in order to overcome the threats of the game. (Although, all too often that did slip into micromanaging the every move of your teammates. The AI wasn't the best on the market.) This meant that throughout the majority of the game you'd come up against smartly constructed groups of enemies that would test your versatility and strength as you devise counters against the many different enemy types, with the finale of the areas typically testing all of the strategies you had made in your journey. By the climax of the game, however, the team had run out of new enemy types to throw your way and thus just resorted to placing armies of Darkspawn in your path. This was still completely fine and dandy right up until the final hallway of enemies before the final boss; because there we all saw the quintessential example of enemy spam.

There, in front of the player, were a layout of battlements manned by Darkspawn; surely a challenge for any player to get through and requiring of some tactical planning. Bioware, however, saw to it that people wouldn't have a chance to get to planning as the second you get there you'll be hit by a wave of invisible Shrieks to throw you off your game. Good play, Bioware, but now it's time to get back to- oh, there's another wave. And another. And another. Now this isn't any where near the worst example of enemy spam, but in a game that, up until this point, had relied on strong enemy composition rather than overwhelming numbers, it was supremely jarring. And all that was compounded by the final fight itself, which swarms unending waves of enemies at you requiring anyone on higher difficulties to literally bring an entire apothecaries worth of potions just to withstand the impending hoards. (Not really the sign of a well-crafted boss fight.)

Now this is by no means the only example of this sort of issue popping up in the game balancing, and in fact; Bioware themselves are responsible for an inordinate amount of it. There's the corridor of endless Sith at the end of KOTR, the Geth Juggernaut hallway up the Citadel tower in Mass Effect and probably something at the end of Jade Empire that I haven't got to yet. But there are other examples from different game franchises. Some might say that the later Dark Souls games resorted to increased amount of enemy spam to fill their areas (although the Frigid Outskirts from Dark Souls 2 is easily the worst offender in that regard.) The final level of 2016's DOOM is split in three nauseatingly prolonged combat arenas, all enough to make you never want to see another Demon for as long as you live. The newer XCOM games have spammy final levels, as does The Outer Worlds and certainly some of the Kingdom Hearts games.

But where is that line in the sand? At what point is more enemies too much and how does a developer know how to effectively walk that line? You may have noticed a trend out of the games that I mentioned, in that most of the egregious offenders pull their spam by the final levels, and that makes sense when you think about it. The finale of the game is supposed to represent the climax in spectacle, story and gameplay; so it makes sense for the developers to throw everything they can at you. But when they just inundate you with so many enemies that the game devolves into a substandard version of itself, suddenly that's too much and considered 'Enemy Spam'. It's a very tight line to walk and I envy no one who has to do so for a living.

Perhaps the hardest task of game balancing is figuring out the utmost extremes that your game and, most importantly, what your players are comfortable with; because realistically there is no right answer. There's no cure-all, one-fits-all, choice for how to attain perfect equilibrium and  therefore Devs just have to work off what little they can judge from their play testers and a little bit of instinct. Some games can totally get away with chucking the kitchen sink at you without ruining anyone's day; just look at the finale of 'Batman: Arkham Asylum' for instance. Just before the final encounter the player is asked to walk through a room brimming with clapping thugs on either side. Now this is entirely optional fight, and the key may lie in that, but I feel it's just the makeup of the game's legendarily tight combat controls that the action of knocking out everyone in that room still feels satisfying by the final punch. So as I say; different strokes for different folks.

Of course, personally I wouldn't say that Enemy Spam essentially ruins a game, but it does leave a sour taste in the mouth for the player which is rarely relived by the eventual completion of the task in question. For my two cents, I feel it's just a little unfair to be thrust into an overwhelmingly packed situation without being made aware of it prior. Perhaps it's the surprise of "Are we done ye- another wave?!" which really stings the worst, or perhaps I'm being reductionist with even that and there's an even wider net that could be cast here. Either way, I would be interested to hear a perspective for how enemy spam is handled from both a developer and player level, but as this was just an introduction to the topic, those are a couple blogs for another day.

My favourite DOOM level

He chose the path of perpetual torment

I'm sure that I've mentioned it a few times but recently I've been playing a frankly obscene amount of 2016's DOOM. I've pulled back a little recently with my acquisition of the Kingdom Hearts series and the full playthrough of Fallout 76 Wastelanders that I imposed upon myself, but everytime I stop to jam to music while I game I cannot help but get the itches to rip and tear my way across Mars, and Hell, to the beat. (Don't ask what kind of music I play DOOM too. You'll think even less of me than  you already do.) As such, I've reached the point where I'm actually intimately familiar with every single level in that game's lineup, to the extent where I even sort of know the location of enemy spawns and secret item rooms. Part of that comes from an obsession for mastering the rather stressful Arcade and the other is the aftermath of the extremely stressful Ultra-nightmare playthrough that I'm doing.

The upshot is that I'm familiar enough with Id software's level design and philosophy that I can appreciate the little things that they put into each level to make it pop, as well as acknowledge the moments when things don't quite pan out as they maybe should have. (Like in that hallway with the Two Barons, Two Mancubi and four Spectres. Seriously, screw that corridor.) All and all it's quite elegant as modern day Id managed to completely reinvigorate the spirit of DOOM for 2016 without giving up on the heart and spirit which made the original DOOM games so memorable; the focus on speed and the necessity for aggression. To really bring that out, ID added a dimension of verticality to the combat and movement which I'm told is amplified and built upon in this year's DOOM Eternal. (Although I wouldn't know myself because I'm already inundated with games, I cannot take on another right now.)

All that praise aside there is one level that stands head and shoulders above the others in my eyes as my undisputed favourite. Not that this particular level is 'the best' so to speak, nor that it really puts all the others to shame, just that it's that one level of DOOM that I can throw on to kill some time whenever I have no idea what it is that I want. It's my comfort level, neither too hard so as to irk me nor so easy as to bore me; instead it sits at the perfect equilibrium of a DOOM level. Since this is a game that's taken up so much of my free-time and this blog is the only person I have to unload to, I've decided to talk about my favourite DOOM level and exactly why this one just clicks with me so well. So without further ado, let me tell you about why The Foundry (or mission 3) is such a perfect level in my eyes and what other FPS' can learn from it.

The Foundry represents the first point in the game where DOOM really takes out it's mittens and throws you to the wolves, although not without training you first. The initial level of DOOM does a good job of introducing you to core mechanics that you'll be using throughout the game such as Key cards, Gore Nests and equipment. (i.e. Grenades) The second level reinforces all of that whilst being careful not to overwhelm the player by limiting the majority of the combat to small groups in narrow corridors. (There are perhaps two open space battles in that entire level.) The Foundry, however, completely changes your notions on the structure of this game, by discarding all of the linear paths and A=B objectives and letting the Slayer loose on the area with absolute free reign.

The set-up of the Foundry is that the Slayer needs to get through this area in order to get to the source of the hell invasion, only to find the blast doors locked due to an automatic lockdown that activated when the 'hell levels' got too high. Thus all you have to do to clear this area is wipe out the gore nests which are the root of the hell infestation and are scattered around the map, and you are completely free to choose whichever you go for first. Now, I'm a complete sucker for even the slightest amount of exploration freedom, therefore this is already the perfect sort of level for me. What really keeps me engaged in each gore nest, however, is the way that each one poses a different environmental challenge for the player to overcome. The first nest puts the player in a room with low ceilings, limiting your ability to jump out of the way of projectiles; whilst the second takes place on a broken network of walkways dangling above molten lava, testing the player's ability to jump in order to save their lives. The third Nest is essentially a narrow pathway, stopping the player from dodging to the side too much and the last boasts a couple of vertical levels to pay attention to.

The skills you'll begin developing from taking out these gore nests will be reinforced in later levels until the last levels, where they all get mixed together in complicated arena battles. But that doesn't mean this is another level that takes it easy by any stretch of the imagination, and that is largely due to the fact that this game throws the first of it's really significant demons at you. (You could go so far as to call them the first 'microboss' demon. Although by the end you'll have killed so many of them you'll likely think of them as just more fodder.) Up until now the slayer was killing grunts like the possessed, Imps and Soldiers; but all of a sudden in the foundry they'll come face to face with the fearsome Hell Knight. Hell Knights are big, strong, and oh-so-tanky, making them able to chew up just about any ammunition that you'll have at your disposal at this point in the game. They charge relentlessly at the player and can easily crush anyone not paying attention, the game even does something rare and sets one loose in the level to hunt you down. (That dude usually ends up jump scaring you at the single most inopportune time, teaching you the hard way never to let your guard down.)

From a set-up perspective this level gets just about everything right, but the thing that I think other FPS' can learn from The Foundry, and the reason I keep coming back to it time and time again, is because it's just a blast to go through. The sprawling layout of the level means that you have a lot of mobility to work with as you rip and tear, the 'Smithery' aesthetic of the level means that despite being indoors this level can have dynamically shifting lighting (The lava helps) and the volume of demons-per-gore-nest is great for going on an off-the-cuff slaughter spree. When designing this level there is no doubt in my mind that Id were extra careful to make something that was functional to the pace of the game whilst also being enjoyable on it's own, and it's incredibly difficult to meet two objectives like that and thus I applaud them. That's something that the later COD games lost as they began devoting more and more time to their Multiplayer over the campaigns; whilst the story is important, it also helps to remember that the moment itself should stand up as fun, otherwise where will the replay value come from?

Of course, I'll not throw any other DOOM levels under the bus; they're all incredible fun to go through time and time again. (As evidenced by the fact that I've done several start to finish throughways in March alone) As far as I'm concerned, DOOM 2016 will go down in FPS legend as a absolute classic, if it hasn't already, and it's successes are definitely the bar to which aspiring shooters should hold themselves up to. This was just a little spur-of-the-moment bit of fanboying that I wanted to get off my chest, so I'm not sure if I'll use this formula on other games. (I feel like I've been doing that a bit too much of late, it helps to keep things as a one off) But maybe once I've finally gotten around to DOOM Eternal I'll find another reason to rave about Id Software again.

Safe Houses in Games

Little pigs, little pigs; let me come in...

With the recent announcement of the 'Saints Row 3 Remastered' I was reminded of a few things; firstly of how hilarious the concept of the first level is: with the Saints robbing a bank whilst dressed as themselves; and Secondly how I always had trouble replaying that game due to one thing: the amount of time it would take to unlock the main safe house. (Seriously, in Saints Row 3 it takes the entire first act. No, that crappy apartment from the beginning doesn't count.) And that got me thinking about what exactly it is about video games Safe Houses that we gel with so much. (Or should I say "that I gel with"? Does anyone else feel this way? Am I a freak?) Why is it that open world games feel like they're missing something essential when you lack a home HUB to return to, even in situations when that HUB is a space wherein literally nothing of consequence ever happens. (As is the case almost all of the time.)

I do find it exceptionally odd as when you come down to it shouldn't the allure of a video game be derived primarily from the gameplay? And yet we enjoy times when our game has great story to it and world building, throw in a strong character arc and things are perfect. Is this just the leftover pretentious pandering that arises from creative critique in general or is there something primitively satisfying about a rounded experience that is common across all forms of creative expression. (Am I getting too general? I'm gonna focus into "Why are there still safe houses in games") Before I explore this subject I should preface this with the same warning that I do with all blogs like this, I am not an expert and this will come down to personal preference so feel free to vehemently disagree with literally everything that I say.

Firstly, let's define what exactly we mean by 'Safe house'. This is a term borrowed from police terminology and popularised in games by titles like GTA to infer a 'base' who's location is largely secure and/or unknown to the public, thus designating it 'Safe'. Although to be even more literal to gaming, a 'safehouse' is merely a type of HUB for players to return to between missions in order to perform some necessary actions like saving the game. As the art of game development evolved and things started to become more intuitive and user friendly, even die-hard Open world titles like GTA started to leanoff on having to return to your 'safe house' and those locations started becoming less and less essential in video games, although you'll still find them in the majority of open world games.

So perhaps the obvious question to ask in regard to 'safe houses' is whether or not they still have a relevant place in modern game design or if they are a redundant hold over. Should there be some sort of movement to move past such a concept and leave it in the past alongside 'limited lives', 'points' and 'time dependant levels'. In order to figure this out I decided to look over the way that safe houses exist (or don't) in a few fairly recent open world titles in order to come to a conclusion in this matter. (Obviously, I can only look at games which are released for this so 'Cyberpunk 2077' cannot be counted even thought that game does tease a safe house that I think looks really cool.)

As I started with it for some reason, the first game I will look at in this regard is Saints Row. Or rather the first series, as Saints Row has based itself staunchly on the Grand Theft Auto formula since it's inception and that means each and every game has boasted some form of Safe house. In the first game all this space really served for was a save point and wardrobe service, although in the second game they really bought out player's safehouse as an in-game menu. Player's could use their TV to watch cutscenes, like one would expect from a bonus menu, and even customise the style of their gang. Although the players had no explicit need to go to this place due to rather regular autosaves, apart from the occasional need to pick up a new car or take some revenue from the safe present in each house. So from that angle, Saints Row is actually very minimalist with how they treat safe houses, allowing players to buy more extravagant ones but lacking any real purpose to doing so.

If there could be one point said towards why this system might still be relevant to it's game, it's because Saint's Row is a very fast paced humour dependant title. At the heart of everything the game offers there should be someway to make the player feel powerful in a humorous way, and I guess the team couldn't see many opportunities in that through simulating house life. That being said, the act of buying and acquiring more lavish and opulent houses is in line with the 'gang boss' context that the franchise is built upon, therefore it makes thematic sense to include that dynamic even if you don't really do anything with it in terms of gameplay.

Speaking of Grand Theft Auto, why not take a look at how Safe houses work in their games? For the first 3 2D titles (1,2 and London) these locations didn't really have any presence in the game, even at the start of the 3D era these locations were still just 'save here' zones. San Andreas remains the only game in the entire series that allowed players to actually buy and go inside of bought houses at their own whim, bringing that sense of actually having a home to come back to. There still wasn't a great deal to do at these homes besides save, change clothes and eventually collect upon unlocked items, but it did serve as an interesting measure of your progression of means throughout the narrative of the game. Only once GTA 5 came along did Rockstar finally kill the need to save anywhere (although you'll still always load up in your safe house.)

As I mentioned, the logic of having a safe home to come back to fits neatly into Grand Theft Auto even if such locations lack in actual functionality. GTA prides itself in being a sardonic mirror upon our reality that mimics a day-to-day lifestyle only in a violent world with fewer consequences. It makes sense, then, for the player to have a home and one that matches the condition of the character along their typical arc. (Which in GTA games usually follows the tried and true 'rags to riches' model) Although in Grand Theft Auto V these places also served a great tool for characterising each of the three protagonist by the world which they willingly choose to reside in. Trevor lives in a trailer far away from the big city, Micheal lives in the affluent upper LS neighbourhood and Franklin starts off in the ghetto before moving into a luxury pad in the hills. It's a great way of telling the audience at a glance who everyone is and what their most base, materialistic goals are.

Now here's a wildcard to consider, ladies and gentlemen, as the Far Cry franchise has been a open world game for as long as 2004 and yet only one of the games has featured a safe house system. Now that isn't to discount how throughout the Far Cry games there have been homely locations in the map, but these only served limited narrative points rather than locations with actual gameplay benefits. Only in Far Cry 2 could you explore about Africa and open up safe houses in which you could save, (an incredibly precious action within the surprisingly hardcore action of FC2) store a weapon (equally as important) and change the time of day. (Which supposedly helps for being sneakier in the later hours, but I suspect that's more of a 'placebo' situation.) But for the rest of the games there are no safehouses at all, and in fact all of the gameplay revolves around the moment-to-moment outpost conquering action rather than the moments inbetween which can  make downtime rather boring as a result.

Now as Far Cry is a first person franchise, one could be forgiven for assuming that the added one-to-one connection between the player and the character would make it more likely for the developers to include creature comforts like a home to retreat to, but quite often with FPS games the opposite seems true. I think that is because there is a part of the 'safe house mechanic' that is more psychological in the way that it gives the character a place in their world that makes them feel part of, hence making that world seem a little more real. In a third person game, all of the little things that make the character feel more real to the player are invaluable to ensure the player cares about the protagonist, whilst in first person games that connection is innate, thus character building and sometimes character narrative take a backseat. Plus, in Far Cry's case it makes absolute sense for there to be no place for the protagonist to call their own, as the entire franchise is built around the concept of people being put in situations that are a far cry from their day-to-day. (It all makes sense.)

But if we're going to sit here and talk about first person shooter action it only makes sense that I talk about a game I've played religiously over the past 2 weeks, even if it may not technically be open world, and that's 2016's DOOM. This is a level based story driven game, therefore it should make sense for their to be no home hub for the Doom Slayer, however in this year's DOOM Eternal, the slayer actually does have a base in 'The Fortress of Doom'. So why is there none in the 2016 game? Well, for one there is the narrative explanation which I'll extrapolate upon; 2016's DOOM follows a series of logical narrative events as the Doom Slayer attempts to seal up a portal to hell after stupid humans open it for what must be the freakin' 5th time. Though simple, this chain of events has a certain pace to it wherein Hell threatens to escape the boundaries of Mars and threaten the Earth unless the Doom Guy can wrap things up quickly, which makes it incompatible for that pacing if he had a home base to lounge around in inbetween missions. (Whereas in Eternal the world has already fallen so there's fewer timed stakes at hand.) But there is also another dynamic to consider.

You see, 2016's DOOM served as a revival of the long dormant DOOM franchise which hadn't be touched for 12 years prior and as such it was meant to be a celebration of all things great about the DOOM licence. That meant fast paced bloody action and a blatant intentional disregard for evolved storytelling. This amounts to the point where the team even dehumanise Doom Guy by canonically renaming him as 'the Doom Slayer' to highlight the fact that he exists as an extension of the player through which to channel their demon killing talents, rather than as a character entity of his own. Therefore there is little reason to give him his own space in the world as he doesn't need to appear real, he is the player and they are him. (And the player is real. Right?)

Looking back at another third person open world game we have one title that breaks the rules I just laid out; 'The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt'. This is a game that paints an involved RPG world brimming with storytelling potential and opportunities and yet there is no home base for Geralt of Rivia to set himself down in. (That is, until the post game DLC 'Blood and Wine') Functionally, this makes sense as there is quite literally no need for there to be any home base. Players can save anywhere they want and thanks to Witcher Meditation they can augment the time of day whenever they want to, so there's no gameplay mechanic that requires a safe house. Although that hasn't stopped quite a few other modern open world games so I expect there's a more thematic reason for the lack of a home. (No, I don't include Kaer Morhen. Sue me.)

In the lore, Geralt of Rivia is very much a wanderer who is obliged to help the less fortunate (provided that they can pay) but not to stick around and help people get back on their feet. Couple that with the heavily 'adventure-focused' narrative of Wild Hunt, revolving around chasing down Ciri, and it makes sense for Geralt to always be in motion, even if technically a Witcher cannot survive off mediation alone. (At least I think not, I don't know for sure.) In 'Blood and Wine', however, a big part of that narrative is around Geralt taking a step back to settle down, so it makes sense for him to have a house in which to rest his head, and to live in for the foreseeable future.

Another non-typical Safe House system in a modern third person open world game exists in Rockstar's 'Red Dead Redemption 2'. In that game, the player doesn't really have a home to go back to as much as they have a camp wherein all the members of the Van der Linde gang set themselves up. This is the place where the player goes to between missions and is actually at lost more essential then other homes as it's somewhere for the player to eat, sleep and take missions. These actions can feasibly be taken anywhere thanks to a camping mechanic (aside from the taking of missions, obviously) but the game encourages players to return to the camp as often as possible and become familiar with the place. This base is unique in that it moves across the map alongside the narrative, changing the activities available there as you go.

Again, I think this iteration of 'Safe House' comes down to thematic reasons in that all of Red Dead Redemption 2 exists to create the life of an outlaw. That means living in the woods away from prying eyes, staying close to those you trust and running from the law when necessary. This also serves a functional narrative purpose as you get chased around the country to more secluded places after which you go from 'living free' to 'living like rats' as the gang dream begins to wilt around you. Rockstar achieved something very special with Red Dead Redemption 2 and I think a lot of it comes from the emotional attachment that they establish between the player and the camp. (alongside its inhabitants) Showcasing how the 'safe house' mechanic doesn't always need to be necessary to the gameplay to be valid and justified, they might even get creative with it.

Ultimately, I think that predominate purpose for 'safe houses' are less for the tangible reasons and more for the benefit of world building. Most games that have 'safe houses' and so implement them in that pursuit and those that do not usually do so because they don't have to worry so much about world building. So whilst the functionality of 'safe houses' are mostly redundant and/or forced (I.e. locking manual saves to returning to the safe house) they do pose a viable thematic purpose. For my part, however, I think there's another piece to this puzzle. Just as I pointed out that games with a pace to keep avoid unnecessary down times, those that don't need to keep up such (like RPGs) can utilise downtimes and peaceful moments to amplify the action packed moments down the line. Therefore if the player gets used to hanging around at home and being relaxed it can make those flashes of action just that more impacting and special. So for that reason I do not think that game design has outgrown the concept of safe houses, and in fact they are just as useful/relevant now as they've always been. (Just maybe in ways that aren't exactly obvious.)

One life mode

You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow.

One of the most appealing features of gaming in general, at least in my eyes, is the distinct lack of consequence that the whole thing incurs. Whereas performing an action, or not doing so, in the real world has very tangible consequences, (most of which are usually negative in my experience) in video games you are free from that struggle by way of metaphysical detachment. Even the most dedicated 'your choices matter' video game doesn't have any bearing on your actual life because at the end of the day you can just scrap everything and go back to the beginning, a boon that we don't share as boring mortals.

There are those games, however, that do not abide by the general wistful rules of gaming and seek to impart the cold permanence of mortality upon our one receptacle of relief. (Gee, thanks guys.) These are the sorts of games that I find myself coming back to time and time again, as they come to tear you up about what could have been. Or, they make death a lot more meaningful by requiring players to restart everything should they die. (I thought we transcend those kinds of games ever since 'The Legend of Zelda' and saving.) Today I want to look at the appeal of these types of games and why it is a gimmick that I don't see dying out anytime soon. (See what I did there? It was unintentional too!)

One of the most famous examples of the 'one life' genre of games would be the 2010 browser based pixel game known as 'One Chance'. Chances are that if you spent anytime consuming Internet culture around this time then you'll have heard of this little indie gem, partially due to the fact that it is readily available for anyone to play on flash hosting sites like 'Newgrounds'. But just to recap, 'One Chance' tells the story of a man who is a month away from the end of the world and has one chance to stop it. It is a highly narrative driven experience showing the breakdown of this individuals life as the world start to crumble and giving the player's a little ounce of choice along the way. Once players reach their conclusion, however, they'll have cottoned onto the fact that the title is double-edged. The protagonist has one chance to save the world and the player only has one chance to play the game. Whatever ending you finish with is yours forever and there is no 'do-overs' or second chances ever. (Unless you clear your cookie history, but let's not break the illusion of permanence.)

Minecraft and Terraria are two games built around an incredibly simple premise, you are alive in a hostile world and must do your best to survive and thrive. Minecraft very much takes this in a direction whereupon players will end up going on great builds and carving themselves out a home and Terraria more has player's amassing weaponry to battle various deadly and terrifying foes. What both these games have going for them is the fact that, despite being very long-form experiences, they both have a 'hardcore' tag when creating the world. What this little option means is that the second your avatar kicks the bucket, their world is immediately deleted and all your progress is wiped. Obviously, this has the effect of making player's a lot more careful in how they play the game, however, in an endless adventure like Minecraft and Terraria, it's more an act of delaying the inevitable. Some fans like the extra layer of tension that this piles on top of the gameplay, but few would suggest this sort of experience for the casual player.

Speaking of 'Hardcore modes', how about we take a look at the franchise that is often credited with coining the phrase, the Diablo games and it's ilk. These endless dungeon crawlers are built around the cyclical gameplay loop of fighting hoards of ever more powerful monsters and amassing ever more powerful loot sets and abilities. This perpetual grind is often intersected by droplets of story and big, climatic boss battles, but the main draw of this genre comes from the balance between the predictable acting in unpredictable ways. In this manner it isn't too often to find oneself being slayed by enemies that you know well because you failed to pay attention when you needed to, and if you turn on the 'hardcore mode' that practically all of these games have, then that will be the end of your journey. For a series as 'dark' as Diablo and it's imitators, this concept actually fits in rather nicely to their world of heresy, violence and death. I suppose then, the only question is whether or not the player is brave enough to put themselves through that trial.

Bethesda have dedicated a portion of their efforts to reviving some of the long dead games of yesteryear, most prominently the 'Wolfenstein' and 'Doom' Games. Both of their titles earned stellar new revivals in the modern age and reintroduced current FPS fans to games back when they were still largely hard as nails. With that it mind, it shouldn't be surprising that both games feature their very own  'one life mode' in 'Mein Leben' and 'Ultra Nightmare' respectively. Both of these difficulties are like the crème de la crème of hardcore challenges, as they encourage people to slog through a heavily narrative-driven story and set pieces both without dying once or even quitting out. That's right, there's not even any checkpoints in either gamemode to exploit, that's real hardcore!

The concept of one life difficulties largely stems from the pursuit of accolades from the gaming habit. It's a covenant with one's self to prove that you posses both the tenacity and skill to overcome everything in a modern game. Some look upon this as bringing back some of the habits and traditions of old-school gaming (before Saving was invented) but honestly, with the lengths to which gaming and game design has evolved since the traditional consoles, these challenges are often much more brutal. But by overcoming odds that are honestly insurmountable for a great many, like playing through a 20 hour FPS campaign without dying or taking breaks, one can bask in the glory of having achieved something honestly commendable. (Or something easily ridiculed. Depends on the eyes of the beholder, I guess.)

As a life long glutton you'd think that a concept like this would be right up my street, but honestly 'hardcore modes' might just be that bit too much even for me. I really do cherish the ability to go back and fix a mistake, depriving me of that opportunity does have the knock on effect of sucking a lot of fun out of games as they just become tense stressful nightmares. Even modes which overly restrict gaming, like Fallout 4's survival mode, grates at my fragile sensibilities. That being said, I do understand the appeal, as much as any outsider can, and hope more big name games accommodate for those sorts of playstyles in the future.

Video games in TV shows

You hate to see it.

We've all had that moment when we're watching our favourite TV show, completely engrossed, and then get pulled the heck out when the showrunners try their hand at representing a subject that you're infinitely more informed on. It's the reason why nurses have trouble with medical shows, lawyers have to push themselves through lawyer shows (On an unrelated note; Why is 'Lawyer show' a genre now? Surely only Matt Murdoch has a 'TV show worthy' law career.) and it is the reason that I internally cringe everytime a TV show tries to show a video game.

Now don't get me wrong, I love the idea of video gaming becoming more prominent in the public eye, but I've always maintained the philosophy of no half measures. If I have to write a blog on the advantages and real life applications of transhumanism, you'll bet that I'll put in the time and effort to research the topic, at least lightly. I may not acquire a doctorate on the subject, but I learn enough to be able to hold my own in conversation on the topic. (And I feel that is what's needed in situations like this, at the very least.) I rarely get the sense that these show writers have so much as picked up a controller in the past 20 years whenever these references get made.

Perhaps I am being a little bit of a spoilsport, or an arse, for insisting that people put in their due diligence when writing, but otherwise I feel you only serve to deliver disrespect to your audience and the community that you're shouting out. Yes, gaming is becoming more prominent in the world, but the general public are still judging their opinions on the pastime through what they're told in The News and what they see in shows. The News may be a lost cause but that doesn't mean the TV has to be too. And if you think I'm taking this matter a bit too seriously, do you remember those two much meme-ed fellows who showed up at the GTA V reveal event all those years ago? Those, much derided, men who remarked how their favourite part of the GTA franchise was beating up hookers for money? (A comment that was met with awkward laughter all-round.) That's the kind of moronic opinion that is formed from someone who's only exposure to gaming is second hand. Either that or the guy was a genuine wrongun. But I tend to err towards the benefit of the doubt towards people. (If I didn't I'd just spend all day wrapped in a ball praying for a Noachian disaster to wipe the Earth clean again.)

In the spirit of deriding the misinformed, I've picked out a few examples of gaming in media that I have seen within the sphere of content that I consume. Obviously, that means that there are a great many examples that I am unaware of or have missed, but I always prefer to go for something of the personal touch with this blog. Sure I could Google someone else's list, but that wouldn't be fun for me. Therefore, don't be upset if I've failed to mention an example you were thinking of, chances are I've never watched that show/movie in the first place.

Firstly, as it's so fresh in my mind, I'll like to talk about that scene from the latest series of Black Lightning. (Light spoilers.) So, easily the grittiest arrow-verse show in existence, and the only one capable of intelligently discussing social issues, (Sorry Supergirl writers, but you know it's true) Black lightning has never been a show to shy away from diving deep into topics. Things are so heavy that there's a few topics mentioned last series that I've not even comfortable about bringing up in this blog. With all that care and attention that goes into the writing, you'd have think they'd have made time to read up on the light stuff too.

Early on in Series 3, we find out that Jennifer Perice has been going undercover in order to break curfew and mingle with 'ordinary people'. (I swear half her character is about feeling like a 'freak'. Get over it already, sheesh.) Whilst out and about with her digital cloak on, Jen decides to partake in the most 'normal' activity she can think of; sitting alone in a diner playing mobile games. (Actually, if that's her idea of normal than maybe she is a freak.) Whilst minding her own business, the silly camera man panned up enough for me to make out her game; Super Mario Run. (That, Mr.Director, was your first mistake.) Whilst mid-game, a young individual notices her and decides to shoot his shot. He peeps over her phone screen and makes the most cursed remark one could make regarding a Mario game: "Are you winning or losing?" At Mario!? Excuse me friend, I think you've had too much to drink, your common sense is clearly draining out of your damn ears!

Now of course, I understand that my man was attempting to perform, what those who travel in the same circles as folk like Richard de Ruina might call, 'baiting the hook'. An essential step in the journey of basic pick-up artistry. However, neglecting the fact that "Are you winning or losing?" is one of the weakest one-hit pick-up lines that I've ever heard, the context of the line actually makes no sense. (Yes, I'm about to lay into this throwaway line. No, I will not "Just chill.") Firstly, this mans was clearly established to be a younger gentleman around about the same age to our focal character, Jen is still in highschool and her reported age is 16. (That was around about the time of the first series but this show has a weirdly imprecise depiction of the passage of time.) That would put this fellow in the age group of those who grew up with the Playstation 2 and the Nintendo Gamecube.

So did any Mario games come out with the Gamecube? Of course they did, this is Nintendo we're talking about! During it's lifetime the Gamecube saw the release of Mario Party 4, Mario Party 5, Mario Tennis, Mario Golf and a little game called Super Mario Sunshine. (As well as re-releases of older Mario titles.) We know that gaming is hobby enjoyed by the younger generations so to the point that a majority of American kids over the age of 18 admit to playing a least two hours a week. (According to market research conducted by 'Limelight Networks' earlier this year.) This would make the existence of Mario games impossible to miss for our thirsty diner patron, giving him no excuse of ignorance. Even if he wasn't an avid gamer (As I assume the writers were trying to imply with his milk-toast chat-up line) he would have enough ancillary knowledge about the Mario series to be aware that the core games are not competitive and therefore the question of whether or not Jen is 'winning or not' is not appropriately relevant to the state of the game. Checkmate writers who get paid crazy amounts of money to do what they love, get served by a unemployed loner with depressive tendencies! (What do you mean I'm reading too much into this? Okay, I won't go that deep on all of them...)

There are some properties and creators that tend to put a bit more effort when introducing gaming into their script, and one of those folks is the wonder duo, Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park. Admittedly, one could argue that the reason for that is because South Park tends to take a hyper focused approached in the topic it's satirizing and thus they have to put the effort in to learn the facts so that they can inflate them for the jokes. Which is, of course, entirely true. But that doesn't mean that other types of shows can't learn from South Park and their 'actually research the thing' approach.

Of course, the classic South Park gaming episode would have to be 'Make Love, Not Warcraft' in which the kids become swept up in the craze that was World of Warcraft. I won't go into too much detail about the events, but needless to say it's all hilarious and they make appropriate mention of the 'addictive' nature of the game. Yes, they embellished and dramatized in certain areas of the gameplay but I have no problem with this, it's not accuracy that I'm looking for, it's a just a little bit of knowledge going behind the interpretation.

That being said, there is one episode that I take issue with. Or rather, not the episode itself but the way the bring gaming into it. (The episode is great.) In the 9th episode of season 18 '#REHASH', the South Park fellows tackle streaming and Pewdiepie even shows up to play himself. However, there is one scene which shows Kyle watching, and becoming considerably excited about, a stream featuring 'Dragon Age: Inquisition'. I even believe that the kids sit down and play it at the end of the episode. (Although I might be misremembering that from another episode.) Now, seeing as how none of these kids are older than 10, I find it particularly hard to believe that these children have the patience to play through, or even watch, a high fantasy tactical RPG game with a story revolving around the evolution of a militant/religious movement. (Sure, there are dragons and demons, but those are merely the background fodder.) I know it's just a setup for a joke based on the popular game of the time, but that scene always rubbed me odd and I needed to talk about it some day.

Speaking of scenes that rubbed me the wrong way, who remember when Jesse was playing RAGE on Breaking Bad? Discounting my immediate assessment of his taste in games, I couldn't help but be confused when I was watching through his gameplay in the episode. (You know, instead of watching the award winning drama that was playing out.) Where was the HUD? Why was everything on-the-rails? And why, in gods name, was Jesse controlling the thing with a light gun? (Yes, I know it was to create a visual link with violence and guns that would follow him to his every activity! I'm being facetious.) The answer was, of course, that this wasn't RAGE, merely a fake demo put together as a marketing trick to make sure that the game appeared on one of the most popular shows of all time. (The game itself wouldn't release for another 5 weeks.) Due to the weird history around this one, I'm a bit more forgiving to it's existence. It's fun to think about the on-the-rails RAGE demo that Id Software scrambled together for the Breaking Bad team. (Shame that the real game sucked.)

Finally, I wish to mention one of the most surprising gaming cameos in the general public's pop culture sphere that I have ever seen. Yep, I'm talking about the moment that Fortnite showed up in the biggest movie of all time; Avengers Endgame. Just to recap; Thor, distraught at his inability to reverse Thanos' snap, withdraws to New Asgard in order to eat himself into excess and become a coach potato. (An honourable profession in certain circles!) When he is introduced, it is in the middle of a Fortnite match on the Xbox, just to hammer in how pathetic the god of thunder had become. (That one hurt a little Marvel, I'm not gonna lie.)

Do you want to know what the worst thing is? The real kicker? This scene actually portrays Fortnite distressingly accurately. I mean, the scene is fairly short and throwaway so I'd be surprised if they did mess it up, but I've seen boomers do much worse with much less so this was commendable. I suppose this was likely due to the fact that Fortnite's appearance in the film was part of a two way brand deal between Epic and Disney. After Infinity War, Fortnite boasted a special event with a playable Thanos wielding his Infinity gauntlet, in return they got a shout-out in the follow-up movie. (And Fortnite got the go-ahead to do another crossover event after the movie. Seems Epic really got the better the end of this deal, if you ask me.)

Regardless of how much I "um" and "ah" whenever I see video games in pop culture, I must admit it does make me a little bit giddy to see my favourite pastime slowly seep into the mainstream. Everytime they get something wrong I groan but smile in the knowledge that they'll get it right one day. Or maybe they won't, I find it amusing either way so I don't sweat it that hard. Maybe the day when the mainstream actually understands what video games are and how they work, that will be the same day that we'll finally get a good video game movie. Although perhaps it's not fair to go that far. Afterall, they've already decided to give us another Tomb Raider movie.

DOOM Eternal. We're going straight to hell for this...

Welcome to hell, population; you.

Is there anything like the classics? I find it pretty telling that even now, in 2019, one of the most anticipated games of the year is a DOOM title. In the almost sixteen years since the original we have seen so many innovations and changes in the way games are made; we've seen advancements in graphical possibilities, established fundamentals for level design and even seen honest-to-goodness storytelling worked into our favourite hobby. DOOM is one of the grandfathers that sparked it all with iconic, unforgettable gameplay and a simple kickass premise. If Wolfenstein 3d birthed the First Person Shooter genre than DOOM raised and honed it into a deadly, demon slaying machine. (And all in the space of one year.)

That is not to say that DOOM guy has always been with us. There was a period time, after the confusingly named reboot; DOOM 3, when the franchise was dormant. 12 years, in fact. In its absence the FPS market saw the rise of many genre definers that would keep the FPS throne warm whilst the DOOM Slayer hibernated. Bioshock introduced the genre to resource management, Call of duty bought weight onto the player's movement, Far Cry bought mobility with fluidity and Crysis... still runs like crap. All these classic games defined the FPS' of the mid to late 2000's and paved the way for the great FPS revival. Starting with the fantastic 'Wolfenstein: The New Order' in 2014, with its great gunplay, thoughtful level layout and gripping story; And really solidifying in 2016 when the second DOOM reboot came to pass.

I remember that moment when the first DOOM trailer launched. Right away the folks at Id Software made it abundantly clear that this game was going to set itself apart from the well worn FPS market. Where Wolfenstein: TNO impressed with an adult, well told narrative; DOOM would win back gamers with its relentlessly brutal gameplay aesthetic. Yes, this was the same old story of the DOOM marine wiping out the demon population of mars, but we had never seen him do it with such ardent ferocity. Back in 1993 the height of DOOM's violence was the way in which some of the sprites would burst into bloody chunks if you shot them with the super shotgun or the way enemies would gush pixelated blood when you stuck your chainsaw in their chest. In the lead up to the 2016 game, we saw the DOOM Slayer rip off a Possessed's arm and beat the demon to death with it. This was a DOOM for a whole new generation. A whole new desensitized generation.

DOOM would release to rave reviews and a whole slew of sales. Fans old and new flocked to the gore-ridden blood splattered revitalization of the FPS genre. DOOM 2016 was pure, classic, video game fun and people responded to its simple truths. That isn't to say that the game had no story, just that it didn' matter. The DOOM Slayer himself indicates as such when he (Without requiring prompting from the player) grabs and tosses exposition-spewer Samuel Hayden's terminal halfway across the room in favour of killing some more demons. He isn't given a motivation, he hunts the demons. He doesn't negotiate and cooperate, he slays more demons. The DOOM Slayer was presented to us as a one-dimensional badass just like he always should have been. Id Software even gave him a cool backstory that painted out the lore as though the DOOM Slayer was always hunting demons, from age to age, never tiring, never faulting, always slaying. Like a space-age John Wick.

With how much adoration, praise and (most importantly) money that the DOOM revival generated, a sequel was inevitable. DOOM Eternal looks to be the entry that will finally push the franchise further than it has ever been before. Don't get me wrong, the first game was and is thrilling but in many ways it wasn't entirely fresh. It was a modern reimagining which was crafted to invoke the essence of the 1993 original. With DOOM Eternal we're pushing the setting forward. We're leaving Mars and Hell and seem to heading to Heaven in order to... kill angels? (It isn't exactly clear but I must say, the prospect does give me flashes of Paradise Lost. If Paradise Lost had more decapitations, that is.) Players will face off against at least one sky scrapper sized demon and have a laser sword fight with a hell knight. Oh, and God is in the game. And he looks like one heck of boss fight.

Eternal promises to take us to places that we've never before been in a DOOM game. We've seen a demon ridden human colony, (That isn't on Mars this time) a cathedral space station donned with seraphic iconography and a swirling vortex drilled into the face of what looks to be the moon: Phobos. Id Software have also expanded their colour palette beyond shades of red to take us on a visually spectacular roller coaster through the bizarre science-mythological world of DOOM. Visual fidelity has been improved as well. Glory kills are more visceral then ever with demon organs now tucked away inside of those demonic flesh bags you eviscerate.

Visuals, however, are just the garnish and DOOM Eternal does not disappoint when it comes to gameplay either. The player's basic arsenal has been expanded upon from DOOM 2016 to include several new weapons with slick alt fire modes, a handy chain for pulling yourself around or pulling demons to you and the aforementioned laser sword. Because swords are cool. All of these tools are to be placed in the hands of the DOOM Slayer as he cuts a visceral path through the forces of... I guess just anyone who gets in his way this time. Each new addition still shakes hands with the old mechanics to enrich gameplay without diluting the formula. It is incredibly delicate recipe that Id are well equipped to cook.

Whilst other franchises feel the need to alter their very DNA to stay relevant, such as the melodramatic remodelling of the Modern Warfare licence, DOOM can still wow audiences with the simple pleasures of ultra violence. This isn't a reflection on how shallow the series is but rather a dive into how bottomless the potential is. Wolfenstein showed that a modern FPS can respectfully tell a dramatic narrative and DOOM Eternal is set to enforce that a concept shaped around the idea of endless conflict can still be fun and even surprising for a modern audience. Even after all these years; Id is at the top of their game.