GameSpot's The Lobby: Is the Doom multiplayer beta a little too Halo?

[MUSIC] Let's shift gears over a little bit to another fondly remembered franchise. The Doom multiplayer beta was on last weekend, I think it was. This previous weekend. I got to play it for the first time properly. You played it back at QuakeCon last year, was it Yes. Yeah, what about you Rob? You played some over the weekend as well? I played roughly like four hours? Cool, probably about the same as me. Yeah. Good, what were your initial impressions of it? I dug it. The pacing was nice, I mean it was different. Like I don't know, for me as like, I like an FPS just as much as everyone else. But I think what I've become tired of is just dying immediately. Right. And there was something about this game that just like You know like having health and armor scattered around, like let me get a nice streak in. That's what you really always want from a shooter, having a streak. I mean, obviously skill has to be a factor as well but the game sort of prolongs the combat and I thought that was, just like initial thoughts. What's up, you sort of play Call of Duty and stuff like that right? Right. Definitely Halo, not much Call of Duty There's a lot of hale in this. Yeah, I mean some of the visual centers. For me I was really, I don't know, down on this going into it. I hadn't played it yet but I was kinda worried cuz I had seen a lot of the trailers. I'm like, you're showing a lot of team modes here. And it's looking very space marine-y, in not a Doom way, in more of like a Halo way. And I did kind of enjoy it. But it feels like it's very much stuck in some sort of limbo between those two games. So certain affinities developing this for [UNKNOWN]. And they're the folks Bungie with I think Halo four. I guess it wasn't Bungie. Well they worked on Halo four and also on Call of Duty Ghost as well. So they are sort of that ilk when it comes to that type of multiplayer. And there is a lot of stuff that is straight up From that type of game, which is like there are levelling up, there are load outs. I mean you only carry two guns, you can pick whatever two they are and then whatever sort of grenade or optional other type of accessory as well. Armor and appearances? What? Armor and appearances? Like you know like Swapping your helmet out and all that stuff. Yeah and unlocking that stuff as you level up as well is sort of part of it. And although it has like you know the Doom type weapons, they don't feel like Doom. But what they felt like was kind of fine. Like I was enjoying this game on its own terms, but to me it doesn't really feel like Doom all that much. What did you think? Yeah, like I felt like, and it's been months now I think this was back in July that I played it. There was some shades of Quake in there, especially when it came to movement and things like launchpads. I thought those were really fun and I enjoyed that aspect of it. I played, I think it was a single mode on a single map, over and over again, and it was in a controlled environment. Environment, but I had a lot of fun with it, I really enjoyed the fact that it feels like a game that I haven't played in a while. Even though I can see where you guys are coming from with the comparisons that are similar between other games. What it amounted to, all the parts together felt different enough But I don't know if I'm gonna be able to play this long term. It's gonna come down to a lot of how much there is to do and whether or not it's fun to play. Yeah. I think the mechanics feel right for me. I like the map design that I played on. But you know, limited impression. I liked the momentum in this was pretty good. The mantling was kind of, you're right it feels way more Quakey in that it feels like Quake, what you call it, the hook mod, where you're getting up to higher positions. That's what the mantling felt a little more like. And all the team, all the modes they talked about so far and all the modes that they've shown so far, and they've shown in their trailers as well, have all been team modes which, again, doesn't feel very. I mean, that's not very Quakey either. No. Unless you're talking about like, Team Arena. Right. Like, that wasn't part of the sort of base level of play, and this Particular arena shooter so under this Revenant stuff as well is like super weird. I actually hate the Revenant, I think it's really stupid. Let people find guns maybe? I know it's not really designed for that at this point but the Revenant thing is sort of like hey, you're OP, you can fly, you can kill anybody in one hit, have fun. Which is like great if you're the Revenant but if you're not it's a horrible experience. Yeah, I mean I'm a firm believer of power weapons on maps. Halo has always been like that, that's my favorite thing, right? Everyone comes in at the exact same playing field. So you can see that chart in the end and be like, that's me at the top. And that's the basis of Doom and Quake, as well. Unless you were playing 1v1, was Was map control and getting to the railgun or getting to the [UNKNOWN] or getting to the rocket launcher, or whatever the hell it was you wanted to do. Throwing this in, let's say you do have to find it on the map, right? It's not like you choose to be the revenant beforehand, you have to find the pentagram and transform into it. Sure. And it is a droppable thing which is at least as good to there some sort of incentives for preference to kill [UNKNOWN]. Right. But like It changes much more than what a weapon would change. Yeah. Yeah, so. [UNKNOWN] imagine the player by some console stick around for too long, this is kinda of a thing. About this where, it feels to me like they're hitting some sort of middle ground between people who want a hard. I'm not sure if there's the audience for a hardcore arena shooter anymore. Like Unreal Tournament's doing a thing on the PC, on alpha. I love that and it's good fun. But this seems like it's trying to take that sort of A [UNKNOWN] shooter vibe and then marry it with something a bit more mainstream-y. Right. But like you said, I'm not sure if there's enough in this for a lot of people to stay with it for very long. I liked the sample of the concept. Yeah. But do I wanna order the full dish? I don't know. Dang, you got [UNKNOWN]. What do you think, Rob? As somebody who does like playing sort of Halo, Call of Duty. Yeah. Big mainstream modern shooters, online shooters. What did you think of this? Was this like a novelty to it? Or was it something you think you're gonna want to play more of? I'll definitely play more of it. I personally got a nice kick out of basically picking a load up of like A rocket launcher and a shotgun. Yeah, yeah. [LAUGH] I like to change it up, I like things where they change it up at least and then still have that simplistic value. Like yeah, seeing the Revenant, what's it called again? Revenant. Revenant guy flying around. It's just like **** that dude, like I don't know, I just want to go around corners with a shotgun And I have to worry about going for these, I would even talk about those, what do you call those mods? Hacks? The hacks or whatever. I didn't get a full grasp on when and how those operate, but it was just another thing I felt like throwing in, like [CROSSTALK] People can see me now or something like that where ever they spawn. Now there's a guy who wants to have my head. [LAUGH] It's like [UNKNOWN]. [LAUGH] Yeah- Don't take it so personally man. They're almost like [UNKNOWN] burn cards but instead of benefiting you they sort of, yeah, all it did was it put countdown timers on the On the spawns. Or you could do one which was like the person who killed you, you basically could see through **** walls. You had a wall hack for that one person, which kinda seems unfair. It does. Yeah. It's like I'm saying, they killed me fair and square. Why am I now able to just run up behind them basically and murder them? Cuz you can if you give him like two rocket shots and you're dead. Right. Like two shotgun shots, you're dead. I don't know, maybe they'll Tinkered a little bit because of the beta feedback but,- I did enjoy it. I was definitely playing it until they closed that beta, like wait what's going on? Yeah. [LAUGH] Damn! [LAUGH] Loved to have kept playing but. Yeah, I'm definitely on the fence as well. It's definitely. Well said. Like it's in a little bit of a limbo and on the fence. Like what type of game is this? I do see that pull towards progression I really get nowadays, you know what I mean? Yeah. There's got, I don't know, for me at least I do kinda wanna see some incentives to like, all right I wanna look different. I want a little bit of a pull toward. Even the differences were, like the main differences were [CROSSTALK] Color Colors. Which you had all at the start, basically. The other ones it was like you were basically changing **** cod pieces. No one's gonna ever notice that. I will. [LAUGH] Well, for Slayer you would, right? Just, what do you call it this death match, right, if you look exactly the same except for like red and blue or whatever. But I'm not even sure if they're doing normal death match in this. They better. All of the modes that they've shown, because they have one trailer where they literally list all of the modes and they're all team-based. So. Damn. I would be shocked. I would be shocked to. If they didn't do some sort of- If there wasn't death match? How could they. Every game has that. That's like if Street Fighter came out, it didn't have arcade. [LAUGH] Wait. Damn. All right, thank you so much. Mike, [INAUDIBLE]. [LAUGH] No. He's coming in a second. Rob Handler, Peter Brown, thank you as ever. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO]