Active Time Event Has Moved!

Be sure to check out the newly upgraded Active Time Event 2.0 if you’re looking for more gaming content, and many thanks goes out to the support from my regular readers after all these years.

Y’all rock!

-Pashford

Doom and Gloom

Oscar Wilde said “we are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.”

The mention of Doomguy kind of ruins the metaphor by
making actual hell his world, so I think Wilde maintains
prescient insight on this one

To address anyone paying attention: yes, yesterdays post was a meager helping of miniscule proportions, and most certainly represented a rush job if there ever was one on ATE. I tend to go through phases of creative endeavor and struggles of personal self-worth, which I will usually see reflected in my posting regularity. Some months I’m satisfied writing seldomly and only when I’m in that ideal sweet spot of feeling ready to launch directly into the stratosphere of self-actualization, other months I’m either inspired enough or personally forceful in my own work ethic to write every single day, in the name of “progress”.

Progress looking like a confusing mess at times

That’s the thing I suppose, in an ideal world, I would always just be primed and ready to write about video games and only video games. I’ve never known this world to be ideal, and thus we are left with the barren reality that lays before us, one where even getting out of bed should be considered a massive victory, for better or worse. A small update on Doom: The Dark Ages to keep this relatively grounded in gaming chatter, I still have not finished the game, in spite of my best efforts. On work days especially, it can be difficult to find time to get anywhere in my current rotation, and to give you an idea of just how difficult, I’ve been on the same level in The Dark Ages for three days now. I reference difficulty only in the matter of finding time, not ingame challenge mind you, finding only enough moments to basically complete a single encounter before needing to shut it down, and that’s mostly just to say I still actually played the fucking thing on that given day. The one thing I could potentially talk about of interest that has some conversational merit was an element of The Dark Ages that was left purposefully obscured to me before I played it, making its eventual reveal a nice surprise. This thusly leads me to the notion of not wanting to spoil it for y’all at the current moment in time, going full circle, right back to not having anything to talk about in the world of Doom.

Pictured: this spoiler thing I can’t talk about right now?
Super cool. Trust me.

Aside from the thing that will not be mentioned, another small updated to mention is in the form of an actual update, with the director of TDA’s game development, Hugo Martin, streaming about info involving an update helping polishing the entire experience, some of the enhancements including the balancing of higher difficulty levels, which should come as a delight for any of the masochists cutting their teeth on Nightmare and beyond. He also mentioned that some of the elements of the gameplay tweaks, outside of an “official” update, don’t require a patch to implement, with Martin referencing “tunables”, his pet name for some behind the scenes fine tuning that allowed the adjustments to be made silently and on the fly. I’m wondering how many devs do something similar without any mention of such a reality, and how these small changes end up driving players absolutely fucking nuts in the process.

The face out of the loop gamers are probably
making when that thing they practiced 500 times
suddenly isn’t working after id software messes around
with their “tunables”

Outside of the small improvements to be made mention of, the game has predictably reviewed well, ranging in the 80-90’s range of quality, and scored more than 3 million players during launch, providing leaps and bounds of faster turn around player involvement than Eternal offered. Of course, a big part of this was Gamepass, in having The Dark Ages available day one for players to try, which does leave people wondering if this is enough to qualify TDA as “profitable” as Eternal was, which is really only a concerning problem for shareholders and money makers. When it comes down to it, a fun video game being more widely available for a greater audience on the cheap is pretty much just a net positive, isn’t it?

Normally, I would admonish a dismissal of not pushing for further inquiry into a matter or calling off the dogs of aggressive curiosity in terms of deconstructing deeper meanings behind a happening. However, and perhaps I’m just feeling a yearning for the simplicity of optimism in a moment of drained defeat, perhaps its okay that the take away with The Dark Ages launch is that from a pure numbers standpoint, a greater number of people are getting a chance to enjoy the title…

…and maybe that’s enough.

-Pashford

The Rhythm and Flow of Hell and Beyond

The old saying goes the road to hell is paved with good intentions.


Their choice in wallpaper is just as wild, too

After a week long romp raging and wrecking the domain of hell in my playthrough of Doom: The Dark Ages, I’m surprisingly still not done with the campaign, which most certainly speaks to the level of content id software packed into this bad buy. My approach in writing about the game everyday for a week straight was very much in line with taking a page out of my book I used in writing about Resident Evil and Siren back in September and October, which I feel like is a much smarter route in discussing the finer points of the entire experience, as opposed to doing just one big review for any title in one go. Most video games just have too many ideas and content to explore for a single piece to really cover it all, and The Dark Ages is no exception.


Like trying to deep throat the hottest part of a dragon,
you will have a rough time taking on everything this
game has to offer

Having said that, I still have levels to go it would seem, and at the rate I’m plowing through the game due to the physical reality of time that binds me to this realm, it looks as if I have days yet to go before I will reach it’s climax. My initial plan was to wrap up the seven day streak with a kind of finalized distillment of sorts, but my wrap up will likely have to wait till next week in my final summation. Overall, I think the game hits on all cylinders for the majority of the run time thus far, and I always feel completely immersed in the slaughter when I’m knee deep in the dead and the demons, losing track of time as I mow down the nether realm bastards with gusto. While id software has done a great job of giving fun updates to some of the more basic weaponry to give it an extra little touch of flair, like the Impaler or the Skullcrusher, my penchant for super shotgunning all over the place generally leaves all problematic holes filled the same way, even if the designers didn’t necessarily want you to do it that way.


How I imagine the designers feel watching in abject
horror as I resolve every combat encounter with the
super shotgun after designing dozens of ways to fight
in Dark Ages over several years of time

I will say, even putting my Super Shotgun OCD aside, the guns nearly feel second fiddle themselves, with so many of the melee/parry/shield options feeling infinitely more imminent in your quest for bloodthirst, firing bullets almost seems passe in some ways. Not that you can’t find that right sweet spot to get a good blast in among the physicality that id has imbued with their focus on parrying and shielding, but the game tends away from more traditional first person shooter standards and harder into a different kind of action combat realm. I alluded to as much in a previous post, and perhaps one of the words I should have emphatically used was one implying a far more explicit use of the phrase rhythm action in reference to The Slayers demon destruction, as when you finally find your footing, and get into the move and groove of the combat, especially later on in the campaign with your myriad of upgrades, your flow state is more heavily reliant on a pseudo rhythm action title than a bog standard shooter, with a vast array of prompts and inputs feeling almost as if their is musicality to your murder.


Like a megade(a)th involved with your
symphony of destruction, if I may be so bold

Which is a fantastic approach, and continues to underline the confidence director Hugo Martin has in commenting on how he never wanted his team to just make the same Doom game twice, which is abundantly clear when you put 2016, Eternal, and Dark Ages side by side, feeling more like a trio of distinct titles then a straight up continuous trilogy. The definite downside to this endeavor of individuality is that quite ironically, one of the biggest “shooters” of the year doesn’t really have the traditional fps fan in mind, so anyone looking forward to a more basic run and gun approach or ready to test their meddle in target practice will likely feel underwhelmed within the realm of Dark Ages.


Elden Ring fans may feel right cozy, weirdly enough

I’d say even though the OST, when listened to itself by it’s lonesome, still carries the epic metal vibes of games past. I would say however, that much like the visuals, which do little to help to accentuate just how amazing the fidelity of the game truly is, both the audio and the graphics (level geometry specifically) that serve as backdrop do tend to just kind of melt away into the ether when the combat is hot and heavy, which is to say the overwhelming majority of the time, leading one to feel as if both are lagging in someway to service the entire game in a much more effective manner. I know when one is rushing around the battlefield at 100 miles an hour through gore and explosions, it can be just a bit difficult to highlight every aspect of the design in the midst of the chaos, but not impossible. Though the issue with having the visuals feeling lacking is likely more than just one thing, I will say that being able to stop and “smell the flowers” ala the slowdown of the glory kills found in both past titles, really helped to magnify the visuals up close and personal, and allow one to truly enjoy the visceral sense of ultra violence on display. They exist in Dark Ages, but nearly non-existent in comparison, which is a damn shame.


Too bad, so sad: glory kills have almost gone the way
of the dodo in Dark Ages

With still a third of a game left to go, I look forward to seeing what the end of the line for hell looks like, and will be excited to share my final notions of The Dark Ages when it finally happens.

~Pashford

One M.A.D Theory Behind Doom’s Design

Nietzsche said “Hell is oneself”


I’d tend to agree, but especially if this man was
having the same thought

If you’ve been keeping up with me for the last week, you’ll know that I have been raging through hell, leaving few stones unturned over and even fewer demons unturned inside out. The Dark Ages has been quite the romp thus far, and it’s clear developer id software focusing on just the single player content and dropping multiplayer definitely paid off in dividends in crafting a thoroughly spectacular campaign experience. Not only does every level feel like it’s got something new to introduce to play around with, but the entire single player feels polished to a glistening sheen, and optimized to hell and back. The loading is basically nonexistent, the graphics maintain their intensity, and the frame rate never stutters, all the while taking place on massive battlefields against gigantic hordes from the terrifying beyond.


This level of hell featuring: blood-curdling nightmares,
visceral agony, unfathomable dread, and DMV lines

From a performance standpoint (on the Xbox Series X, mind you), the game is golden, one of the best efforts I’ve seen up to this point on the system, in keeping moment to moment gameplay relentlessly frenetic, so props to id software for delivering so magnificently in that regard. While I have been playing The Dark Ages (TDA), I’ve been mulling over some of core design elements of the game itself, kind of a how we got from point a to point b scenario, from Eternal to TDA, and I alluded to this notion a couple of posts back with this metaphoric sentiment:

“I think this notion of simplification, going from Eternal to Dark Ages, lends itself to a much bigger idea I had that I will dive into in greater detail in the next couple days, but the basic premise of what I surmised is rooted in the idea of a reaction to a reaction, in terms of how the devs ended up designing around the perceived player anxieties surrounding what Eternal had to offer. There were some fairly serious lines drawn in the sand, vocally speaking, about what players felt worked and did not work in Eternal, and I think this broadcasted crystallization process was both acknowledged by id on just how the “royal” players comfort zone existed, the zoning mechanisms that affected their regality, the kingdom they wished to occupy, and very much how they wished to rule within it. With this in mind, we see thusly the move towards designing Dark Ages around this kingly rejection, by pairing down the entire experience in a reductionist approach in narrowing Doom’s horizons instead of broadening them.“

Flowery language aside, though I think it is worth it to mention that while I may have perhaps been gratuitous in my verbiage, I maintained a cohesive point through out in laying the ground work for what I was referencing, and that was in reference to my “M.A.D Theory” involving why TDA ended up being designed the way it was.


Like a demon’s crass ass strapped with sassy brass
kinds of mad

To elaborate; M.A.D in “M.A.D Theory” stands for “Marauder Anxiety Disorder”, and I think represents a probable cornerstone of why TDA turned out the way it did. See, for anyone out of the loop or straight up doesn’t recall, the Marauder was a very particular enemy who debuted in Eternal that players ended up entirely loathing and complaining about so much, id software essentially apologized for his overpowered ways by nerfing him super early on. This was due to how players seemingly could not stand toe to toe with the Marauder in straight up combat, and forced the players to mindfully and patiently maneuver against, in order to wait to for their moment to strike to deliver fatal blows.


Something wicked this way comes

In reference to my initial premise above, I think his eventual nerfing (and readdressing) created a knock on effect that would go on to influence the very essence of development in making TDA what it ended up being. To borrow from psychoanalysis, there is something called transference and counter-transference, and its the idea that the analysand can project emotions and desires onto the analyst, which allows both to basically explore the unconscious conflicts that have sprung up in a safe environment. In a very loose sense, I think how the players reacted to The Marauder let id software explore the very depths of their own design as felt through the player, and the reaction that thusly followed was one of an epic whiplash that reverberated throughout the entire experience of TDA.


This parry brought to you by the Marauder

With id software course correcting with how the Marauder was designed, they realized they shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, and salvaged what essentially was an imperfect design that could be refined and honed to perfection. One of the fundamental issues underlying the Marauders design was twofold; firstly that he was an outlier within a system that wasn’t custom tailored to train the player to deal with his methodology with the rhythmic patience it desired, and second, it did rob the player of some agency by disrupting the regular power trip that both Doom and by extension Eternal represented by not giving enough tools to the player to properly command the situation, a moment that with it, lacked a confident reaction with which to give the player a proper upper-hand they were so use to having in this hellish context. With more framework and a better tool-set prefacing the battle with the Maruader, you’d give the players a chance in reversing their fortunes at the right moment, and re-empowering them with well-timed skills, leading to a successful execution of plan A.


As opposed to going with the ill-advised plan B,
which is the whole eating shit plan

Thus, the new gameplay loop for TDA was born. Not only that, but with an extra focus and refinement on the approach to Marauder Anxiety Disorder being successfully overcome, a brand new way of approaching all combat, now with both a shield in hand and a parry in tow helped to celebrate a new way of razing hell along with it. All that was left to do was to further color coordinate the telegraphed attacks so that you could apply the same design economics to the entire army of the demonic horde, and you’ve successfully tweaked the entire experience to accommodate for a far more rhythmically fueled, tool-set empowered, skill enhanced complexity that reframes the entire battlefield. If it weren’t for so many being stricken with a M.A.D in response to one of Eternal’s most controversial enemies, you wouldn’t end up having such an innovative, retooled system with which to deal with all the demons in The Dark Ages that would follow suit.

One “M.A.D Theory” is another man’s design ethics, and could be a contributing factor to how Eternal’s follow up became what it was. Sometimes, it’s failure that leads to success. Mad, innit?

~Pashford

The Scariest Thing In Hell

Sometimes, panic inducing terrifying can be the unseen nightmares that lurk in the shadows…


Other times, it can just be realizing you’re stuck
with an empty roll of toiler paper in a public bathroom

As I continue to deconstruct Doom: The Dark Ages, in all of it’s meaty glory, I march on myself within the game’s glorious battlefields, fighting hell unending, discovering new insights everyday. I thought for sure I’d have more time today to really dig in deeper to the metaphysics of hell itself, piggybacking off of my last post, but that more thorough theoretical posit will have to wait until tomorrow. Since I am currently short on time, I figure I would just briefly muse upon the notion of how often media properties seem to up the ante as time goes on, in some ways quite understandably so. One must continue to raise the bar, you see, and with a bigger crowd comes more people to please, and this increase in demographics, usually in combination with budget, and the need to big or go home usually has the story reach new scales of impossible standards, with endgame standards being ridiculously demanding.


The Russo Brothers probably got an endless amount
of emails from Disney reminding them they couldn’t afford
to just assemble half of Hollywood everyday for the MCU finale

Another strange happening I find that parallels this same notion in a similar manner is the “despoopifying” of games and movies as any series continues, almost as if the scary gets scared away by crowds itself. Both in the video game realm as it is within cinema, you will see a lot of survival horror and movies of a haunting persuasion that go for suspense or macabre early on that tend to drop the premise in favor of bigger, more explosive set pieces and action extraordinaire. I think there is no end of examples in video games, with Resident Evil being an obvious go to, and I’d say even Silent Hill, maybe perhaps for more rocky behind the scenes then mindful intent, went way harder on the action than sheer atmosphere over time, for better or worse.


Definitely for the worse if sales are anything
to go by. When it rains, it pours

I think within the movie realm, the two most obvious examples to me would definitely be the Alien series, and as a worthy other to mention, The Evil Dead. Endless debates galore usually echo throughout the hallowed halls of cinema fandom as they debate which movie reigns supreme, Alien or Aliens, with most peoples tastes of either action or suspense usually signaling the obvious preference. Not that either are any less than masterclasses in their own respective genres, but most certainly different approaches with the same formula. I cite the latter of my cinematic series as the example in comparison to my citations of Doom, as The Evil Dead series has quite obviously had no shortage of influence over the demonically fueled slaughter-fests the series has been known for.


One would be hard pressed to find a groovier inspiration

Much like Evil Dead though, Doom kind of dropped the more tensely creepy tone early on (and sporadically returned to), trading in methodical isolation against undead hordes for more explosive action. That sense of creeping death atmosphere does tend to flare up from time to time, as we see in minor examples throughout the series. Whether or not it was an enhanced sense of claustrophobia the hallways induced the 3D environment put forth, or indeed a concerted effort to do a proper send up to the original of the series in terms of level layout and aesthetic, Doom 64 kind of resparked the notion Doom could be unsettlingly intimidating, and the game feels decidedly more distinct as a result. Doom 3 very obviously went full gusto with this idea as well, with the darkened corridors of the Mars base giving way to a tense environment and uncertain dread stalking you around every corner.


A hyper advanced Mars base with inter-dimensional
portal capabilities and yet not a single ream of ducttape
kicking around to affix a flashlight to a gun. Scary indeed.

All of this has sadly gone to the wayside, with 2016 only having hints of it, and Eternal straight up going full chaos mode, with Dark Ages maintaining a sense of epic bravado and grandiose presentation with mythical visual trappings following suit. Is the series so divorced from these old school notions of bump in the night sensibilities, that having a Doom that leans more heavily into it’s horror visuals and brooding sense of atmospheric tension feel too off base for the series at this point? Would fans reject the very notion of what Doom would become in this resurrected attempt at going for the gruesome facade or the chance at gripping tension, due to what they perceive as the very DNA of the series being too tampered with? I’m not entirely sure, but I’m guessing since the Doom series will likely go dormant for a time, and lie in wait after the success of this recent trilogy, the whole approach will likely get rejiggered once again, as they will likely have to reimagine just what Doom can be for a new generation.

After all, as the Doom series has proven time and time again, the scariest thing in hell at any given moment is Doomguy/The Slayer…why not really sell the idea with a gratifyingly horror-show design to back up the notion?

The eventual rebirth will leave us with horrifying results either way.

~Pashford

Words of Wisdom: Fail Faster

Sometimes, we make the mistake of not being able to see the forest for the trees.


We nicknamed the chainsaw “perspective” to help
add context to this visual metaphor

Here on Active Time Event, we routinely advocate for rationality, and all that follows suit. Normally, my small posits involving words of wisdom are small insights that may help imbue your everyday thinking processes with a well needed shot to the arm of renewed vigor, which is something of dire need from time to time. Today, I reference my recent write ups involving Doom: The Dark Ages in sharing this simple sentiment: fail faster. Not that I think Dark Ages is a “failure” per say, as the game is reviewing well, people seem to be generally happy with it, and the game is likley to go on and sell millions. I myself have also enjoyed my time with the title thus far, though I think there is an underlying notion that Dark Ages perhaps is maybe under delivering where Eternal effortlessly thrived. In this one way, Dark Ages could certainly be looked at as “failing”, in a sense, as the title tried something new, didn’t quite hit the mark, and perhaps will be seen as a slight stumble in terms of the series moving forward. However, and in spite of the idea that this kind of “fail” does carry with it the weight of some negativity, the silver lining is that developer id wasn’t afraid to try something new, and in their quest to heighten their craft, deliver a compelling product, and push themselves to continue to experiment with the self-identity of the series of Doom, and are now the wiser for it.

Just like a talented musical artist may not want to make the exact same album or type of music over and over again, destined to evolve into new sounds and methods of creation, game developers as well will push the boundaries of what they’re capable of, how they want to continue to create, and will try new things in the name of progress. Ultimately, I don’t think I would have wanted to just play Eternal 2.0, and I think even if Dark Ages tends to be considered a misstep in the grand scheme of things, and in some ways looked at as failing to deliver on the heights Eternal did, I think there was a lot to enjoy and benefit from through the entire process, and grants us further perspective that trying something different can still have satisfying results, even if it doesn’t turn out to be the best thing ever. We’d all be so lucky to “fail” in the same way Dark Ages could be considered to have in this regard, and I think helps to create a compelling reinforcement to my initial premise and my words of wisdom: fail faster.

Take care of yourself, and each other.

~Pashford

Pondering Over Fire and Brimstone Pt.2

They say hell is other people.

The people saying this forget that to others,
they too, are other people. It’s demons all the
way down

So many thoughts about Doom: The Dark Ages, and so little time in which to dwell within them. In another moment of nearly none to spare, I still felt queer not sharing a shred of a notion about The Dark Ages before I was to jet off to work, though I assure you, a much larger amalgam of thoughts are laying dormant, just waiting for their opportunity to strike. In the immediate now however, I think I refocus on the notion of how stripped down, “grounded” if you will, both in a literal and metaphoric sense, The Dark Ages is comparatively to Eternal, and just how much that contrast helped frame the design mechanics for The Dark Ages in it’s ground up machinations.

I think this notion of simplification, going from Eternal to Dark Ages, lends itself to a much bigger idea I had that I will dive into in greater detail in the next couple days, but the basic premise of what I surmised is rooted in the idea of a reaction to a reaction, in terms of how the devs ended up designing around the perceived player anxieties surrounding what Eternal had to offer. There were some fairly serious lines drawn in the sand, vocally speaking, about what players felt worked and did not work in Eternal, and I think this broadcasted crystallization process was both acknowledged by id on just how the “royal” players comfort zone existed, the zoning mechanisms that affected their regality, the kingdom they wished to occupy, and very much how they wished to rule within it. With this in mind, we see thusly the move towards designing Dark Ages around this kingly rejection, by pairing down the entire experience in a reductionist approach in narrowing Doom’s horizons instead of broadening them.

Within this modality of thought, and tackling the herculean notion of recontextualizing Doom in facing the larger zeitgeist with meaningful vigor, developer id’s idea of reinventing the maniacally fashioned swiss army knife that the Doom Slayer ended up representing in Eternal, and went a different direction for The Dark Ages by aggressively whittling the great Slayers stature into a good old fashioned battering ram. The interesting knock on effect of course radically transforms the very reality of problems players will be put up against, in considering what obstacles may be surmounted when one contrasts the difference of effectiveness in how a Swiss army knife and a battering ram can be applied. This change in dimensionality ends up altering the texture of issues by creating a new context for hell that will thusly follow. All of this in the name of carving out a frame of reference to distinguish those player comfort zone preferences that helped to transform the direction The Dark Ages took in the first place, a moment of transference and counter-transference laid bare.

More thoughts to come…

-Pashford

Pondering Over Fire and Brimstone

One should never underestimate the importance of narrative within the structure of world building when trying to wow one’s audience.


Or Not!

I spent so much time playing Doom: The Dark Ages, I didn’t leave any time for me to write about it today. C’est la vie. Ultimately a good problem I suppose, though overly lengthy levels is a quality The Dark Ages shares with Eternal, which is neither here nor there in terms of conclusively good or bad, though it does kind of kill your buzz when you realize you aren’t going to be getting solidly knee deep into hell without a solid hour on your hands. In any case, really more of a blurb today than a proper article, as I am just about to leave for work, but I did feel weird not writing something down.

I was initially thinking about discussing the dragon and mech sections of Doom today, which, I guess can still happen on a micro-level, albeit in an extraordinarily condensed bite sized version of my thought, which is really antithetical to what those sections represents, as they are larger than life set piece moments encased in pure spectacle. Reading the communities thoughts online about them and critical reception in general, people definitely have mixed thoughts on their inclusion, which is understandable on some level. Pondering them myself, more so the notions behind them instead of the mechanics, the reason for the loud push-back is due to the shocking realization that they represent one of the first times we’ve seen divergent gameplay in the entire series, with Doom as a group of titles that has quite literally stuck to it’s guns, and has never really changed up the gameplay formula at all in more than 30 years, which is kind of impressive when you think about the sheer resiliency of sticking to such a confident formula with no need to deviate after all these years.

The whole thing kind of got me thinking about the gaming equivalent of the idea behind “the death of the author”, and how the concept would translate into the video game realm, as I think it would be nothing less than a gargantuan gold mine from which one could certainly unearth conceptual treasure from, but alas, tis just the genesis of a much grander concept that will have to wait, as time waits for no one.

Till next time.

~Pashford

Vibe Checking Hell

Don’t you just hate it when you think you’re in a good place but it actually turns out to be a bad place?


Pictured above: the communities initial reactions to
the parry and shield system in Doom: The Dark Ages

Yesterday’s article was basically a tl;dr for Doom: The Dark Ages in it’s entirety, albeit based on only three levels out of the 22 available. I wisely labeled it more of a vibe check instead of giving it an official preview moniker of course, because I’m not a fucking maniac. More so due to the notion I think the structuralism of previews in their official capacity are almost too restrictive in their approach, and like a bad tutorial, far too exhaustively hand-holdy in the process. The tl;dr of The Dark Ages I put forth was a simple one; the halfway point between 2016 and Eternal, in a move that may end up making no one truly happy in a moment of compromise. Or maybe in a more playful paraphrasement; 2016 walked, so Eternal could run, while Dark Ages ends up getting winded while catching it’s breath and frustratingly trying to keep up.


This scene sprang to mind when conceptualizing the
contrast between the last two Doom games styles of
maneuverability, and then upon a quick second thought,
immediately regretted my abhorrent shortsightedness
in drawing the comparison

I think one of the reasons I’ve found value in the vibe check, almost putting forth the notion of the “game in a nutshell” maybe even at a dangerously early point in gameplay, is that as much as no one really likes to admit it, video games are, distilled to their most basic essence, repetitive motions involving a formula. This leads to the idea of a gameplay loop that’s been iterated to death upon, and one that has proven to work on some level. I’m reminded of the 30 seconds of fun quote hailing from Halo legend, and I don’t ever really let the idea go out of my head for too long because it happens to really fit into the idea that games at their core are really just straight forward, small segments of stupid fun repeated ad infinitum.


Sometimes they even forget to include the fun at launch,
making some games just small segments of stupid 𝖿̶𝗎̶𝗇̶
repeated ad infinitum

Even though I’m comparing ridiculously different games seemingly with broad strokes, I take this moment now in declaring why I feel the vibe check is appropriate for contrasting all games under the sun, accepting the premise of the 30 seconds of fun quote applied widely and without prejudice, from anything ranging between Doom and Animal Crossing. Not only do I find the stress test involved with the vibe check a fun effort in seeing how close my predictions end up being, but strangely enough, Death Stranding really helped to solidify the moment of why trusting my gut was the way to go in deliberating on what an experience was going to be. Just this insanely simple notion of seeing the content for what it truly is, very akin to borrowing a tried and true methodology imbued with the phrase “trust people the first time they let you know who they are”. With Death Stranding, after about five hours of delivering packages, I thought to myself “damn, I’m just going to be ass deep in boxes this whole game, huh?” Many others said “no, you’ve got to give it more of a chance”. I wasn’t so sure I was wrong. Fast forward 200 hours later, and what do you know?


Ass deep in boxes

Luckily, in Doom’s case, the series mission statement tends to be “Rip and Tear, until it is done”. An endearingly brutal sentiment, to be sure, though I think the reason Dark Ages is getting some push back about it’s inherent nature is due to the notion that this time around, instead of ripping and tearing, we are “Shielding and Parrying, until it is done”, which definitely takes some bite out of the canine, in trying to teach this old dog a new trick.

~Pashford

Doom: The Dark Ages- One Hell of a Compromise

All hell has broken loose…again. I’m of course referring to the recent launch of DOOM: The Dark Ages, which has felt like a longtime coming, with Eternal having launched back in March 2020, back during the start of the pandemic.


It was a shitty time, to say the least

Dark times indeed, though we move from the dark times to The Dark Ages, which is looking to do the near impossible task of following up Eternal, which was by many accounts a great success with how the game continued to capitalize on the core gameplay of Doom 2016, which itself was seen as an excellent return to form of the Doom formula. I think one of the startling notions Eternal brought to the mix was indeed a mix-up of sorts to the traditional run and gun style that has helped to earn Doom and Doom likes the moniker “Boomer Shooter”, in equal parts to show the antiquated style of gameplay’s age, but also as a way to possibly alert old school fans they will likely not be tripping over the modern day inconveniences that often litter and leave trashed the battlefields of our current day under heaps of financial garbage and loathable refuse.


But one example of the modern day inconveniences
I speak of

Which won’t even be a remotely possible temptation this time around, not that Doom has been known to dip it’s toe into the pools of financial madness in such a way, though Dark Ages has forgone the need of multiplayer entirely this time around, with developers id focusing solely on the single player experience. Which is fair, as 2016’s multiplayer wasn’t even worth a mention till the 6.66 update, which still only brought the mode up to the speed of lagging behind every other shooter on the market, albeit while maintaining an entertainment factor. Eternal, in spite of it’s best efforts, was never able to make their asymmetrical demon vs Slayer mode ever stand out in a meaningful way.


How a screenshot like this encapsulates an experience
that qualifies as pedestrian seems absurdly improbable

Which, once again, brings us to focus on The Dark Ages, and what it brings to the table. Keeping in mind this is more of a vibe check article and not one I consider a full blown preview, I still wanted to kind of grapple with some of the more immediate intricacies The Dark Ages (TDA) was serving up in it’s first three levels, as it became apparent from moment one how developer id has shifted it’s focuses in terms of the minute to minute.

That turn of phrase mentioned just now is a fitting one in our approach to understanding the temporal spacing TDA occupies, as it falls in line with a notion I’ve borrowed from the philosopher Hegel in the past, and his idea of “the pendulum swing” in critiquing shifting ideologies re-appropriated for game design critiques in this instance. The notion I speak of entails the idea that our shared reality normally has massive shifts in movements and perspectives over time, swinging in extremity from one side to another in response to the previous ages ways in a moment of self correction. When this notion is applied to the notion of gameplay from one title to another, you essentially see developers course correct in response to negative feedback or the success of the game itself, giving way to trying something new, and TDA represents the pendulum at it’s center most point for the modern Doom trilogy. In-between either apex of the pendulums furthest swing, TDA looks to stabilize the momentum between Doom 2016 and Eternal, by being the middle ground of the two. More than just the mindless simplicity of run and gun, but far more down to Earth than the high flying shenanigans Eternal’s acrobatic sense of swift wonderment brought about with it.


A successful romp through one of Eternal’s varied
demonic gauntlets feeling like some hellish version of
a Cirque de Soleil performance where you somehow
played the part of every acrobat within the theater of
the damned

Which I think does become kind of a focal point from which the entire experience pivots upon, contributing in a big way to either make or break the engagement level of any player with a more rigid mindset of what they prefer and what kind of entertainment they seek. With TDA not being quite as brutally simplistic in approach to the bare bones design of what 2016 offered up, which even the creative director Hugo Martin pointed out became far too repetitive by games end, and no where near as chaotically frenetic as the perpetual motion that the gameplay loop Eternal possessed, one of which even left me with the posit Eternal became almost an action-shooter as opposed to a traditional FPS.

With all of these sentiments kept in mind and considered as an amalgam of energy experienced as a result of Eternal’s machinations, we saw a sizable portion of the player base feeling the game was too demanding in how it wanted the player to go about their slaughter sprees, thus prompting the next pendulum swing in which id followed through with in moving forward to the follow up title. TDA occupies some strange place in the middle of both previous Doom games, somewhat methodical without the anchored posturing of purely gun driven gameplay, while attempting to maintain the energetic edge of constant combat combos that pushed players to be kept on their toes at all times. TDA pushes this notion in new ways, by introducing both a defensive mechanism (a chainsaw shield) that can be used offensively, along side a parry, defensive maneuvering which can unleash offensive havoc when used in appropriate conjunction with your full arsenal, all of this in the name of countering hell’s demonic forces with in the vein of some stylistic timed countering.


Parrying…so hot right now

If we hearken back to the conceptual middle ground TDA is seemingly set on standing it’s ground with in it’s approach of carving out a niche betwixt it’s two predecessors, you quickly realize this middle ground TDA is hellbent in occupying is indeed a compromise between the two modes of design. The saying “the best compromise is one in which no one is happy” may turn out to be a damning indictment in limiting the potential capabilities of success TDA is able to meaningfully expound upon, and a sentiment I look forward to deconstructing further.

~Pashford