Thursday, March 8, 2012

Doom Rogue Like Impressions

There are many rogue-like RPGs roaming the world of pc gaming, but few are as well put together or as graphically pleasing as DoomRL is. This game has been around for quite some time, but up until February 28th the game used ASCII graphics. It still had plenty of depth, random environments, challenging enemies and interesting things to find, but it was hard to control and hard to see what you were doing unless you were very familiar with that old graphic style. Take a look at how the game looks now that the graphical release has been released and how it looked before. Also, with the graphical update the interface has been upgraded and the game now has mouse support.


Previous Graphics and Interface

  
New Graphics and Interface




Even though the Doom rogue-like is one of the best looking rogue-likes there is that doesn't mean that it doesn't have other defining qualities. Like I said before this is a deep and challenging RPG. It isn't as long as many rogue-like's, it certainly doesn't have the length of a game like Nethack, but it is two-three hours long, depending on how careful you are and how many special levels you try to conquer. Like most other games of the genre this one relies a little on luck, a little on skill and a little on planning. As you level up through gunning down demons you choose to allocate points into skills that will matter a great deal in the long run, skills that do things like increase pistol accuracy, melee accuracy, hitpoints, running speed, reloading speed and a lot more. These skills are dependent on the three classes, to an extent, and most of which are relevant to whether you are playing a Marine, Technician or Scout.



Throughout the game you can choose to engage in special levels, which are represented by red stairs and each of which has a unique objective. They are all very challenging, but they present the best opportunities for unique weapons, armor and item modifications. Everything about the game, look and text, screams of Doom and it is all done very well. You can expect any special level to have the means to end your life. Just like most rogue-like games this one has no saving, except on stairs and only temporarily, and death is permanent. It fits the ideals of what many people love about rogue-likes while still adding it's unique feel. The game has many different difficulty modes, each of which seem to merely increase the number of enemies and present harder enemies earlier on, but it is possible to play the game on what is essentially an easy mode, which isn't all that easy. There are also challenges that you can do, each of which has it's own difficulty ranking, challenges like pistols only, melee weapons only, or far more complicated challenges like one hundred levels in a row.


It also has a graveyard, which displays your greatest achievements and failure. All in all this one of the most addicting, attractive and enjoyable rogue-likes that I've played in quite some time. It also helps a lot that the game is free and available to download through the website. Thanks for reading and check it out. There is plenty more information about it on the website if you care to read more. Now I am off to play it one more time.
Main Website: http://doom.chaosforge.org/



-Written by Sean Cargle

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