That was the last pizza we had from there too *sniff*. The EGX isn't at Earls Court anymore so we'd have to make a special trip for that pleasure again!

Battleborn could be another multiplayer melon on 2K's hands (Evolve being the other, unfortunately). I'm not sure why they decided to launch it at the same time as Overwatch either.

I'm surprised you went in expecting a new Borderlands though! I'm surprised they even shipped it with a campaign to be honest! Right from the off it struck me as competitive multiplayer focused, which I know you're not wild about. Nevertheless, from my experience with the beta and what I played of the campaign it was really silly, like Saturday morning cartoon silly, and... nyeah, not exactly fun, but then I didn't find Borderlands that much fun either so, yeah. I found the bootcamp trailer for Battleborn hilarious though I've got to say.

Now the competitive multiplayer gave things a lot more backbone and bite for me. Yeah, it's derivative but no more than Overwatch, probably less so given that there aren't many (if any?) first-person MOBAs that I'm aware of.

I really like the ability to tune your character with that helix leveling system but in practice it meant standing there like a pillock. I also appreciate the higher time to kill which makes combat feel more about skill than who got the jump on who. This is something I loved about HAWKEN and of course oldschool shooters like UT. Even Splatoon has a low TTK.

The big issue I had with Battleborn was that it was absolutely piss poor at explaining the mechanics of each mode. Like, did Gearbox even try? This is a huge problem as it results in a lot of angry players. Newcomers get rekt and get pissed because they -- understandably -- don't know what they're doing. This means they're more likely to get moaned at by experienced players which makes games really unpleasant. Experienced players get pissed because their teammates don't know what they're doing. All this until it clicks into place. Bleurgh. It's just an all round shit show. The game's very 'noisy' too, in that there's so much to take in and lots of on-screen clutter. It's overwhelming. This is stuff I presume Overwatch is waaay better at. It has to be!

Oh and while I'm ranting: developers, stop putting tips on loading screens. I have an SSD, I can't read them in time. At least give me a Click or Press X to Continue.

I'm with you. Like I said, I find Blizzard to be particularly bad in the writing department, but they always have been. Since the first Warcraft. So I've never been let down in that department either, I just don't care because the games are usually fun. (Except Starcraft, Starcraft can suck an egg.)

And no, I suppose you can't play it on Steam. I forgot about Battle.net, since you don't really interface with it on the consoles. I use the word Steam interchangeably with "PC" lately.

So, huh, anyone plays new Doom? I completed the campaign last Friday and was SHOCKED at how excellent that game turned out to be. Frankly, I expected a mangy down and dirty arena shooter made by a skeleton crew of remaining anonymous id employees after most of the A-team left and after the Call of Duty-inspired reboot of Doom was scrapped a couple of years ago but what we got is actually one of the smartest and most elegantly designed single player FPS games in a surprisingly long time.

I mean, it does have multiplayer and I played it in the closed beta too (turned out I had keys for both PC and PS4 betas) and my opinion back then was that it is decent if not revolutionary in any way but most of the internet seems to haven't liked it that much, so I thought, OK, perhaps the single player will be scrappy, grindhouse kind of experience that looks to Shadow Warrior reboot for inspiration. But, no, Doom 2016 is so good, so assured in what it does that I am simply not sure why in the fuck of all fucks did id not put Marty Stratton in a game director's seat earlier? Like, a decade earlier, you know? I mean, I liked Doom 3 and somewhat enjoyed Rage back in the day but compared to this bad boy, Doom 3 is a game for little kids who are afraid of the dark and can be entertained with a near-infinite string of jump-scares and Rage is this sweaty, sad hulk of a game trying to hit the jackpot but missing every time until it collapses wearily under its own weight.

Like, Doom 2016 is lean, mean and so fast it's unbelievable. People used to cheer Titanfall's speed and graciousness of movement but Doom is just ridiculously better at it combining excellent movement control with smart level design and some really good combat mechanics. When the simple act of moving through space is so pleasurable in a FPS game, you know you're in for a treat.

But also... this is the first Doom game that actually makes a connection with Doom's RPG roots. I mean, aside from the Doom RPG, of course. I was kind of worried that having to pursue unlocks and manage the character's build might detract from the purity of shooting and that simple mechanic of finding better weapons as you go is all this game might ever need but, actually, no, they did it very well. A lot of thought and, I guess, QA testing went into this component of the game so that it really fits so organically with the core gameplay loop of moving, observation and killing that after a while I felt positively inspired with how the player's skills feed into passive bonuses and buffs and how you can meaningfully evolve your build to suit your preferred play style.

Then the weapons - my god, they are glorious. I mean, I wasn't even aware how the classical Doom/ Quake combination (pistol-assault rifle-shotgun-railgun) opens so many alleys for creative play. I guess one of the reasons that I play fewer FPS games these days is - aside from many of them being multiplayer focused and me being old and slow - that their weapons, even when they are supposed to be creative and crazy, are just not that interesting as they do not mix in inspired ways with level design, enemy design and movement. So, like, Titanfall, again, I just felt like all the weapons were variations on the same hitscan philosophy (even though I am aware that I am being unfair and that there was some variation there) whereas in Doom weapons are not designed to be interchangeable and useful for every situation, you are supposed to learn them and use them when appropriate.

Also, this ties in with how combat is RELENTLESS but demands you to read it. I played Ratchet & Clank remake immediately before Doom and I loved just the sheer destructive fun of it, but that game is mostly about using big, exaggerated scattershot weapons for crowd control and is not designed for precision and focus. Doom is almost the polar opposite while staying in the sheer destructive fun ballpark, it's about identifying the enemies through their silhouettes, prioritising between them, keeping track of them even as you move at breakneck speed to avoid all the missiles fired your way and killing them in the order that will ensure you end the encounter with more health/ ammo gained than spent while also taking into consideration that they teleport reinforcements in at all times and having to improvise. And all this happens in ridiculously small timeframes, it's the purest of twitch experiences while demanding you think in deeply tactical ways. Like, you actually have to switch between weapons on the fly, not because you've run out of ammo, but because the situation on the battlefield just changed and your previously made estimation of time and movement routes necessary to survive is no longer accurate. I feel like one of the most interesting design decisions here is the possibility to extract health from enemies by melee killing them under certain circumstances - this really makes the player think in terms of managing the resources and estimating the risk/reward ratio rather than just enjoying the mindless slaughter this game admittedly resembles. When you are in the zone in Doom combat, you actually feel like you are solving difficult equations in the most elegant/ shortest ways rather than like you're fighting a mere demon horde from hell. Many people have mentioned they feel a semblance of Platinum/ Capcom character action games here and I will confirm that the comparison is actually good. It may be gory and reveling in splatter visuals, but in terms of how you play it, it's very much about grace and elegance.

Level design is also surprisingly interesting, perhaps not hitting the high water marks of the classical Romero era but still being quite far from the modern corridor shooter philosophy. First, it's quite vertical, and second, it's really good about distributing secret areas through maps and incentivising you to look for them.

It's just a really good video game that goes out of its way to engage the player through interaction, give her meaningful forms of expression and rewards for creativity and curiosity while staying respectfully away from cinematic pretenses. It's also very good at being fair, for instance, there isn't one jump scare/ monster closet in the game (that I am aware of) - it respects the player so much that it doesn't need to build tension in ways that have been new in Doom 1993 but are significantly cheapened in the post-Doom 3 era. And the difficulty is just so well balanced. It's a challenging game but it never feels unfair, you always understand that you're dying because you are not focused enough and that all the tools you need to prevail are there, you just need to use them. Like, it's a really daft thing to say, but it feels like Dark Souls had an influence on the Doom's general philosophy there and that DSIII and Doom came out within a few weeks of each other and ended up being so good is really a kind of a blessing I was simply not ready for this year.

I hope they do a sequel goddamit.

There is a whole essay worth of thinking there in trying to analyse why Doom is such an enduring prospect and in figuring out how John Carmack's pursuit of immersion in game environments has lead to Doom 3 being a comparatively slow game with heavy emphasis on atmosphere and obscuring the said environment to allow for the imagination to fill the blanks, where the new Doom (admittedly Carmackless) manages to attain immersion through deliberately exaggerated physicality of movement and combat. They go into totally different directions and I'd really love to see which one is more immersive for the majority of players.

I used to love Doom 3 back in the day - recognising it's not "proper" Doom but still being scary and engaging - so I actually reinstalled it while playing Doom 2016 to reexperience its slower pace and atmosphere. It does kind of look like a kneejerk reaction by id to cinematic trend that was looming on the horizon back then and while I still appreciate what it did and like some of its elements, I have to say it pales in comparison with the new game.

@Steerpike: Oh man, The Division. I only played the beta for a few hours but I found it as dull as dishwater. I mean, it looked lovely, but I don't remember anything specific about it other than lots of running around shooting bulletproof hoodies and staring at a map that looked like somebody had sneezed markers all over it. I also belly laughed at a knee pad increasing my weapon's DPS by a few percent. The Dark Zone stuff looked kind of fun and the cover system was pretty slick I've got to say, but other than that it all felt so familiar, well trodden and safe, and I've hardly played any modern third-person shooters-- and certainly nothing by Ubi! With friends I can see it being a lot more entertaining.

The Division was worth it just for this though: https://youtu.be/BSSkz6iDPvM

@Meho: I miss your walls of text! 😉

I hear nothing but praise about Doom, and as much as I'd like to play it, I've still got to play The New Order which I own but haven't got round to yet. Doom is definitely something I'll be picking up at some point and it strikes me as the sort of game you should be playing on a harder difficulty to really dig into the guts of the thing. That said, I watched a friend play it on his PS4 and while it looked super slick, it wasn't that that really sold me on it. I've actually been more intrigued by folks like you Meho commenting on the flow of combat and that rhythm of collecting health from melee attacks and ammo from shooting. That's a pretty neat sounding system.

On a side not, and I'm not aiming this at you Meho, but I'm kind of amused how often Dark Souls gets raised whenever someone says something along the lines of 'it never feels unfair'. It's almost as if, before Dark Souls, all difficult games were notoriously unfair. No doubt some were, but I can't think of any worth giving a damn about. I find it a weird thing to pin on the Souls games though. And besides, did everyone forget about the Capra Demon, or the Flame Lurker, or the Armor Spider, or Lordran knows what other bosses I never got to play against and get repeatedly thwomped by because I didn't know how to survive within a few seconds of entering the boss chamber?

Also, did anyone hear about the 'Global Restart Day' for Dark Souls? That's a really cool idea and something I hope catches on for struggling games that deserve another shot. Might be a good time for me to get back on it but... we'll see.

Speaking of which, Evolve is due a massive overhaul soon in light of all the feedback since release. I think TRS/2K will be pushing it in a big way in a last ditch attempt to bring some numbers back and hold on to them. I hope it works but I'm also kind of worried that the game I loved so much last year won't exist in a few months.

Back to Doom though: I fairly recently played the original Doom with pistol starts rather than carrying all my gear from one level to the next. That very much ties into what you were saying about 'all the tools you need to prevail are there' because it's clear that each level was designed to stand alone. Very impressive and a really interesting way of playing.

Your hitscan comment is a good point too because that's something that I also love about Splatoon revolving around ink: everything shoots a physical projectile that can be dodged, theoretically.

I'm still playing Offworld Trading Company and Anachronox, and enjoying the hell out of both of them still. Offworld's campaign is amazing. Age of Wonders 3 has been getting a bit of my time too. It's like a cross between Civ, Total War and Chaos Reborn, which is awesome.

Oh, by the way, does anyone play Earth Defense Force 4.1: The Shadow of New Despair? It's mad fun in coop but I seem to be only playing with people extravagantly above my own level so, while it's fun, I tend to be more of a hindrance than help (look at this match where everyone has armour at least ten times stronger than mine) so I thought, perhaps playing it with friends would be somewhat less embarrassing for me. I mean, I understand that it might be difficult to organise transatlantic gaming sessions seeing how we're all quite old and busy but perhaps some of the European tap cohorts might be interested?

It's a dumb old game, yes, but GLORIOUSLY so.

I've only watched three E3 trailers/videos: the new Zelda, The Last Guardian and Steep, which looks rad. I've got plenty of games to tide me over though until all these newly announced titles get released. I'm rarely in a rush to devour E3 coverage to be honest!

Edit: Oh and, damn, I still haven't played State of Decay yet!