The burden of every shooter game is to create a viable frame for its violence, a scenario that can justify pulling a trigger or clicking a mouse button over and over. “Doom,” the ferocious new reboot from id Software, does this by leveraging what its 1993 namesake did so well: thrusting players into a situation where violence is the only reasonable course of action while tying the ensuing carnage to a riff-heavy soundtrack that makes good on (19th-century English critic) Walter Pater’s maxim that, “all art constantly aspires towards the condition of music.”
Although id Software’s “Wolfenstein 3D” (1992) is credited with spawning the first-person shooter genre, it was “Doom” (1993) that stamped the company’s name onto the cultural landscape and turned the game’s lead programmer John Carmack into one of the most well-known video game programmers in the United States. And for all of its technical innovations, the game’s success was buoyed by controversy.
Although I found its multiplayer component serviceable but not life-changing, the new “Doom” is the most mesmerizingly pure shooter I’ve played in a while. By “pure,” I mean that this is a game about the pleasure of unambiguous violence. Demons deserve no pity. There is no reason to wonder about their backstory or whether their lives went astray because of nature or nurture. Because they want nothing more than to rip your limbs off and beat you with them, blowing them to bits with the firearm of your choosing is as logical as a mathematical formula.
In the opening chapter, you find yourself in a military facility that houses a tomb in which you, the Doom Marine, are trapped. After the lid of your prison is removed by robotic arms, you spot a straggly group of monsters that are easy to dispatch. A quick check of a local computer reveals that a demonic invasion is underway. The game then makes a show of having your avatar chuck the computer across the room so as to disregard the ingratiating chitchat being directed your way by the station’s commander.
Such an action communicates to the player that this is a game that won’t trip itself up with superfluous exposition. This, however, is a ruse of sorts because a careful player can find interesting nuggets of backstory scattered through the game, which spices up the adventure.
When I asked Marty Stratton, the game’s creative director, about the most conceptually challenging aspect of “Doom’s” development, he cited the implementation of the game’s story. “We went through a lot to try to get something that stayed out of the way of players who just wanted to fight demons and blow (things) up. And also to use the mentality that players are coming to this game to fight demons ... They should have no other pre-conceived notions about what they are going to do. But we wanted to create more lore ... And keep it out of the players’ way so if you invest you’ll get something fun out of it.”
As the Doom Marine, fated to kill “the slaves of Doom,” everything has been fine-tuned to give you an escalating sense of accomplishment. As you progress through the campaign’s 13 chapters, you’ll hear pithy tales about your conquest of hell’s forces. In order to make it through the last quarter of the game, you’ll need to internalize enemy patterns to such an extent that you move confidently through the game’s space like a precise predator. Stratton likened playing the game to speed chess. In “Doom,” he said, “movement is king. (It’s about) using your speed to counteract what the demons do.”
Mick Gordon’s industrial, bone-rattling soundtrack, which sounds like something Nine Inch Nails might have done, intensifies the overall experience tremendously. Not since “Hotline Miami” have I played a game that so adroitly lulls the player into a murderous trance. For long stretches throughout “Doom’s” campaign, my thoughts were focused on not dying because I didn’t want to impede the music.
Some of “Doom’s” environments – its pipe-laden corridors and worksite areas – reminded me of shinier areas of other games that I’ve played. (I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen a flickering fan smothered in light and shadows.) But what “Doom” gets noticeably right is its pacing. The ebb and flow of combat is as balanced as a keystone.
“Doom” is a Dance of Death in honor of your inner monster.
