Playing DOOM Badly
So I've been going through No Rest for the Living, which is a nice change of pace after the FUCKING Plutonia Experiment. It's got some nice level design, even if the way it accomplishes that makes looking at the automap a pain. But the thing I want to highlight is, I assume due to being designed for coop play, I'm six levels in (including the secret map) and haven't found a backpack. In terms of coop that makes sense - doubling a player's max ammo would risk leaving the other player(s? I've never played DOOM co-op so don't know how many players it supports) without ammo pickups as they've all been hoovered up by Backpack Guy. I'm playing singleplayer though and what it means for me is running low on ammo and having to backtrack semi-frequently. "DOOM but you're ammo-starved" doesn't sound like a concept that should work, and yet...
See, I'm also running through DOOM Episode 2: The Shores of Hell on Ultraviolence and occasionally I've found myself running out of ammo1 which kind of turns DOOM into a survival horror experience. There's a desperation to running into four imps with only two shotgun shells1 that DOOM doesn't usually engender in the player2. And it ends up feeling a lot more immersive - this is 1993, you're just the Doomguy, not the Doom Slayer. You did the right thing (assaulting your CO after being ordered to fire on civilians, epic, based3) and were punished by being sent to do scut work on Phobos and now there's FUCKING DEMONS everywhere so you're having to scrounge for supplies wherever you can get them. It's kind of a fun feeling, actually!
No Rest for the Living also uses the DOOM 2 monsters rather sparingly, which I appreciate because most of them have an artstyle that's noticeably more detailed than the DOOM monsters (except for hell knights and pain elementals which are both kind of recolors). The different looks make them feel more special and that they should be highlighted. Plus I like not having to stress about barrages of revenants or archviles popping out of monster closets.
And I have nowhere else to put this but the plasma projectile is one of the most perfect sprites in videogames.