Here’s a secret gun owners and FPS players know: guns are cool. It’s possible to want the complete revocation of the 2nd Amendment and still appreciate their solidity in your hands and those fun loud noises they make. And since they’re essentially useless — except for killing people or animals minding their own business — the gun industry understands the importance of design aesthetics (and image control).
Outside of gun nuts the biggest gun appreciators must be FPS players and developers. I, for one, have fallen in love with DOOM ’s Heavy Assault Rifle.
This is how it looks:
But this is how it makes me feel:
Yeah, everybody loves the super shotgun. It’s mentioned in nearly every review. And that single blast of meat-rending kaboom is certainly satisfying. But the Heavy Assault Rifle is so fantastic because of how incongruous it is with DOOM gameplay. Also because it’s gigantic, loud and spatters molten metal downrange with all the multi-limb smashing inaccuracy of hurled gravel. I want to make out with this gun.
The two mods available for the Heavy Assault Rifle are Micro Missiles and Tactical Scope. Micro Missiles are a snooze; switch to the rocket launcher, throw a grenade, or bust out the Combat Shotgun’s Explosive Shot mod if you want to see explosions. We’re here for that belt-fed madness, the cartridges raining down on our space boots as the bullets impact in starburst blossoms on demon flesh. It's the Tactical Scope that offers one of the most interesting and galvanizing trade-offs available to players in the 2016 DOOM.
DOOM is all about forcing you to close in on your enemies. It incentivizes close-quarters combat with ammo drops for chainsaw kills and health drops for melee “Glory Kills.” The super shotgun is perfect for this mode of gameplay. It’s the opposite of the modern shooter paradigm, overturning iron sights gameplay with splash damage. But look at the upgrades to the Tactical Scope mod for the Heavy Assault Rifle:
- Uranium Coating: Bullets fired while zoomed will penetrate through targets
- Skull Cracker: Bullets fired while zoomed will deal additional headshot damage
- Light Weight: Move faster when zoomed in with the Tactical Scope
Plus the Mastery Challenge: “Get 50 headshot kills while using the Tactical Scope” and be rewarded with high-powered “Devastator Rounds” for when you’re scoped.
Everything about the Heavy Assault Rifle scope upgrades are in complete defiance of the carefully calibrated, close quarters combat that’s so instrumental to the new DOOM!
It’s even more agonizing to use, because every time you blow away a head from 100 yards you’re foregoing health. In DOOM, paradoxically, it can be worse for your health to kill enemies too fast or efficiently, since a single shot kill foregoes that sweet, sweet Glory Kill health drop.
The length DOOM goes to punish long-distance sniping makes using the Heavy Assault Rifle with Tactical Scope such a bittersweet joy. Unlike most games, with their heavily incentivized headshots, DOOM would prefer you charge into the fray. And, though it’s not all that suited for it, this is too is manageable with the assault rifle. It’s best at long distance or spraying hordes at medium range, but charging into close combat while scoped-in is a harrowing experience unlike anything else in the game. There’s nothing quite like plugging a hell knight with a headshot right before it lands a ground pound.
The Heavy Assault Rifle is the best gun in DOOM precisely because it’s so antithetical to the gameplay innovations that make the game so wonderful. It’s a gun from an inverted world, one where iron sights and scope kills are the currency of the realm. You can keep your super shotgun, I’ll be sticking with my trusty paradox rifle.
