Well hot damn! It’s good to be back! It’s been ages since my last review, I know but have I got a treat for you! Before I even start to talk about DOOMBEARS, I might as well point out the bad side: only the beta testing has been enabled so far so it’s not fully available for now. Be sure to keep updated though as it’s sure to come out soon enough: DeimosComaBlack is working a lot on it to improve and get it ready for you guys.
Now what’s worse than being stuck in small, tight, labyrinthine corridors and realizing that there is very little ammo and even fewer health packs? Why, being stuck in small, tight, labyrinthine corridors being chased by enormous bear monstrosities! Yes, that’s right! DOOMBEARS puts the player in a labyrinth of sorts and sharing these halls of death are giant, fucking, floating, bear heads. The player must go down practically every corridor, systematically flipping switches to find the exit. All this, of course, whilst avoiding the swift jaws of death of those bears. Ammo is scarce and the bears have this nasty habit of turning the player into a gross, inside-out looking pile of gibbed material in less time than it takes you to say “OMG WTF?!”. So what does this tell us? The wad can be a pain in the ass when it comes to difficulty. Not that this is a bad thing, mind you, as it’s similar to the Ghouls Forest series where it’s seemingly impossible to pass but gives you an enormous sense of gratification when you managed to clear it. When looking at comments from players about DOOMBEARS I found comments very similar to those in the 
Multiplayer will, of course, make this wad significantly easier and very likely, a lot more fun. Since I have only played the beta version so far, I must say that I have not experimented this on multiplayer but just imagine what it must be like to play survival mode trying to get out of a bear-infested maze? I imagine it would be similar to playing The Ghouls Forest in multiplayer.
Ah yes; there is still one more treat when it comes to difficulty in this wad: changing the difficulty will have a great effect on the gameplay of the wad. There are two main difficulty levels. From everything up to Hurt Me Plenty there is one criteria; in Ulta-Violence and Nightmare we have the other. This is what’s mainly affected
I’m too young to die! / Hey, not too rough / Hurt me Plenty:
*The speed of Bears
*The damage the Bears cause
On Ultra-Violence / Nightmare:
*Bears are invisible until they spot you
*No health pickups or Plasma Rifle are supplied
GRADES
- What can I say about the new content other than it’s simply hilarious? Come on! Bears? This scores a 10 just out of plain randomness! You gotta love the bears!
- The difficulty levels having an effect on the bears and the equipment provided are a definite plus! This is worth at least a 9.
- Despite it’s lightning fast gameplay, it’s consistency and it’s challenge, the wad is still not the most innovative thing ever. It’s still a rather gun-down-your-enemies-as-you-try-to-survive type of wad. Gameplay-wise, it would only be worth a 7.
- Multiplayer is just speculation, really, but I imagine that it would be worth a 9 due to its fast-paced survival co-op feel.
- The maze is very well designed and what really pleased me in the architecture was the “bear wall”: instead of having the big skull thing carved into the wall, the player scores more laughs when they see the big bear head instead of a skull making up some parts of the walls! 8 points for this brilliant idea!
10+9+7+9+8 = 43
43 \ 5 = 8.6
DOOMBEARS scores an 8.6 out of a total of 10. A great wad and great for some laughs and a challenge. Unfortunately it is not available for the general public yet. Be sure to stay posted and play it as soon as it becomes available!
