mutbrecht

Great artwork. Controls feel responsive. Music is alright. Story was okay, too, with some decisions I did not like (the musicians - this just felt odd).

I loved the original GoW 1-3 and the PSP games. However, this Game does not feature Kratos, the God of War. It shows a modern, socio political interpretation of the character - that has to struggle with the outcomes of toxic masculinity. Uncreative contemporary main stream writing from the far left. For their heavy political messaging, devs sacrified gameplay, because it is boring as ****, too.

In short: This could have been a 5/10. However, the strong impact of the contemporary socio-political messaging ("This is OUR forest!"; "Female stronger than male!") and unnecessarily complex controls (use weapon X/type B for enemy C while its doing D) brings it down to "I stopped playing after 3 hours because I got bored, annoyed and lost interest." __ Doom should be simple: You are the ultimate unstoppable Slayer. Rip and tear. No talking, no help needed. With Doom The Dark Ages you will get a cheap Marvel movie with constant radio yapping from a female commander (Thira) who tries to sound deadly serious but comes off ridiculous. She narrates/accompanies, and even rescues the Slayer from certain death (Slayer is jumping out of a Mech after yeeting a giant demon into a canyon, only to get bailed out by her spaceship). You, the Slayer, the moon-crushing tank suddenly needs a strong woman to save him. Pathetic. And not in line with the initial narrative. The story is full of left-eco nonsense too: the Slayer prevents the destruction of some sacred forest by demons ("my people have protected this forest for centuries"). Hundreds of unncessary NPCs, including said strong female cast, clutter everything while the heroic male NPC dies quickly and heroically, of course. Even the main antagonist demon looks suspiciously androgynous (surely no coincidence!) Gameplay gets constantly interrupted until mid-game with tutorials explaining new functions, weapons, and enemy weaknesses (can be turned off, but still annoying and unnecessarily complicated for a Doom game). On top of that, nobody asked for clunky Mech sections (any soyboy/soygirl could pilot) or boring on-rails dragon flight sims through LOTR-looking castles with turret dodging and outdated effing turret sections in a FPS Doom game! What were they thinking??? These gimmicks kill the pacing, are against all expectations; and ... are just stupid! It all feels functional but soulless - like the mass-produced corporate product it is, from focus-group studies and too many "creative" cooks, without vision (but a socio-political message!), cohesion, or identity. Not "by gamers for gamers." Doom 2016 nailed the brutal, focused formula. "The Dark Ages" is bloated with dumb story, excessive cutscenes, subtle modern writing that weakens the male power fantasy, and forced diversity padding. Core combat rips when it's pure Slayer action, but the rest is exactly what longtime fans didn’t want. No vehicles, no story, no yapping, no NPC-narratives... straight brutal hands-on action with a straight brutal hands-on story line - Doom 2016 did this just right. There seems to be no hope for id and AAA gaming in general. GAMEPLAY is not bad (minus unnecessary complexicity) - I like the "heavy" feeling of the slayer. SFX is actually great and spot-on. MUSIC is just trying to copy something it does not understand and therefore uninteresting. STORY is unskippable (radio messages) woke millennial comic-like garbage, not in line with the Doom-narrative. Doom 2016 was great. No one currently employed at id seems to have understood why. And if they did, they believed that this has to be changed. DOOM: The Dark Ages is the result. Could have been good. Became ****. Do not play (if you liked Doom 2016; if you love "Mixtape", this might be just for you!)

The gameplay is excellent, really polished and fun. But the story was a big disappointment for me. I expected a dark metaphysical sci-fi horror story like Returnal, instead I got a heavy relationship drama with lots of modern personal drama and messaging (topics: homosexuality, gender pronouns, strong female lead characters, gender fluidity, strong people of color, toxic masculinity...) - it all resolves to this soap opera trash. It just didn’t fit the atmosphere at all. Would love to see a DLC with a more classic horror-focused narrative. Until then the woke garbage story will keep me from replaying it.

I loved Alan Wake for its horror story, despite the gameplay dragging at times. Alan Wake 2 starts with a fat, old, white, terrified man being killed. Alan Wake, the hero of the story, is now sitting in the passenger seat, while the black actual heroine of the story takes the wheel. Alan is supplemented, corrected, talked over, belittled, and the diverse female main cast becomes the central focus of the story. Its a terribly superficial and uncreative narrative with a clear political agenda. That agenda ruins the story - and with it, the game. Because honestly, the gameplay aspects haven’t gotten any better either.

Gameplay is fun and challenging until the end. It does get somewhat repetitive but developers tried to change the settings so the player does not recognize. I like the critical approach the story takes towards social topics. Definitely worth your time!

Sometimes unfair and punishing due to its randomness which can be quite frustrating. Story and art design is so good on so many levels! Kept me replaying again and again (as opposed to its successor SAROS which is woke ****).