DOOM: The Dark Ages

In my time with Doom: The Dark Ages, I was sometimes engaged with its other systems—deciding which upgrades to buy for my guns, poking at a secret to try to figure out how to crack my way into it, even, in moments of idle curiosity, reading some of those copious lore notes. But it was all prelude to the main event. And that main event is as good as it’s ever been: A brightly colored, sanguine distillation of everything that’s good about twitch shooter gaming. The Dark Ages nails it; everything else flows from that ferocious bleeding heart.