“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” — John Milton (Paradise Lost)


The hell we suffer always seems to be one of our own making

Not sure if my currently fouled mood is based solely off of the bad taste in my mouth I still have from the conclusion to my Halo articles or not…but that reality is certainly not helping any. Just to clarify: it’s not that Halo: Campaign Evolved was that bad of a game, not at all in fact, but delivering what ended up being in retrospect, a fairly serious thrashing in the realm of critique, left me feeling certain ways about it, as being the stereotypical angry gamer filled with immature obnoxiousness and annoying absurdity has never been my style.


Definitely a Hell worthy trespass in my eyes…I was referencing unicycle riding, but being obnoxious and annoying is nearly equivalent

Not that I don’t stand by what I said, in thinking the game kind of failed to deliver on a premise that kind of eclipsed the need to be “just a fun game”, but I also don’t feel like writing an article or a series of articles predicated on half truths or bullshit, either. I wish Halo Studios all the best, and I’m sure they did what they could with the resources and time they had, the game just didn’t turn out to be a grand slam. I’ve been there in some ways, and boy howdy, is it dick stompingly painful. I still plan on playing more of Halo: Campaign Evolved, and it did accomplish at least one important thing, and that is get me in the mood to revisit The Master Chief Collection for some good old fashioned multiplayer, so it wasn’t all for terrible naught.


It’s important to strike just the right balance between divinity and dickishness

Moving on, carrying the energy that an eccentric chocolate maker possesses after one of his tour members throws a temper tantrum and nearly kills themselves in the process by falling down a garbage chute, I nonchalantly turn to the next game on my agenda, cause in the world of the creative, one never clocks out. I was thinking maybe I should focus on a Nintendo game, as it has been a hot minute since I’ve written at length about a first party title, but then I remembered another one of my shooty mcshooterton games got sadly overlooked, due to some DLC releasing on a day where shit went really wrong for me, so a particularly bad time all around, and one that put me in no condition to enjoy such novel frivolities where the mass slaughter of demons is concerned.


This screenshot aptly illustrates the utter futility of attempting to record single images of combat in modern day Doom games

That’s right; I am talking about Doom: The Dark Ages | Revelations, as Doom is one of my favorite shooter series of all time, to the point where I’ve played a new fan made level everyday for the past several years at this point, or at least, very nearly everyday, I don’t count any of the days that I had accidentally died for obvious reasons, but I think that paints the picture as to why I feel as if it is a priority over most other things in the gaming realm to finally start the damn thing.


Halloween decorations are getting displayed earlier and earlier every year it seems

Fun Active Time Event lore tidbit; though the first article I ever posted on ATE 2.0 was The Absent Rain Theorem, that article was actually a repost from a series I did on the Resident Evil 3 remake on ATE 1.0 in October 2024, and was kind of the article that had such a unique quality to it, after months of writing everyday, I thought maybe I should up my game with a 2.0 version of the site. Once that went up, the first original review I wrote on ATE 2.0, was in fact, Doom: The Dark Ages-The Metaphysics Of Hell, which I quite enjoyed. Though, I did make note that it was the weakest of the new trilogy for a variety of reasons, one of the most major was due to the idea that, when one goes as hard as developer id did with the absolute batshit insane, million mile an hour, high flying combat system they came up with for Doom: Eternal…there is no where to go but down.

Forget the Spanish Inquisition: no one expects the randomly unintentional Goatse reference in the middle of their video game cutscene (if you don’t know, don’t look it up, for the love of all that is holy)

Lead developer on the new Doom trilogy, Hugo Martin, likened the differences between Eternal and Dark Ages as one feeling like a fighter jet, and the other feeling like a tank, and that’s fair. There is considerably less flair with the tank of course, but I suppose they were trying to make distinct the identity for Dark Ages, and the game still works great in most ways, it is just way more reserved than Eternal was, and therefore kind of ends up playing second fiddle of quality as a result. Having said that, you can turn up the speed at which the entire game moves at, which makes gameplay lightning fast. Combine that with one of the harder difficulties, and it does a great job of making everything feel nearly as blistering as Eternal, and is a quality of life adjustment more games should include, honestly.


It’s funny thinking about him being a soprano in his school choir

Much like the base game, Dark Ages DLC Revelations, does possess a story, and much like the base game, it truly doesn’t matter. You are the Doom Slayer, you need to kill demons, go kill demons. Shakespeare it is not, but it never promised to be. Even though I’ve only played the first mission of Revelations, as I like to pace myself for the sake of spreading out my articles, the cinematics are fairly tame in their frequency, with the only long one being more about over the top violence, and one that is bereft of dialogue for the majority of it. With that in mind, I’d say that id took the feedback about reigning in the narrative, with justifiable intent.


A face only a mother fucker could love

Due to this DLC following after the main game, the player will obviously still have all of their gear intact, so you do kind of begin Revelations as an unstoppable bullet beast, armed to the teeth while maintaining the role of untamed death incarnate. I think it sets a good tone, as being immediately reminded of just how fast paced and brutal the game was, and still is, helps in making you feel right at home, as you saw your way clean through a demons chest cavity. As I made mention in my review of Dark Ages more than a year ago, due to how the game is setup, with the number of abilities, weaponry, and techniques the Doom Slayer has at his disposal, one does not really need to use any bullets, if they don’t want to. I know that sound wacky as fuck for a first person shooter, but the game has this bizarrely appealing flow system, which involves all sorts of blunt instruments and feats of momentum, that makes the use of firing guns almost feel quaint in comparison. One of the only reasons I break the trend of freight training straight through hordes of demons at any give moment, is due to my intense love of the super shotgun in almost any iteration Doom has ever conjured, and to that point, I’ve often joked before how my two favorite parts of any Doom game are usually the left and right barrels of the super shotgun.


It’s like choosing between children

The arenas are still devilish looking, and the music hits just right to keep the adrenaline going…even if one still laments it was not created by the awesomeness that was the composer Mick Gordon, who left working on Doom due to creative differences with id, but the present tracks, though a step down due to this, still gets the job done. Since the first level does feel like a victory lap of sorts building off of the end of the main game, a lot of what you’ll find present within will feel comfortably familiar, though nothing new to speak of with that in mind. At the end of the intro, as it were, shit gets real, and that is when Revelations well and truly begins with a series first: the Doom Slayer getting his ever loving ass kicked.



What fresh hell is this, you may ask? Find out next time, on Active Time Event Z!

~Pashford