![]() ![]() The Slayer even has a voice these days, though I think he strings together maybe five words in total. There's some effort to explain the character's superhuman prowess, with one scientist suggesting that you represent humanity's rage to survive, as opposed to humanity's love of making Cacodemons pop in slow motion. He feels enclosed by the fiction, rather than, as Christian Donlan put it back in the day, like a man who is also playing Doom and who shares your resentment for anything that gets in the way. The cutscenes are now a mix of first and third-person, which means the Slayer is a fully tangible human being - one you can, moreover, trick out with unlockable outfits and weapon skins - rather than a pair of enormous fists twitching beneath your aiming reticle. Eternal adds yet more to the load, expanding the cast and redoubling the emphasis on lore. The 2016 game was a thrilling reimagining of the speed and ferocity of 90s Doom combat, but it also magnified Doom's narrative trappings, adding in cutscenes, audio diaries, codex entries and mid-mission dialogue - a curious reversal of one of id's key decisions with the original game, which was once planned to include a sizeable narrative component written by co-founder Tom Hall. In the process, he must also tunnel back into a startlingly eventful past, sitting through flashbacks and wrangling with old allies. Having thwarted Hell's invasion of Mars, the legendary Doom Slayer must purge Earth itself of diabolical interlopers, setting out from a gothic orbital station turned customisation hub to a series of ravaged cities, factories and temples that feel on loan from Gears of War. The thing is, though, Eternal does have a story, somewhere in amongst the parade of demon O-faces, and while that story is lightweight by Zenimax game standards, it feels hopelessly grafted on. ![]() It's a view that has been roundly debunked. "Rip and tear"? More like rip and splooge.Ĭarmack's porn quote (which he has since qualified a little) epitomises the view that narrative in games is always an imposition, a foreign body carried over from film and literature. ![]() ![]() And to these people I say: when I am walking down the shaft of an enormous spear, straight into the pierced belly of a reeling, gaping titan, it is difficult to argue that there isn't some kind of metaphor in play. Some, of course, will soberly insist that all of this is just good, honest, videogame violence - clean, upstanding fun with absolutely no over- or undertones whatsoever. Aside from silvery Protoss-ish fortresses and some seriously down-at-heel office blocks, you'll wander labyrinths of squirming flesh, using runes to unclench toothy sphincters and shearing pop-up tentacles in half with your shotgun. The environments often look like the work of an adolescent H.R. Dripping organs are wrenched out of, then stuffed back into, demon torsos chargeable alt-fires scream for release health orbs spatter the ramps and chokepoints like - well, you get the picture. Eternal turns up the heat even further, allowing you to dash and flip your way around arenas that are newly fixated on the vertical axis.
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