Hands-on with Doom’s alpha

I had the privilege of spending a day playing the invitation-only Doom MP Closed Alpha on PC, an experience that once completed will revive the golden age of arena shooters.

These days, arena shooters are a rebellion against the pay-to-win and imbalanced antics of many other games.

There are no superior perk loadouts and equipment afforded by a higher level or real-money purchases, and prowess is purely based on skill and know-how.

Hopefully the finished Doom will not include purchasable buffs, a slap in the face of our hyper-consumerist culture.

It was a blessing playing a shooter in which I did not die immediately if someone spotted me out of my field of vision.

The meaty, armoured nature of players will definitely take some getting used to after the lifelike mortality of the modern FPS.

Of course, Doom has taken positive elements from today’s shooters, such as customizing your loadout with two weapons and equipment items before each round.

The Alpha was almost completely bug-free, already looking fearsomely built. Other than mild screen tearing, the game looks great, particularly the creative design of the guns.

I was playing with an 8mb line on London servers, experiencing minimal lag.

So far, the game plays out in a pretty traditional arena layout; a balanced frenzy of rocket-jumping adrenaline gamers used to play before the days of Call of Duty and Battlefield.

The Alpha plays out in only one stage, called Heatwave; a complex smelting factory adorned with the typical health, armour and ammo pickups and power-ups scattered across the plant, complete with columns of pouring, scorching, molten metal and a pit of the bubbling industrial lava below.

The stage is made up of various snaking corridors interlinked with chambers on various levels.

All corridors lead to a central expansive chamber where the meat of the fighting will take place, as the fearsome power-ups are contained in here.

The Alpha’s one game mode is team death-match. Players are divided into two teams, 6 on each. The first team to reach 100 kills or have the most kills when the timer runs out wins.

Massive advantages are granted by picking up power-up such as the classic quad-damage and invisibility.

Then there is the specific demonic possession power-up available for the Alpha, the Revenant, the peak of enjoyment and pwnage.

Once temporarily unlocked, players will manically scramble for the floating pentagram rune which once snatched will engulf the player in transcendental flames, transforming one into a skeletal fiend, decked out with a beefy jetpack and shoulder-mounted twin rocket launchers.

You can now begin tormenting the other team for a limited amount of time in a massive way, stomping about and flying into the air, always peppering your surroundings with missiles.

Every beast has a hunter, and a weapon to hunt with – in this case the Gauss Rifle.

This four-shot power weapon, which if you’re lucky enough to find hovering in the map whilst someone is rampaging in demon form, is the perfect counter to the Revenant.

Its atomizing arcs will quickly cut the ecstatic Satanist’s fun short and will almost always guarantee an instakill against a normal player.

Doom

If the Revenant is murdered before the timer runs out, another player can snatch the now dropped rune and continue playing out the Revelations verse until the rune’s timer runs out.

I often found myself blasting the Revenant out of fright when it popped up from around a corner – even if it was on my team. It is a truly terrifying and intimidating spectacle.

The demons add a great aspect to teamwork, as teams will have to work hard to support its killing spree or pool as much damage in to halt its dreadful advance

Movement feels comparatively slower than what we’re used to from games like older Dooms, Quake, Unreal Tournament etc. but the game is still a frantic and agile blitz.

The guns are radical, my favourite being the arena heavyweight – the rocket launcher – which can also be used to boost yourself into the air.

Each weapon comes with a standard firing mode and an alternate one which can be accessed by right-clicking.

For example, fired rockets can be detonated before impact by right-clicking, and the gauss rifle can enter a wallh4x zoom that lets you see highlighted players throughout the map.

There are new and creative guns to enjoy such as the Static Cannon, which charges damage as you run. Doom standards such as the Super Shotgun and Plasma Rifle remain.

Equipment-wise, you have the choice between the volatile Frag Grenade and the Personal Teleporter, which once thrown will teleport you back to the attached location on command.

Melee involves whacking someone with your gun, taking several hits to kill someone, but if you manage to get a well-timed melee attack in on someone with low health, you will dismember your foe with your bare hands!

This exclusive tester was completely wonderful. My friend and I felt like kids again, regressing in the chaotic reincarnation of one of our childhood favourites.

Congratulations if you got an invite – make sure you share the experience with your mates!