(This article was originally published on January 4th, 2015 for GamerSyndrome.com. Click the link in the title for the original version.)
Just over 22 years on, and Doom is somehow still maintaining one of the biggest and best modding communities out there. And even if you don’t read the Cacowards every year or keep up with the modding scene like I do, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of Brutal Doom, the critical darling that captured the attention of TotalBiscuit, Yahtzee Croshaw, and even John Romero himself. Not since the early 90s had a Doom mod seen such mainstream popularity…and then, like everything else that becomes wildly popular, people started to hate it.
Still, hate it or love it, Brutal Doom is one of the most significant mods the game’s ever had, so perhaps it’s no surprise that, two years after its release, Brutal Doom now has a standalone story campaign release, complete with the unwieldy title of Brutal Doom: Hell on Earth Starter Pack. Having blasted, burnt, and explosioned my way through all three episodes (and with no other review-worthy games on the horizon), I’m now prepared to give you my verdict on the game.
If you’re not familiar with Brutal Doom, the first thing you’ll notice is the frankly excessive level of gore. With this release, you can now choose a level of blood n’ guts from “Realistic” (which still isn’t) to “Overdrawn at the Blood Bank”. The higher settings are fun for a laugh, as one shot will lead to a bright red fountain capable of coating an entire room, but they’re really not practical for gameplay, as the large number of moving sprites causes the ancient engine’s framerate to drop to a crawl.
But Brutal Doom, especially this newest and most polished iteration of it, is so much more than just a gore mod. Nearly every aspect of gameplay has been tweaked. Enemies have new and more difficult attacks, forcing you to contend with leaping imps, faster revenants (was that necessary?), and even more enormous Cyberdemons. Fortunately, your weapons have been beefed up as well, with alternate attacks, faster firing rates, and the ability to dual-wield assault rifles. This comes with a host of other changes too numerous to list, and which I wouldn’t want to list in any case — half the fun is discovering things like the ability to kick Hell Knights in the testicles to stun them, and half the challenge comes from the sudden fearful realization that your chainsaw has gotten stuck in a Mancubus’ corpse.
I’m a big fan of the original mod’s faster-paced, ultraviolent gameplay, and the Hell on Earth Starter Pack, whose released coincided with the release of Brutal Doom v20, has refined and polished every aspect to just about as good as they can get. One major complaint is the addition of reloading to all guns. It’s such a bizarre choice — everything else in the game is about moving faster and hitting harder than the original Doom, but nothing brings circle-strafing pulse-pounding action to a screeching halt like having to stop every eighth shot to reload. At least the Hell on Earth Starter Pack brings the much-needed addition of showing actual clip sizes on the HUD, something painfully lacking from previous versions of the mod.
This is as easy as it’s ever been to get into a Doom mod: all you have to do is download the zip file and double-click the handily-labeled “PLAY BRUTAL DOOM” executable (which is actually GZdoom). No further installation is required, though the new levels can be played with the Doom II IWAD if you want to use the original sprites for everything. For this review, I played the completely standalone version, and while some of the new graphics were a bit odd at first (why do the armor powerups look like soda cans?), I found it actually ran faster than when using the IWAD, though others have had the opposite experience. Still, for the first time, you can experience Brutal Doom even if you somehow don’t own a copy of the original games, or if you don’t feel like downloading the software and putting in the effort to get the awful DosBOX Steam ports working.
The game itself consists of 30 maps and two bonus levels, and supposedly takes place just after the events of Doom II (though I think maybe it’s actually supposed to be during?) The story’s not really important: hell beasts are invading, and you’ll have to kill them across Mars, Los Angeles, and eventually Hell itself. All the levels are very nice, and unlike their classic counterparts, actually make an effort to look like real buildings. I really love the atmosphere — not just the levels themselves, but the new animations given to the monsters even when they’re standing still, which helps the whole thing feel more real. There’s also a handful of other characters, including an AI-controlled squad of marines and a faceless colonel who’ll talk to you through your helmet. To my relief, the voice acting is actually pretty good — a far cry from the ridiculous, poorly-recorded, and annoying “GO FUCK YOURSELF” screams unnecessarily featured in the original mod.
The best part of the game is that it’s actually designed around the Brutal Doom gameplay changes, which mostly means larger arenas to fight the tougher, faster monsters. The designs still feel like Doom, but without the frustration that would sometimes come from using the mod with the original games, which would lead to (among other things) the occasional impossible Cyberdemon encounter.
If you’ve been keeping up with the modding community, there’s nothing here that will surprise you — nothing as impressive as, say, last year’s Going Down. The maps are nice, particularly the ones set in the ruined streets of LA, and they contain a handful of new bosses. They’re difficult, but not too challenging as long as you avoid the brutal (haha) higher difficulties. The level design in these sections still needs some work — a lot of the maps have some unintuitive sections (though part of that might be the altered graphics making it hard to tell what’s a switch), and the first episode especially requires a lot of backtracking, sometimes to the point that I would just noclip back to the other end of the level to open the door with the key I just got. Sometimes monsters will be spawned behind you a la Doom II so that there’s something to kill while you walk back, but most of the time you’ll just be treading back through piles of gorey corpses.
Furthermore, despite the many performance upgrades, I still ran into the occasional glitch. Most of these, for whatever reason, involved the Chaingunner, an enemy who’s difficult enough without the ability to shoot through walls (which happened a few times) and keep spawning bullets after death (which only happened once but scared the crap out of me).
Still, I think where this game will excel is with people who aren’t part of the die-hard Doom fandom. If the difficulty of installing mods has turned you away before, you’ll be blown away by how good everything looks and how well everything plays, even on a 20-year-old engine. This is Doom like you’ve never experienced it before: faster, bloodier, more extreme, and it’ll only take you two clicks to play and install.
Besides which, there’s still just something special about Brutal Doom. It’s the moments you won’t get anywhere else, like throwing a grenade behind a Baron of Hell and rocketing him into it just as it explodes. It’s kicking a demon back and removing his head with a perfect shotgun blast. And yes, it’s shotgunning an imp out a window. It’s not smart and it’s not for everyone, but it’s damn good fun for any fan of classic FPS. And to my mind, there’s never been a better way to play than the Hell on Earth Starter Pack.
Rating: 8.5/10
