Update: Best Footage Yet!
The embargo is up. The floodgates open.
Let's start with Gamespot's 8 minutes of footage.
Glixel's 8 minutes are fluid
GameXplain got 10 sweet minutes
IGN got 6 minutes
Nintendo World Report got a whopping 27 beautiful minutes!
CoinOp TV has 12 minutes
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IGN article
Eurogamer writeup
Engadget
Polygon article
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The embargo is up. The floodgates open.
Let's start with Gamespot's 8 minutes of footage.
DOOM on the Switch! Worth noting this is a preview build and is not the final product. Currently, this gameplay was estimated to be at around 30fps. We had trouble recording clean audio from this debug Switch (despite the audio sounding fine with headphones), so do your best to ignore static or muddied audio.
Glixel's 8 minutes are fluid
Sorry this looks so bad, Bethesda only allowed off-screen recording of the game on the Nintendo Switch. But the game holds up perfectly on Nintendo's hybrid system.
GameXplain got 10 sweet minutes
Check out 10 minutes of DOOM running on Nintendo Switch, including direct hands-on impressions, including talk of graphics, frame rate, and more!
IGN got 6 minutes
Watch Doom running on the Nintendo Switch, played undocked with a Pro Controller.
Nintendo World Report got a whopping 27 beautiful minutes!
Check out 27 minutes of DOOM on the Nintendo Switch. The game runs at 30fps, but it does a very good job of sticking to that frame rate. Played over 2 hours of the game and the frame rate seemed to only drop when the action got super intense (like when 5 or more enemies were attacking at once). The game is super playable.
CoinOp TV has 12 minutes
Doom Nintendo Switch Gameplay in Handheld mode from id Software and Bethesda Softworks - captured at a Bethesda media event using a Nintendo Pro Controller to move around and shoot at demons.
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A bit late but my impressions on playing DOOM was beyond my expectations to be honest.
Upon the setup, we were given the pro controllers to play with as the joycons themselves were charging with the system. That said, rather than play through the story mode, I actually opted to play Arcade mode. Chose Beginner as I'd not played this version of DOOM before and jumped right in.
Using the Pro Controller was pretty much second nature, I never had to glance at the cheat sheet for the controls while melee was extremely satisfying due to the HD rumble funny enough. Despite the game running at 720p undocked, everything was pretty crisp and vibrant on the screen and the only time I noticed any FPS dips was when there was a lot of stuff onscreen - but even then, it was really minor and I knew the build wasn't fully optimized. I was able to pull of headshots with my pistol despite the enemies being 3 floors below me in the canyon and got to play around with all the other weapons offered in Arcade mode.
Only got to play for like 20-25 minutes (as we were pulled to wait for our turn to play Evil Within 2) but after playing the demo, I was pretty much sold on buying the game whenever it came out.
IGN article
The most important thing for a Doom port to get right is that sense of speed - sprinting through martian facilities with grace and fluidity as you tear demons limb from limb - and the Switch version nails that side of it. Simply put, it feels exactly like Doom should, just in a much smaller package.
Even so, it still looks great. Bethesda has been tight-lipped on the resolution, and I'm sure certain graphical settings have been tuned down to compensate for the Switch's weaker hardware, but it was genuinely hard for me to tell what, if anything, was scaled down when playing undocked. It just looked like the lovely, gory Doom I remembered playing on my PC.
Eurogamer writeup
Judged on its own terms, Doom on Switch could be a winner based on our gameplay tests so far - but our hands-on was entirely handheld-based. On the one hand, we expect more consistent performance and improved resolution when docked, but on the other, playing on the big screen may highlight the cutbacks more. We'll just have to see. However, the basic idea of bringing Doom - and indeed Wolfenstein 2 - to Switch is just so ambitious, we have to applaud the developers for the effort. Hopefully the final code will deliver.
Engadget
The same fast-paced, demonic shooter action that embodied the spirit of the classic game is there, and it still feels great. Sprinting through corridors of the UAC facility or performing stylistic "execution" glory kills on the spawn of hell is as satisfying as ever. The controls feel right. The complete experience translates. Still, the question that hung in everyone's mind during the game's announcement is the same one that lingered as I played through Bethesda's portable Doom demo: Can the Nintendo Switch really handle this game?
At first blush, the answer seems to be yes.
Polygon article
It's not ideal, but take it from someone wearing a Doom shirt right now: It still brought a huge smile to my face the way Doom did last year, regardless of frame rate, regardless of texture quality.
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Puts it into perspective.
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