So, I just started and played the first two missions.
One thing I noticed right away, compared to DOOM is its higher production value. Much smoother sprite animation, proper cut-scenes, interesting sound design. It’s obvious there has been some Lucas Star Wars money in this.
At first glance the game’s engine looks a lot like they took DOOM’s feature list and just built the same. But there are actually a few things the engine does that DOOM couldn’t.
Most notably, there are actual 3D (polygon) objects in the levels. In the first one, there’s small maintenance droids whizzing around, there’s the ship that picks you up at the end of a mission and I bet the rotating sections of some levels are also done this way. Quite impressive, especially considering this was not from a studio like id that specialized in engine development.
Engine seems to be somewhere between DOOM and Build, feature-wise, which makes sense, given it was written between the two.
Another immediately obvious difference is jumping and crouching and crouch jumping. Actually thought Half-Life invented the latter, but apparently not.
Gameplay seems solid enough so far, backtracking to the extraction point gets old very quickly, though.
The story contradicts the canon explanation of how the Death Star plans got into Rebel hands.
Can’t say much about the story, yet, but it’s cool enough there actually is one (and not just: there’s daemons, rip and tear!)
So, all in all I think I’m going to enjoy this one 🙂