Oliver Thomas

Takes everything that was great about Doom 2016 and amps it up, additionally dialling in more of the non-linearity and scale of the original games. This comes as close to perfecting the core mechanics of a shooter as anything ever made. It's fast, the physics feel great, the weapons are all useful and have real weight -- the incredible animation and locational damage on the enemies really evokes the impact of each shot slamming into them. There's much more environmental variety than D16 and the scale and design of some of the maps is genuinely astounding. Unfortunately the glory kills are still here and now absolutely essential for ammo and health. Disappointing for a game to boldy eschew the cut-scene laden modern FPS design, only to drag you back in a million little one second cuts. Thankfully you can choose an upgrade that brings them up to a bearable rapidity. The story and lore are doggy doo, but they aren't important -- if you want to play action hero in a fourth-rate Holywood film, there's plenty of other games to sate that fantasy. One other thing: the load times and framerate of this game will make you curse the performance of every other modern game with similar fidelity that you play. The developers did an _incredible_ job optimising the engine.