In defence of Doom's multiplayer

[Administrator]

Much like Doom's stellar campaign demonstrates the single-player first-person shooter coming full circle while dragging the best of the past 20 years along for its blood-soaked ride, so too does its multiplayer. Here we have a return to online combat as an afterthought; a frozen dessert after a delicious main course as opposed to the kind of life-engulfing commitment online shooters have morphed into in recent times.
In truth, 'afterthought' is unfair. While Doom's online modes can't compare to the raw carnage of its campaign, this small suite of maps and modes unpeels like a demonic onion to reveal ever more layers (or should that be circles) of depth. You'd never know it from the first impression it gives, though.
Yanked out of the meticulously constructed campaign, with its demon-purging crescendos and its gnawing synth-backed periods of uncomfortable disquiet, those who enter the multiplayer suite are presented with clean suits of Halo-style armour, generic game modes like Team Deathmatch and Domination, and for reasons only known to the trigger-happy minds at id, a primary loadout featuring a rocket launcher as a main weapon.
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