Search: “cop”

A few hours ago Kuwait Airways launched a new identity that included a face lifted logo, updated crew uniforms, a brand new aircraft livery, updated website and new flight routes.

Kuwait Airways were at Boeing in Seattle to collect their first 777-300ER aircraft in which these changes are making their debut on. The event was broadcasted live on their twitter account and you could rewatch the event on Periscope by clicking [Here] The new plane is expected to have it’s first flight on November 7th, 2016.

I’m going to hold back my detailed opinion on the new identity until it is properly launched and I’ve seen all their material, but right now I’ll just say that the new identity feels dated already.

The guys from MyFatoorah got in touch with me back in August, they were interested in advertising on the blog and they also wanted me to try out their product so I could review it. Like I tell all my advertisers, I can’t promise you I’ll write about your product, but if I try it and like it then I probably will. After trying their service not only do I like it, but its now become one of the primary ways my clients are paying me. Just to be clear, this isn’t a sponsored post. Not that I need to explain myself but it’s one of the rare occasions I’m writing about a product which is currently being advertised on my blog with a banner, so I just need to point this out for transparency reasons.

MyFatoorah is an online payment solution and I’ve been using them to collect payments from my blog advertisers and from my clients whom I do freelance branding work for. Previously, the methods of payments I had available were bank transfer, cash or cheque but now I also offer knet or credit card payments because of MyFatoorah.

To begin using their service, the first thing I had to do was download the MyFatoorah app, sign up and add my bank information and that was it. No need to wait for approval, no need to send a copy of my civil id or anything of the sort, you can start invoicing people and collecting payments right away. Within the first 3 days I had invoiced and collected payments from 5 different people and the amounts got deposited straight into my bank account in less than 24 hours.

To invoice people its a fairly simple process, you open the app, click on “Quick Invoice” then you enter the name of the person you’re invoicing and the amount. You then click “Send Invoice” and you could either whatsapp or SMS the person the payment link. That’s it. All that person needs to do then is click the link you sent them and settle the invoice either by Knet or a credit card.

The service isn’t free, MyFatoorah make their money by charging a transaction fee. Their standard charges are 2% for Knet payments and 3.5% for credit cards, this means if you bill a client KD100, MyFatoorah will take KD2 if the client pays using Knet. The charges are negotiable though, for example I’m getting a ridiculously good rate cuz wasta, but depending on how much business you’re expecting to perform, you could contact them and try to work out a better rate. The way I also have it set up is, if a client pays me with Knet, I accept the charges, but if the client wants to pay using a credit card, they’ll have to pay the 2.5% charge. I like being able to decide that from within the app.

Now another surprising way I’ve started using MyFatoorah is collecting money from friends or family. So for example I bought some event tickets a few weeks back and sent out knet links to my friends to pay me for their tickets. My brother needed to transfer me some money and instead of setting me up as a new beneficiary on his online banking account, I just sent him an invoice for the amount and I got the money that way. It kind of reminded me of the app Venmo. When I was in the States last summer, everyone was using Venmo to pay each other. If a person bought movie tickets for everyone, then the group would pay that person via Venmo and I’ve been using MyFatoorah like that as well.

One final way I’m going to start using MyFatoorah is with a donate button on the blog. I’ve always kinda wanted to do that ever since I started blogging since it was a fairly common thing in the early days of blogging. But since I lived in Kuwait, there wasn’t a way to do that previously. Now I finally can although I’m like a decade late. Basically MyFatoorah allows me to setup a generic payment link which anybody can click on and pay me whatever amount they’d like. So if you want to donate money for my lattes for life fund, here is the [Link]

There are a couple of features I’d like to see in MyFatoorah that are currently missing. One feature is the ability to copy paste the payment link from within the app to an email. Right now the only two options I have to send an invoice is SMS or Whatsapp. To send a link to a client by email, I need to choose Whatsapp as an option, then when the link opens up in Whatsapp, I copy paste it back into an email. There will supposedly be an option to copy paste the link in the next app update, but as of now this is what I am doing. Another feature I’d like to see is the ability to setup an automated reminder email or message. Right now if someone doesn’t pay me, I need to awkwardly message them and be like “hey, how are you? Hope everything is well. I just wanted to remind you regarding the pending payment…”. I hate doing that so I’d like the app to send an automated reminder on my behalf say once every week to remind the person they have a pending payment. Like an annoying accountant.

So yeah I like the app as you can see. It’s great for freelancers and small businesses like me. The software has other features like the ability to integrate into your ecommerce store like Shopify or Magento, but I’ve personally been using it just to collect money from people. So if you’re interested in signing up, you can do so from their website or just download the app on your iPhone or Android device.

@Fabrice

Let’s talk money. Well, that got awkward quick. But, in all honesty, while we’ve spent the last few weeks focusing on how we can support not only our favorite local musicians, but the Kuwait music scene at large, to help build it and be part of its growth, the one thing we have yet to touch on is how musicians in Kuwait make their money.

So, let’s jump right into it. There are a few ways musicians can make money; merchandise sales, album sales, and finally, royalties. That brings us to Radio. Royalties work like this; whenever a song is played on the radio, or used in a commercial, a percentage is paid out to the artist every single time it’s played. The more the song is played, the more the artist gets paid. There are many top grossing musicians out there, living quite comfortably on just royalties as their music gets played over and over again on different radio shows. But, it’s a little different when we’re talking about the Middle East, and of course, Kuwait. This will help explain why you oftentimes get “This video is not available in your region” on YouTube, or why we don’t get Spotify or Pandora. The reason is quite simple, there are no Collecting Agencies for music in the Middle East. Collecting Agencies quantify how much a song is being played and calculate the total payout to the artist based on the royalty percentage. Take a moment. Let that sink in. So, let’s say an artist makes a song, and that song becomes a hit, and gets played on all kinds of radio stations all over the Middle East, they don’t get paid for it. Not once.

@omarafuni

So, how do we listen to all this music on the radio right now? This is how. Radio stations, like 99.7rkfm, through a special license, have access to a “preapproved” music library from which they can select music to be played for a fixed subscription-type fee. But, here comes the interesting part (I use the term “interesting” loosely here); local musicians like Fabrice, Omar Afuni, Coco or anybody else doing the ‘Pop’ music thing on 99.7rkfm does not get paid. No matter how many times their music is played, no matter how many requests are made by you, our fans. This begs the question; well, why aren’t local musicians on these music libraries? Because, in order for that to happen, they would have to Copyright their work in whatever country/region those music libraries originate, for example the U.S. or Europe, and register themselves as a U.S. or European entity, with a U.S. or European bank account where payment would be made, and then finally transferred to Kuwait. In essence, they would no longer be considered Kuwait musicians, which somewhat defies the whole purpose. So, we’re back where we started.

Well, then how do musicians in Kuwait survive? They survive through funding. Musicians are like service traders; the service they provide is the “experience”. That experience is what they sell. That experience is what is exchangeable for money. You might be asking, why do find ourselves in this predicament, Amin? According to some online sources, it’s because we don’t have advanced intellectual property rights in the region. And all you have to do is take a drive down one of Kuwait’s commercial streets to see the effects of that at play. One of Kuwait’s staple toy store, with branches all over the country is a blatant rip off of Disney intellectual property; 101 Dalmatians. You’ll find the same with restaurants, companies, products – ripping off logos, chopping them up, tweaking the font a little, adding a letter here, removing a letter there, and there you have it, their very own “brand new”, “totally authentic” business.

But, music existed in Kuwait before we came along. What happened with Arabic musicians back in the day? How did they make their money? Back then, they put their music out there for free, hoping that with enough air time, it would translate into sales. So they were really banking on listeners enjoying their music enough to eventually make their way to AlNazaer or Cleopatra Record Shop and buy their album. With issues of piracy on the rise, however, even that has become an obstacle, because more likely than not, when you go out to buy those albums, you’re buying pirated CD’s. Are you starting to see the picture? Artists are cornered. Not being able to collect money off of royalties, nor legitimate album sales at record shops, the only option they’re left with is; getting famous. The strategy then becomes; make your music heard everywhere, for free, so much so that you become famous, and then leverage that fame to charge a lot to play at events. Instead of Collecting Agencies they rely on YouTube views to quantify how many times their songs are being played, and use that information when negotiating with Event Organizers or Producers, basically telling them; “my music got this many views on YouTube, which translates into this many people attending your event, and therefore I will charge this much.”

@carolsoukimusic

In reality, though, we live in a society that doesn’t exactly promote many events or festivals, or provide very many opportunities for musicians to perform. Bottom line; the odds are stacked against us – No royalties, no authentic album sales, and no real events or festivals in which we can showcase our work – and it makes it very difficult for us to succeed. Until a change is made in one, or all of those three major aspects, this is our reality, and we need to find a way to work with it.

I know this has been pretty grim so far, and I wish I could tell you it gets better, and maybe one day it will, but it hasn’t just yet. What I’m trying to get you to understand here is this, when you (‘you’ being event organizers or producers) come up to a musician and ask him/her to do a free show, an unpaid show, what you’re really saying is that you don’t believe in their work. Because by not paying them, you’re not really helping them. So, when you’re presented with an opportunity to pay a musician, and pay them well, I ask that you take a second to think about it differently. Instead of trying to cut your costs, and negotiating to get more for less, think of it as trying to save an endangered bird species, (I just can’t seem to get away from this metaphor). With so much already stacked against us, it is you who has the means to incentivize us to keep going, it is also you who has the opportunity to support and be part of the writing of Kuwait’s music culture. Just think about it, and the next time you try to convince a musician that ‘exposure’ is your preferred currency, remember that in essence what you’re saying is; we don’t believe in music, we’re just trying to exploit music.

Peace, Love and Music

Post by Amin FARI
Are you a musician looking to perform? On the flipside, are you a host looking for musicians to book? Or maybe you’ve just got an awesome idea you’d like to share? Get in touch [email protected] / Instagram: @xxmrfarixx

The new Four Seasons Hotel is expected to open up in Kuwait early next year and one of the most anticipated things about the hotel is their fine dining options. Below is a list of all the restaurants that I’ve been told will be part of the new Four Seasons in Kuwait:

Sintoho – A Pan-Asian restaurant
Dai Forni – An Italian restaurant
Elements – A buffet restaurant
Al Bandar – Poolside lounge/restaurant
Al Sour – Lobby Lounge

I tried to find renderings of the two main restaurants Sintoho and Dai Forni but wasn’t able to. If by any chance someone has copies or finds any, then please share them.

A friend of mine read my post from yesterday and sent me the link below this morning that is basically a list of all the Kuwait traffic laws in English. I went through the list to see if there was anything mentioning car lifts but didn’t find anything about it. But, there are a lot of laws that are too generic and could mean anything and I’m willing to bet because of that, everyone here is breaking at least one law from this list. If you want to view or download the PDF, click [Here]

Thanks Musaed

Usually I tend to find and share photos of Kuwait from the early days like the 50s and 60s but recently I came across a whole bunch of photos of Kuwait taken in 1980. What I find fascinating with these specific photos is that Kuwait usually tends to look really great in the really old photos I share but in these Kuwait just looks really gritty. I think the early 80s were a transitional period between old and new and based on the photos it’s as if all the beautiful old buildings were just starting to fall apart.

Photos taken from the MIT Libraries

Adidas is releasing new NMD’s tomorrow (August 18th) at their Adidas Originals stores worldwide. We don’t have an Adidas Original store in Kuwait so we’re not getting an in-store release. But, we do have an alternative option.

The NMD’s will be getting released on the Adidas Kuwait online store. They currently have countdown clocks on all the pairs that will be available and once the clocks hit zero they’ll be available to purchase. So if you’re hoping to cop a pair before they sell out, head to the Adidas website and search for NMD or just click this [Link]

Update: They went on sale and all got sold out right away.

I don’t know where to begin with this. Back to the Q82 is a Kuwaiti spoof of the Back to the Future movies or at least I’m guessing it’s a spoof. I just watched the trailer and although some parts kinda look like they might be funny, I’m more concerned with the fact they can’t agree on the name of the film.

The poster above calls the film “Back to the Q82”, the trailer title on youtube is “Back to Q82” but in the actual trailer it says “Back on Q82”. Guys, let me decide on your behalf, we’re going to call the film “Back to the Q82”. Also Q82 doesn’t work even though it’s a play on Q80 (Kuwaiti). They’re using 82 instead of 80 because thats the date they travel back in time to but it sounds really weird. Also you spelled trailer wrong on youtube and the car in the poster is different than the car in the movie. Urgh whatever, this is driving me nuts. The movie comes out in theaters on July 7 and I’ll sadly probably go watch it just out of curiosity.

Update: ummm I just realized we are in August, so either the movie already came out last month or they mean July 7.. 2017.

Update2: For some reason the video uploader made the video private. Anybody else have a copy?

Thanks Ahmad and Forzq8

The long awaited indie game ‘No Man’s Sky’ was supposed to come out in Kuwait yesterday but got held up at customs so I only was able to get my hands on it a few moments ago. The official worldwide release date is August 9th so Kuwait wins again with another early release date. If you want a copy, I got mine for KD19 from @q8_complex

Posted by Patrick

[YouTube]

The Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmad Causeway, a key project on the state national development plan, will be among the longest bridge worldwide. It is one track for completion in November 2018. The project, also known as the Subbiyah Causeway, aims to link south and north Kuwait, as well as coping with the increasing traffic jam over the coming three decades.

It consists of two parts: the Main Causeway that will link Kuwait City to the Subbiyah New Town area to the north, stretching 37.5 km, starting from the Ghazali Road intersection and ending at the Subbiyah highway. About 27km of it is a marine bridge structure. The second bridge, Doha Link, will be 12.4 km and will pass through the Kuwait Bay area towards the west, linking the Shuwaikh Port with the Doha motorway.

Up to 59 percent of the Main Causeway has been achieved, and 30 percent in the Doha Link, Assistant Undersecretary for Road Engineering at the Ministry of Public Works Eng. Ahmad Al­Hessan told KUNA. He added that the Doha link aims to end traffic jams in Shuwaikh, and on the Ghazali Road resulting from the trucks using the Port. The Sheikh Jaber Al­Ahmad Causeway also includes two artificial islands, the first to be built on a total area of 300,000 square meters near Kuwait city, and the second near Subbiyah New Town.

They will have government buildings, a marina and green spaces in addition to areas for future investment projects. [Source]

I’ve been watching their progress for awhile now since I can see a large chunk of the project from outside my window and they’ve been moving along pretty quickly. You can even see the bridge in earth view on [Google Maps].

Thanks Ricardas

There is an interesting discussion in the 248AM Community regarding internet latency in Kuwait. Internet latency is how much time it takes for a packet of data to get from one point to another so for example, from your computer to the website you’re trying to access. When browsing the web though, latency isn’t that important, but when playing video games, latency can make a world of a the difference in gameplay. A FASTtelco employee left some information regarding local internet latency in the discussion which I thought would be interesting to share, so I’ve copied and pasted it below with some minor changes:

—————————————————

In order the get the best latency, first we have to understand the dependencies and the major elements which might effect your latency:

First, the ISP’s are contracted with international providers either by dry routes (land) or through the wet routes (sea). Sometimes it’s a direct IPLC to Europe, and sometime through other destinations. The major difference might result in higher latency, but at the present time, most of the international routes are optimized to provide the best routes, resulting in closer latency ms. So let’s put this factor on the side.

LTE:
Unfortunately, the mobile is a non guaranteed service. It always depends on the load within the closest cell tower and this changes with your geographic location. You will always be getting different ms (ping) depending on how many people are using the same cell tower and the time of day.

Fiber GPON:
This is the most guaranteed service in Kuwait. Usually the latency between the ONT box located in the house to the main point of the ISP is 10-15ms and that’s consider to be the least across all the other internet services. Another factor, we have CAT6 cables connecting between the ONT box and the main router which isn’t the situation in DSL areas (with few exceptions to DSL clients having upgraded their copper cables to CAT6 cabling from the MOC external point to inside the house). The GPON provides stability and FASTtelco does offer the gaming package on the GPON due to the reduction of error factors.

DSL:
The various ISP’s differ in local ms (ping) latency depending on the equipments they use, the different routes and the types of services they have with the MOC. The best way to compare is to test the local ms (between you and your ISP). This will indicate the exact latency which will assist you when conducting the comparison between the different local ISP’s.

When an ISP conducts a test on the clients house, they check the external point, and that’s what’s guaranteed. Meanwhile, the local building cable (copper) is out of the scope. Therefore, a proper cable needs to be in place. Today most of the DSL areas are over 30 years old and so we heavily recommend to replace those old copper cables with CAT6 cables in order to have a much more stable service.

The router also plays a major part with the service and is the last factor that can effect your internet latency.

Every year I try to put together the most comprehensive list possible, of restaurants in Kuwait that have either a Ramadan buffet or set menu. Below is this years list and like always I’ve highlighted the price increases over the previous year in red, and the decreases in green. Check out the full list of places below:

Abdel Wahab
Buffet Price: KD10
Telephone: 1821000

Al Forno
Set Menu Price: KD9.5
Telephone: 22214996 or 22283498

Al Jahra Copthorne Hotel & Resort – Taima’a Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD12 (+2.000)
Telephone: 24590000

Al Noukhaza Restaurant
Buffet Price (Mangaf): KD11.950
Buffet Price (Shaab): KD14.950 (+2.000)
Telephone: 24757775 or 1823888

Al Sanawbar Lebanese Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD9.950 (+1.000)
Telephone: 25756273

Applebee’s
Set Menu Price: KD8
Telephone: 1844466 or 25381481

Assaha Lebanese Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD11
Telephone: 22533377

Avanti Palace
Set Menu Price: KD3.500 (+0.300) – min 4 people
Telephone: 25751081

Baker and Spice
Set Menu Price: KD8.750
Telephone: 22407707

Burj Al-Hamam
Buffet Price: KD12.5
Telephone: 22529095

Cafe Blanc – The Avenues
Buffet Price: TBD (starts mid Ramadan)
Telephone: 22597568

Courtyard by Marriott
Buffet Price: KD13
Telephone: 22997000

Crowne Plaza – Al Ahmadi Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD14 (+1.050)
Telephone: 1848111

Dar Hamad
Buffet Price: KD13.5
Telephone: 22275555

Hilton Resort – Teatro Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD15.500
Telephone: 22256222

Jeans Grill
Buffet Price: KD7.750 (+0.200)
Telephone: 22264503

Jumeirah Messilah Beach – Garden Cafe
Buffet Price: KD19
Telephone: 22269600

JW Marriott
Buffet Price: KD15 (+1.000)
Telephone: 22455550

Katsuya
Set Menu Price: KD12.5 – serves up to 4 people
Telephone: 22283195/6 or 22214985

Kababji
Set Menu Price: KD5.5
Telephone: 1861616

Kosebasi
Set Menu Price: KD7.50 (-2.250)
Telephone: 22251303

Kuwait Towers
Buffet Price: KD14
Telephone: 22081999

La Brasa Argentinian Grill
Buffet Price: KD13
Telephone: 99052419

Leila
Set Menu Price: KD9.5 (+0.500) – min 5 people
Telephone: 22996414

Max Restaurant
Set Menu Price: KD12 – serves up to 4 people
Telephone: 25750647

Millennium Hotel & Convention – Lamar International Restaurant
Set Menu Price: KD14 (+1.000)
Telephone: 22050505

Movenpick – Free Zone – Bays Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD12 (+0.100)
Telephone: 24610033

Movenpick – Al Bida’a – Breeze Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD15 (+1.000)
Telephone: 22253100

Naranj
Buffet Price: KD12.5 (-0.500)
Telephone: 22268666

Palm Palace
Buffet Price: KD8.9
Telephone: 67009575

Paul
Set Menu Price: KD7.950
Telephone: 22208204

Pop A Loop
Set Menu Prices: KD8 to KD14 (5 menus to choose from)
Telephone: 22271439

Qasr Al-Saraya
Buffet Price: KD8.5
Telephone: 25711101

Radisson Blu – Al Bustan Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD14
Telephone: 25673000

Ruby Tuesday
Buffet Price: KD9.950 (+3.000)
Telephone: 22444454

Saladworks
Set Menu Price: KD5
Telephone: 22201888

Sheraton – Coral Tent
Buffet Price: KD17.250
Telephone: 22422055

Swiss BelHotel Plaza – Al Dallah Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD9
Telephone: 22436686

Symphony Style Hotel
Buffet Price: KD11 (-3.000)
Telephone: 25770000

Tallu Hbabna
Buffet Price: KD10
Telephone: 22200325

The Regency Kuwait – Silk Road Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD18
Telephone: 25766880

Vapiano
Set Menu Price: KD5.550 (+0.600)
Telephone: 22597171

Veranda
Set Menu Price: KD12.450 (+0.450)
Telephone: 22283141

Villa Fayrouz
Buffet Price: KD10 (-3.000)
Telephone: 22650052

Zafran
Buffet Price: KD7.5
Telephone: 22285203 or 97281007

Zahr El Laymoun – 360 Mall
Buffet Price: TBD – starts next week
Telephone: 25309511

If you’d like to add a restaurant to the list above [Email Me]

Note: I’ve been adding restaurants to this list as I get emails about them so keep checking the above list for new additions.

“تفضل” which roughly translates to “come in” is a short documentary on Rihab Complex that was released a couple of months back but I only got to watch it a couple of days ago. For those of you who’ve never been to Rihab Complex, it’s an old shopping complex in Hawalli filled with video game stores. The documentary gives a bit of a rundown on the on the complex as well as interviews some of the shop owners to get their story as well as explanations on why some games are expensive, while EU games are cheaper than US and other things. Sadly the video is in Arabic so if you can’t understand Arabic you’re not gonna get much out of it. [YouTube]

I’ve personally been going to Rihab since the late 90s (when the best gaming console ever the Dreamcast was released). But before Rihab, during my SNES and Game Gear days I used to get all my games from the shops in old Salmiya. There used to be a bunch of great shops in the building right next to mine, I don’t remember their names but I do remember there were three of them, two on the main street and one inside the complex. One of the ones outside used to have a 3DO in the display playing either the Night Trap demo or the original Need for Speed on loop while the store inside the center had a Neogeo on display playing mostly Samurai Showdown. You also had two computer shops upstairs, one called Computer World where I got my original copy of Windows 95 from and the other shop right next door where I used to buy my pirated games from. You’d buy a game and then have to wait for the guy to make copies of it and some games like Duke 3D for example used 13 floppy disks so you had to either go and come back or wait there patiently until he finished copying them. Then you had Burj Al Abyad (White Tower) further down the road which was the gaming center of Kuwait back then with most of the shops also housing arcade machines.

This post is really making me regret selling all my old gaming consoles. All I kept from the bunch are my Game & Watches.

If you really want to step back in time, back in the 80s there used to be a computer shop in Salhiya, I think it was on M1 or M2, it was right across the Korean restaurant that used to be there. I also got my Coleco in the mid 80s from a video game shop in Kuwait City that was located in the hexagon shaped blue glass tower. Kuwait was so different back then.

Not a lot of events taking place in terms of quantity, but quality wise this weekend has some pretty interesting ones taking place. Check out the full list below:

Thursday
Exhibition: What’s Your Location?
Exhibition: Tensile Modulus By Omar Khouri
Movie & Dinner: Robocop
Dreams & Nightmares Illusion Show

Friday
Extreme Stunts Show
Summer Chamber Music
Dreams & Nightmares Illusion Show

Saturday
Extreme Stunts Show
Workshop: Building Your Comic Book World 101
Nutrition Talks
Korean Fan Calligraphy Event
The Last Brunch: A Charity Affair

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

Sometimes events get canceled or have details changed so double check info with organizers.

Doom was one of those games that I wasn’t allowed to play when I was a kid but I did anyways. It was dark, atmospheric and kind of scary. The games were unique at that time and basically laid the foundation for future first person shooters. Since then Id software tried to recapture that magic with various other games like Doom 3 and RAGE but were never really were able to reach the heights of Doom I and II…until now.

There was some hesitation from fans when the new Doom was announced since the market was oversaturated with first person shooters and it would take something special for the new Doom to make a dent. The development history of the game was troublesome, Id Software had completed a Doom game, didn’t like what they had created and then restarted the development process from the beginning. So there were a lot of questions that needed answering, would the new developers be able to design levels as good as John Romero and co.? Would the new developers be able to create the same fast-paced action that were present in those original games? Would they try to create a more immersive narrative even though those older games didn’t really rely on one? Even then, would a first person shooter with a reliance on gameplay over narrative even succeed nowadays when narrative seems important to the consumer and the players?

I was able to get my hands on Doom a few days before its official release and even though the multiplayer beta was disappointing, I was really looking forward to the single player campaign. As the games release date got closer, it was revealed that no review copies were sent out to any of the major websites so many people were expecting the worst. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I put the game in, I hoped for the best though. Thankfully what I got was nothing short of incredible. The game has incredible visuals and art direction, the environments look great, the monsters look extremely detailed and the animation is top notch. The music and the sound design are also fantastic and suit the game perfectly. Another aspect of the game that adds to its value is it doesn’t take itself too seriously. The developers built a ridiculous and amusing lore surrounding Doom-guy. They took this generic guy and turned him into this legendary warrior that demons fear. He has a personality even though he doesn’t say a word, it’s all in his actions. The game plays fast, it’s brutal and the music accompanying the action is memorable. The way the game starts is brilliant and probably one of the most memorable introduction to any game I’ve played.

The developers were successful at modernizing Doom in a couple of ways. First off is you can now upgrade your weapons, thankfully it’s not convoluted. Each weapon has two upgrade paths and the manner in which they’re presented is simple and straight forward. Your armor can be upgraded as well and like your weapons, the process is simple. You can also upgrade the amount of health, armor and ammo you can carry. You’ll also come across demonic runes that present a challenge and if you complete the challenge you’ll unlock a rune that you can equip that will also help you out in some way.

Other ways the developers were able to modernize Doom is the games level design. The original Doom games had complex level designs that were maze like and contained plenty of secrets to discover. The developers were able to take that feel and successfully modernize it. Levels have a lot of verticality to them and you’ll be jumping around quite a bit. It sort of feels like a Metroidvania kind of game in some ways. You’ll get lost in the levels the same way players did in the original game. The levels have secrets and even when you know where they’re located, some secrets are still tricky and challenging to get to.

The game also features two other modes besides the single player campaign mode which are multiplayer and Snapmap modes. Multiplayer is self-explanatory and I haven’t really touched it since release because I’ve been spending all my time playing through the campaign while the Snapmap mode is where all the user-created content will be. Snapmap lets you create and share your own levels and challenges. I’m actually impressed by how much content Doom has to offer.

Its been a while since I’ve enjoyed a first person shooter as much as I’ve enjoyed Doom. It might just be the best single player first person shooter I’ve played. It’s memorable, it’s fun and it’s very violent. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a fast-paced action game that doesn’t take itself very seriously. I’m relieved it turned out this good since I chose to play Doom before Uncharted 4. I don’t like giving out perfect scores (I’ve only given 5 games perfect scores), but Doom deserves it.

Score: ★★★★★

Post by Patrick