Doom

Let’s start by talking about the absolute arsenal of weapons the Doom Slayer has at his disposal. You start the game with a basic pistol, pretty simple but it can charge up a more powerful shot and has infinite ammo. Not to your liking? How about everyone’s favorite, the shotgun. You actually get two of these, the classic single shot pump action shotgun (with grenade launcher and burst fire mods), or the double barreled “Super Shotgun” with twice the destructive power of its little brother. Still not violent enough? Battle rifle with sniper scope and micro missiles.

Seriously, that's not enough? Plasma rifle, rocket launcher, Gauss cannon, how about a chainsaw? And of course we can’t forget the most powerful weapon in DOOM, the BFG 9000, also known as the Big F***ing Gun. Well if blowing apart demons with all that wasn’t enough how about ripping them apart with your bare hands? Yeah DOOM isn’t pulling any punches, and neither is the Doom Slayer. If you get a demon to low health you can perform what DOOM calls a “glory kill”, where you will brutally snap bones, crush skulls, punch, stomp, rip and tear, without having to use any more ammo. As a matter of fact, the game rewards you with a health boost for every demon you do this to, along with the satisfying snap crackle and pop that comes from doing this.

Aside from the classically violent gameplay fans of the original games have come to know and love, DOOM and its sequel DOOM Eternal have a lot to offer in terms of story. Following a demonic outbreak on Mars, the Doom Slayer is released from his sarcophagus and like usual, is pissed off. Your goal is to contain the outbreak at the UAC’s research center and close the portal to hell, all while raising it for anything that stands in your way.

Playing this on the Symgym was a Symgym proved rather exciting as well. In order to move you have to pump the legs as if you were actually running around. The arms provided an intuitive system for aiming your guns and orienting yourself for wherever you want to walk, jump, or vault, and added to the overall smoothness you expect in a high adrenaline game like DOOM. Using the trigger buttons on the handles also felt really nice, and gave an extra layer of satisfaction to every newly placed hole in the slice of swiss cheese that was previously an enemy.

This is also a game that works really well for the Symgym due to the soundtrack. Thanks to Mick Gordon’s heavy metal, that increases and decreases with intensity based on how you are doing, (and beatmatches to glory kills). It really creates a fun experience and encourages a pretty good workout at the same time.