DOOM is here! After 20 years, lingering in ‘development hell’, horrible beta reviews and maybe kinda being released two days early, the Bethesda release of DOOM has arrived and it is going to be awesome, damnit.

DOOM is the granddaddy of first person gaming. Call of Duty? Bioshock? Fallout? They’re all straight from the evil loins of DOOM. DOOM copies were so popular in the early 90s they basically became a subgenre. I’ve for one been waiting for this modern release of DOOM for a long time and I can’t be alone here.

Yes, I know, the beta had atrocious reviews, it’s been bouncing around Bethesda Studios since 2008 and the whole reboot design has been scrapped and restarted at least once, but it’s gonna have hell monsters and skulls and big guns and the blood is no longer a cube! It’s going to be nuts. Look, I’m ready to get back to what I love about games: ultra-violence, absurd weapons and blind screaming terror.

If I may get a little personal: DOOM happens to be the first video game I ever played, outside of The Oregon Trail in school. My friend and I snuck into her brother’s bedroom like we were going to steal his porn. She was so excited to try this game he wouldn’t shut up about. It was called Doom and he told her was the scariest thing in the world.

Well, it frickin’ was. She didn’t understand the controls, so I tried to bash my way through it (a strategy that rarely fails me in life or gaming) and I managed to get five whole minutes into the first board before I got stuck in a corner, saw some cube-shaped blood drops and we both started screaming. It was great. I love DOOM and I’m not gonna let naysayers sway my opinion until I’ve played it myself.

If you’ve already played it by the time you read this, hit me up at @bethanneboyle to let me know what you think! Do you love it? Are you running into a lot of bugs and glitches? Did it need more skulls? Should it have stayed in development hell where it belongs?