Doom 3 is my favorite one to play when there’s combat and its had some tweaks to the gunplay (like fixing the god-awful shotgun spread to be more normal, greatly reducing ammo amounts, and increasing armor effectiveness,) but if i want a really fun experience, I tend to do Doom 2, or Plutonia. The newer doom games don’t have enough mobs spawning in, and a lot of the levels just feel like combat arenas, (less so in Eternal) instead of places to explore. I think a lot of people overlook the exploration of the og doom games and 3. I liked how demons could roam the halls in Doom 1 and 2, and it really made the levels feel a bit more sandboxy imo. Not to say Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal are bad games, certainly not! It’s just a lot easier for me to sit down and play a few levels of doom 1 or 2 for 30 minutes or an hour, instead of getting invested in complex, more intense gameplay.

Doom 1 and 2 typically relieve stress, though can be challenging, while in doom 2016 and eternal, i feel overwhelmed sometimes and kinda have a bad time cuz I need to focus too much, constantly switching weapons and whatnot. Sometimes i just wanna mow down a horde of zombiemen and imps with a chaingun or ssg.