DOOM Nintendo Switch Review

"It's All There"

Campaign

The rebirth of DOOM originally released in 2016 for all the core platforms and I for one didn't expect to see it grace a Nintendo console. With surprise, the game is available as a special Nintendo Switch Edition and even furthermore it's the full experience. The exact same game is available whether it's plugged into the TV or taken out on the go. The only thing that didn't make the transition was the custom map making, but that's not a big deal at all. The story follows this marine waking up and just getting ready to roll.

It's not some slow build up, some walking cinematic to get ready. The man just gears up and gets ready to straight up kick some ass, it's quite something every time you start the story. It's not exactly stuffed with narrative and instead just has you running or gunning through hordes of demons across a Mars wasteland. It's not all about Mars however as you do get the occasional venture through Hell which is fun. This is really a nice change of pace for a campaign as it's all about intense, fast paced action.

The game also features an arcade mode. This area has you facing off in various situations against restraints as you work towards certain score goals. It’s a nice extra, that acts as a slice of life with a number of map selections to fight within.

Multiplayer

The multiplayer of DOOM is rather thrilling and it actually runs fairly smooth on the console. It's action packed and delivers all the DLC content since they eventually dropped the season pass for the game. This provides a well rounded experience where players level up, customize every detail of their armor and just blast away enemies.

Enjoy a selection of hellish modes from straight up deathmatch variants to a playlist of creative objectives. Move around the map with the hill, freeze enemies in another or even harvest some souls. There's a good selection present and the action is always fast paced.

It has that nice style of a classic arena shooter turned up for the modern speed of today. This is backed by a solid selection of maps which all feature excellent map flow for whatever game type you're indulging in. Players can also occasionally take advantage of a rune to turn into one of the many available demons and just rip up opponents.

Gameplay

It plays, I can definitely say that it runs alright on the Nintendo Switch. Lots of sacrifices were made in terms of visuals but it performs alright. During intensive segments it can have performance issues and regular visuals just look alright. The game obviously looks better when it's undocked, but regardless of which mode it's rather foggy almost. I'd compare it to like a soup look and it's not the best on the big screen. Playing it on my 4k, it just doesn't look good. I can tell the visuals are there, but it's all dirty looking and the gore doesn't have that same spark as it does on the other consoles.

Some of the details come out clean, but others look rough. This is most certainly a technical feat, just getting it to run at a satisfactory level but it's not too pleasant on the big screen. That being said, performance wise multiplayer seemed mostly flawless from the many matches I played, I had forgotten how addicting that fast paced combat can be. If you're curious about the resolution and frame rate the game gets about 1088x612 docked, 576p undocked and aims for 30fps across the board. I want to also note that the Joy-Cons have a cool motion option for melee, you can swing the controller and it'll swat in the game.

The Conclusion

DOOM is an awesome game and you can experience it all on the Nintendo Switch without anything essential getting cut. This does come at a significant visual and performance cost, but it runs. The only loss is the multiplayer editor, but I'm not sure that's a huge loss for this platform.

It's really just nice to have a mature shooter available, it's particularly shocking that it's DOOM that took the big leap to provide that. The campaign is badass, fast paced and a completely unique take on the genre. There's story there, yet it's all about straight up intense action.

The multiplayer carries this feeling with tons of customization, modes and maps to wage war on. DOOM Nintendo Switch Edition rocks, it's still an incredibly enjoyable game and if you can get over the visuals it's awesome. It's not the best when docked, but if you're out and about with a craving to smash demons then it's perfect.

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DOOM Nintendo Switch Review on Nintendo Switch
Review Code Provided by 47

Rating Overall: 7.4