DOOM Beta PS4 Preview

DOOM Beta PS4 Preview

Released by Bethesda
Platform: PS4

The first person shooter, DOOM (or Doom 4, depending on your viewpoint) is hellishly anticipated.

Bloody, brutal and fast, the game is nothing short of a feverish and frenzied fighter that demands everything from you right away.

The closed BETA offered a look at some of the multiplayer elements of the upcoming game, which launches May 13th - yep, Friday the 13th, which seems wildly appropriate given the hellish content within.

Deathmatch is the title that most of the time was spent on and in the ten minutes duration of each game, it's all go - right from the start.

While the match-making took a little while - no doubt due to smaller numbers as it was a closed beta - the chance to customise your character was a welcome one. It's almost as if the MasterChief look has been transported over to the game and given your own look and appeal. Liveries and weapons can all be given a shiny new sheen and your own personal touch.

But really, it's all about the weapons, and about the gameplay. Once the game counts down and you're allocated to a team, it's quite simply all on. Set over a few locations, the division into two teams is simple and effective; it's all about the first one to get to 75 kills. And there are a lot of kills, some of them bloody and explosively gory.

Choosing a rocket launcher as weapon of choice proved a wiser move for taking on the opposition. There's little time to really focus an attack when you're being chased so it's very much a shoot and hope kind of mentality of the game that keeps you engaged. From racing around to shooting others, there's enough of a frenetic feel to the BETA to keep you on your toes; respawning happens very quickly and there were scant occasions when the game respawns you in jeopardy.

Backdrops are impressive (not that there's plenty of time to view them) - from pouring lava to pits of molten death, the whole thing feels like it's on a Ripley-esque spaceship in one of the multiplayer levels. There's no map to help you negotiate your way around and it's simply a case of getting used to the surroundings and getting on with it.

The biggest thrill of the multiplayer though is the chance to spawn yourself as a devil and run amok, killing with ease. When the demon option spawns, it's usually everyone rushing to get what is essentially a few moments of invulnerability. From the ripping of your arms to becoming a hellspawn to the running around blasting and essentially tearing the opposition to pieces, there's a real thrill to being the big bad. Whether this option will be available in single player is anyone's guess right now, but it could make all the difference between winning and losing.

The pace of the multiplayer means the 10 minutes goes quickly and the end of the game signals a chance to level up and gain XP as well as unlock various collectables, weapons, etc. Double jumping and thrusting gives you a chance to hurtle around the landscapes too; and teleports get you to where you need to go as well.

Quite simply DOOM's BETA has shown the game's got a lot to offer and given its frenetic pace and its killer MO, the open BETA will be fun - and the game should be incredible.