Doom VFR

Date Completed: March 17th, 2019

When I purchased it I thought that DOOM VFR would be a VR version of the recently released game titled ‘Doom’.  Imagine my surprise to discover completely distinct game in the Doom universe!  The events of the game apparently concern a secondary character who is running around during the events of the previously mentioned ‘Doom’ title.  I haven’t played a Doom game since 1996 so any references to the game were lost on me.

I found that this game made me extremely motion sick.  There were controls that were designed to prevent you from moving in natural ways that ‘I think’ were supposed to combat motion sickness but they only seemed to make things worse for me.  After I switched to a more familiar control style I had an easier time not wanting to puke whenever I played.  Missions are thankfully not very long so I would limit myself to playing one at a time and I was able to finish the game.

The interesting mechanic in this game is the teleportation.  You are equipped with a teleportation device of which lets you look somewhere and then teleport to that spot.  If you happen to teleport into a weakened enemy it will explode into a geyser of blood.  Other than teleportation the game is a pretty standard first-person-shooter.  Lots of big guns and bad guys.

99% of the game went smoothly but I had a lot of trouble with the final mission because (In my opinion) the directions were unclear.  Bad guys start teleporting in and they’ll keep coming unless you go and shut off the teleportation computer.  Unfortunately I had no idea I was supposed to do this (or where the computer was) so I kept fighting them until I died.  To make matters worse the stage catches fire and you start taking unavoidable damage which will kill you if you don’t hurry.  I played through the level several times until I finally got fed up with it and looked it up online.  I was outraged – OUTRAGED – to find that all I had to do was walk up to the computer and hit X to finish the game.  Other than that I liked the game.

The game is fun, but gross.  Lots of blood and gore.  No way on earth my kids (or my wife) are getting anywhere near this game.

Is it fun: Yes
Score: 5/10
Length: 6 hours
System: PlayStation 4
Genre: Platform