Doom (2016, PS4) - Keen Excitement Returns to Mars

I have to admit I wasn't too excited for id Software's 2016 remake/re-envisioning of Doom when I first heard about it. While I enjoyed the original Doom way back in 1993, I'm generally not a big first-person shooter fan, and I put very little time into 2004's Doom 3 before giving up on it. Once the new Doom launched, I was surprised by the overwhelmingly positive reviews, but didn't get a chance to check it out myself until publisher Bethesda launched a free demo at E3 2016. Demos are increasingly rare nowadays, but this one proved why they're so valuable: I downloaded it, played through, and immediately wanted to pick up the full game. I'm glad I did: This new version of Doom is the best shooter I've played in years.

Fallout 4 (2015, PS4) - All Around the World, Same Song

I was surprised by Obsidian Entertainment's Fallout: New Vegas in 2010. While I've put time into each of the mainline Fallout titles, New Vegas was the first to keep me playing for dozens of hours and compel me to actually finish the core story. Fallout 1 and 2 were a lot of fun to mess around in, but I never really cared about their worlds, and while nothing about Fallout 3 felt seriously wrong to me, it didn't capture my attention in any real way. New Vegas was, somehow, different. Its writing and its characters were strong enough to keep me going the whole way through in spite of the fact that I was playing the bug-riddled PS3 port.

When Fallout 4 was announced and I learned it would be set in and around my home turf of Boston, I was pretty pumped. Development duties returning to Fallout 3/Elder Scrolls bosses Bethesda Game Studios, and I was confident they would have learned what made New Vegas tick and reproduce that magic. I'm let down to say that instead, Fallout 4 is just an average RPG/shooter with standard video game writing. There's nothing abominably bad here, but nothing that lights the same spark New Vegas did.