Brutal Doom: Hell on Earth | Review

Developer: Sergeant_Mark_IV

Publisher: Sergeant_Mark_IV

Reviewed on: PC

Available on: PC

Released: (v20b) January 1^st 2016

Being a big fan of the original Doom (you can read my review of the PlayStation port of Doom HERE), you would have expected me to have played some of the many mods that have been created by fans of the game, yet I haven't ever played one. For my first ever Doom mod I thought I would play perhaps the most famous of all Doom mods; Brutal Doom, a mod which changes the original Doom formula in many ways.

For those that don't know, a mod is a modification (often fan made) of a game or game engine that can add things like graphical or gameplay fixes/tweaks, or add entirely new content which can range from new weapons, new levels or in the case of some ambitious mods, they can pretty much be an entirely different game. Brutal Doom: Hell on Earth is an example of a ambitious mod which adds brand new levels, new interactive environments, better lighting, new weapons, modernised shooter controls (the ability to jump, crouch, look up and down, reload, a melee button, etc), voice acting, a new story, more blood and gore, new enemy animations and attacks and so much more. It's basically a brand new Doom game which uses the same graphics as Doom 1 and 2.

This review is for version 20b of Brutal Doom specifically looking at the Brutal Doom: Hell on Earth Starter Pack which is the campaign/single player mode released earlier this year. It's very easy to set up and playable without installing anything other than Doom II and the Brutal Doom Starter Pack itself which is available HERE. You can install other mods in conjunction with Brutal Doom, but for the sake of this review, the only mod I'm using is Brutal Doom.

As with the original Doom, the story is given to us entirely through text intermissions between some of the levels and can somewhat be pieced together through level environments too. Although this sticks to what the original Doom does it would have been nice to have been given some more story through cutscenes or dialogue rather than simply being text based. The story itself is basically a re-telling of the original Doom. As far as I'm aware you play as Doom Guy (the same character from the original Doom games) but this is never explicitly said and it could be the story of another marine.

The text intermissions are quite boring and basic, but at least we're given some sort of story along with all the killing.

The game starts in the middle of an attack by an unknown force on a UAC (Union Aerospace Corporation) base on Mars. You are quick to discover that the threat is none other than demons spawned from Hell itself and you need to re-group with the other surviving marines before everyone on the base is annihilated.

Unlike in the original Doom games, this time you aren't alone and actually succeed in re-grouping with your teammates. Upon finally making your way through the huge base and fighting hordes of demons, you find the surviving marines and decide to leave the overrun facility by using a teleportation portal to get back to Earth.

Upon reaching Earth you find yourself in a forest on the outskirts of Los Angeles. You quickly discover that all isn't well after seeing the mutilated corpses of some soldiers. The demons have invaded Earth and are launching a full scale attack on the city. You fight your way through a huge army of demons and eventually find your way to an evac centre filled with civilians and allied soldiers. The boss tells you that there's a portal which is spawning the demons deep within the city, the government are willing to nuke the area but that would kill you, any soldiers still left in the area and who knows how many civilians. Thus it's decided that you and the remnants of the army will go in, fight your way to the portal and secure it.

See those three floating pieces? That's his skull. Or what remains of it.

After fighting through the ruins of Los Angeles you finally find the portal in the UAC headquarters building. The portal leads directly to Hell and is where all of the demons have been spawning from. After beating the guardian of the portal you come to the realisation that nothing can be done to close the portal from Earth's side so you call in all remaining reinforcements and take the fight to Hell, in order to find a way to finally close the portal once and for all.

Upon reaching Hell a massive war erupts between the human army and the demon army. You fight your way to a huge castle and climb up, infiltrating the demon's stronghold. You go in alone leaving your comrades to fight the demons at the foothold of the castle in order to try and not alert the demons inside the castle. After fighting through the hordes of demons inside the castle you receive word from HQ. All of the marines still alive have retreated back to Earth through the portal after suffering extreme casualties. You're now the only marine left in Hell. HQ give you coordinates of where they believe the source of the portal is. Right in the middle of a demon infested city. Being the tough, battle hardened, demon killing veteran you are, you head straight for the city, slaughtering every demon in sight.

After battling your way through Hell and finally reaching the source of the portal, a huge monster appears and you engage in your final battle. After a while, you destroy the massive demon and stop the armies of Hell from attacking Earth. Exhausted, you fall to the floor and are retrieved by friendly marines before finally making it back to Earth.

If you manage to save a friendly marine, they will actually assist you and they aren't a total push over either.

The story is a bit of a step up from the original Doom games, while still not being masterful story telling it gives you an objective and makes it so all this extreme violence towards demons is justified. I especially like the implication that the UAC is behind the demon invasion in some way (by the portal to Hell being in their HQ) rather than outright saying they're behind it.

However, as I said earlier, the story is entirely given to us through text and it would have been nice to have some dialogue or cutscenes to move the story forward rather than a boring wall of text. The text itself is sometimes not spell checked or is grammatically incorrect which is slightly annoying because there isn't that much text to begin with. Also about halfway through the game the text shifted it's position to be too far to the right of the screen which cut some words in half and made it difficult to read. Which is a shame because the game itself has really high production value and it's slightly let down by a very small issue.

The ending also feels a little bit like it comes out of nowhere, sure, there is a final boss, but maybe a final stage where you need to run back through the portal before it closes would have ended things slightly better. Nothing is even said of what actually happens to the portal so the ending is prevented from being particularly satisfying.

But as we all know, we aren't playing Doom for the story, we're all about the gameplay, and I'm happy to report, the gameplay is fantastic.

One section of the game sees a Cyber Demon have a battle with a Spider Mastermind. Spoilers... The Cyber Demon won.

It essentially follows the exact same structure the original Doom games do, you explore each level while navigating obstacles, solving puzzles and shooting a wide variety of enemies. In order to progress in most levels, you'll need certain coloured keycards which open the corresponding coloured door which is where the aspect of exploration comes in. As with the original Doom games, sometimes finding these cards can be slightly frustrating because they can be hidden and you can spend a long time wandering through the level only to find the keycard was right in front of you all along. But for the most part this is a system that works and because you're moving through the levels a lot, it makes them more memorable.

But where Brutal Doom starts to separate itself from the original games is in it's modified enemies and added weaponry. Almost every enemy in the game has been given a makeover. Not visually but in terms of how they approach combat and what attacks they have. For example, the Imp enemies are now much more deadly at close quarters, having a leap attack that wasn't present in the original games. The Cacodemons now have a quick dodge move which they'll use to evade your fire or to take cover behind the environment. The Barons of Hell now have a charge shot which fires three fire balls at you which scatter and are harder to avoid. There are lots of other tweaks that make the enemies more deadly and unpredictable too. Every single enemy from Doom and Doom II make a return for this mod and they all have new attacks up their sleeves to keep you on your toes.

When you shoot an enemy, sometimes rather than dying quickly they will be mortally wounded and slowly bleed out while screaming. Fun for the whole family.

To match the enemies new abilities though, the player also has access to a lot of new skills and weapons. Gone is the useless pistol from the original games and in it's place is an assault rifle which is accurate at long range and fires fairly quickly which can be useful for stopping certain enemies from attacking you briefly. The shotgun and super shotgun make a return but are visually different, the chaingun has been replaced with a minigun and works fundamentally the same but looks different, the plasma gun and BFG make a return and work similarly to their original counterparts, the rocket launcher is back and the chainsaw makes a return too and yet again is mostly the same as it always has been.

However, there are some new weapons such as the Mancubus flame cannon which can be taken from a defeated Mancubus enemy and used as a flamethrower or as a fire ball launcher for longer range but a lower rate of fire, grenades, which can be thrown while holding any weapon or by specifically selecting them by pressing the “0” key. There's also the Revenant twin rocket launcher which can be taken from the corpse of a Revenant enemy and used to lock on and fire homing rockets at your foes.

Despite me saying that all the returning weapons are fundamentally the same as in the original games, they are mostly all somewhat different in the way that they (mostly) all have a secondary fire mode or a 'powered up' version which didn't exist in Doom or Doom II. The assault rifle and plasma gun can be dual wielded, effectively having twice the amount of ammo in a clip but taking twice the amount of time to reload, the minigun can be pre-warmed up so that it can shoot quicker but decreases the (already quite bad) accuracy, the super shotgun can fire one shell at a time, lowering the damage but giving you two shots rather than just the one and as previously mentioned the Mancubus flame cannon can act as a flamethrower or you can use it's alternate fire to launch fire balls.

Not only this but the plasma gun, assault rifle and shotgun have an iron sights aim, which zooms the screen in slightly allowing for more precise shots to be made.

You won't just be fighting across warzones, sometimes the action will take place in everyday locations which keeps things a bit varied.

But the new and modified weaponry isn't the only new trick you have up your sleeve. A ton of new abilities have been added which quite drastically change the way Doom is played. Most noticeably Brutal Doom controls more like a modern first person shooter, you can jump, crouch, look up and down you have a melee attack (which is a Duke Nukem style kick) and you now have to reload. All of these things give you a lot more to think about when you approach combat, for instance you can crouch behind cover, jump over certain obstacles and you can now be a lot more aggressive when in close combat, even when you're holding a ranged weapon. Not only that but because you can look up and down, you'll need to be a lot more precise with aiming and the levels are designed with a lot more verticality in mind. You'll find enemies way above you in apartment complexes and other high platforms raining their bullets and fire balls down on you, which never happened in the original Doom because you wouldn't have been able to see where they were shooting you from. Now though, the demons are everywhere so you'll need eyes everywhere.

With this more free aiming style comes a much more detailed hit detection system, if you shoot an enemy in the head, it will do more damage (which works like every other modern shooter), but the cool part is that if you shoot an enemy in the head, they will actually respond to where you hit them, their head will pop and blood will explode from their neck hole, or shoot them in the limbs to dismember them, the choice is yours. Each enemy will react differently depending on where you hit them and some will continue coming after you even with one limb missing. The chainsaw also now actually cuts enemies in two and the whole thing has much more visual feedback.

While performing a new fatality move the camera will shift to third person so you can clearly see the brutality taking place.

You have some more difficult to pull of moves too, such as fatality moves where the camera will shift to third person as you beat your enemy to death using your fists. These moves can only be activated when you find a demon rune or a berserk pack and the enemy is injured or stunned and to be honest, the fatalities will more often than not get you injured more than if you simply shot the enemy so it's not particularly worth it, but on the odd occasion you actually manage to pull it off, it feels very satisfying. I don't really understand why you need to pick up an item to have access to these moves, you hardly ever use your fists as a weapon so when you do, you should really be able to pull off a fatality regardless. You can also grab certain enemies to use as a human shield but I didn't manage to do this a single time when playing just because of how lucky you need to get to do it, it works in the same way as a fatality apart from you need to hit the enemy from behind. While it can be slightly frustrating that you hardly ever get to actually use these abilities, you don't ever actually need to use them and it seems they're more there as a cool extra rather than an actual useful gameplay element, so it can be forgiven.

Boss battles have been given a bit of a make-over in Brutal Doom too. Rather than re-using the same Spider Mastermind and Cyber Demon bosses from the original games, they are simply normal enemies and the new bosses are brand new demons which aren't seen in Doom or Doom II at all. The first boss takes place at the end of chapter one (as you're escaping the Mars base) and is easily the hardest boss in the entire game. It features two enemies called Belphegors and they shoot energy balls at you which deal huge amounts of damage. Not only this but the projectiles are extremely difficult to dodge because the area you fight them in is so small and the enemies move quite unpredictably. I died more times on this one section than the entirety of the rest of the game, I played on ultra-violence and I don't even want to think what this is like on a higher difficulty. Later on in the game the Belphegors become standard enemies but luckily you always fight them one at a time and in a much more open area, so it's a lot easier.

These Belphegor enemies killed me so, so many times. This is easily the hardest part of the game and it's only the first boss. 

The next boss is at the end of chapter two (as you're about to enter the portal to Hell), it's the Inferno Demon and looks a little bit like a big millipede standing upright. It's a much easier to manage boss than the previous one and it actually has a health bar so you can see how close you are to killing it. I assume the reason the first boss didn't have a health bar is either because they later become standard enemies or because there are two of them and two health bars might have required more programming or been too distracting to look at? I don't know. Either way, the Inferno Demon boss basically fires a mixture of homing plasma balls at you or quicker standard (non-homing) projectiles at you that deal quite a lot of damage. You can easily beat this boss by running constantly around the wide open area and just open firing with everything you've got.

Chapter three actually features more than one boss level, the first of which being with a Demon Lord which is basically a gigantic Cyber Demon and works exactly the same as a Cyber Demon too, only packing more of a punch, firing a lot faster and being a lot, lot bigger. I actually beat this boss on my first try and had to reload the level in order to die on purpose to see what his name was for this review.

The next (and final) boss is the Eldritch Abomination which is basically the Icon of Sin from the end of Doom II but with a gigantic body. This is the second hardest boss in the game (still not being anywhere near as difficult as the first boss) and provides a good amount of hectic challenge. I died quite a lot on this boss because of the number of constantly spawning enemies and the barrage of attacks the boss throws at you. The boss is pretty simple to beat though, all you need to do is constantly shoot it, but because you also need to be constantly moving you'll need to learn to navigate the environment without looking where you're going so you can keep shooting and keep avoiding it's attacks. Because the boss spawns other enemies, you'll find yourself often dying due to projectiles and obstacles coming from every angle.

This is the second boss who guards the portal to Hell. He's one of the easier bosses in the game but still fun to fight.

The boss battles are generally good, but they don't have much in the way of strategy, with all the bosses your best bet is to constantly move and fire and there's nothing more to it than that. Still the new demon designs are appreciated and give even long time players of Doom something new to see.

There are a few more smaller details which separate Brutal Doom from the original games too. The inclusion of friendly marines is a very nice touch and they actually do help quite a lot. You can either stick with your friends and help them and progress through the level together or go on your own and leave the marines to die. I like to stick with them as long as I can, but when they eventually die it suddenly feels more tense to once again be on your own and you can't help but mourn your deceased allies. The few sections of the game where there are a ton of marines are particularly memorable and it actually feels like a chaotic war rather than one man against a million demons. Sometimes the marines will call in an airstrike and bomb a whole group of demons in the distance which again, makes it seem like an actual war rather than you being the only one who actually does anything.

You can use emotes in Brutal Doom which give the main character some personality rather than just being a blank slate like in the original games. He now is much more aggressive, seeming to enjoy killing the demons, he can celebrate by holding his fist in the air and he can taunt opponents by sticking his middle finger up at them (two middle fingers if you have the fists equipped, which is a nice touch), and some enemies even respond to this gesture too! The kick move also makes this version of Doom Guy feel more aggressive, like he's just trying to find the most violent way possible to finish off his enemies.

This is the Eldritch Abomination. It has the Icon of Sin's head but also has a huge mechanical body which it uses to fire an insane number of projectiles at you.

New turret sections have been added but these are very few and far between. Most of the time by the time you've fought your way to a turret you've already killed all the enemies anyway, but there is one turret section in which it's you against a Cyber Demon and you have to get on a turret and shoot him while also keeping track of his projectiles and shooting those before they hit you. This could have been expanded on and turned into an actual boss battle because this was one of the most stand out parts of the game for me. It's a shame there wasn't more turret sections or other intractable vehicles or devices to break the gameplay up more.

Perhaps one of the best things about Brutal Doom is how each level feels like it actually flows into the other, rather than them just feeling disconnected like in the original Doom. Because of this it feels like you're exploring actual places rather than just random arenas in a video game. Some levels have unique attributes that set them apart from the others, like a blood waterfall, a castle siege, a subway system and lots more.

Most of the issues with Brutal Doom aren't particularly big ones and some of it's flaws are inherent to this style of game rather than being flaws with the game itself. However there are some things I want to point out. A small issue is that when you switch to the shotgun, it automatically selects the super shotgun rather than the normal shotgun. In the majority of situations when I'm selecting the shotgun, it's to use the standard one rather than the super one, and this sometimes stops the combat being as smooth as it could be (because of needing to remember to press the “3” key twice). What the game should do instead is simply remember which type of shotgun you last used and change to that one.

The map is mostly useless, just like it was in the original Doom games.

There is a level later on in the game called Necropolis and it's a fairly good level which has a good theme and some platforming sections which are a bit stiff but add a little bit of variety. My issue with this level is one particular puzzle where you are trapped in a pit and a spiked ceiling comes down to crush you. For a long time I couldn't find a way out of this pit and the solution was to shoot a wall to uncover a secret tunnel. This is a little bit convoluted because you never do that in the game other than this so the player simply doesn't think of shooting the wall. This was the only puzzle in the game which annoyed me, and although it's a small issue it's still one I thought I should mention.

Perhaps the biggest problem with Brutal Doom though is how it starts to drag and lack a sense of progression in some areas. I feel like it slightly outstays it's welcome and could have done with being a few levels shorter. Some of the Earth levels feel very similar to each other and they are sometimes huge and take a long time to explore. Towards the end of the Earth levels is the only point in the game I was getting really bored, but luckily the Hell levels are shorter and the scenery change got me interested again.

You'll get a lot of game time out of this if you go through it all and complete it like I did, but sometimes an experience can be too long and become a bit monotonous. That isn't to say you shouldn't play the Earth levels though, one of the best levels in the game is an Earth one, which is set in an underground train system where you board and fight demons on a moving train.

The lack of any additional gameplay elements outside of what the original Doom offered (aside from very few turret sections) is the biggest issue with the game. However, I appreciate that it's trying to keep the spirit of the original games so I can understand why this was done. If you like the original Doom, there's no reason at all to not like Brutal Doom.

This was one of my favourite levels. You have a firefight with a bunch of demons while on a speeding train. What's not to like?

The graphics are in the style of the original Doom games but Brutal Doom adds some new lighting effects which look very nice and make enemies' projectiles stand out more and as I've previously mentioned Brutal Doom adds a ton of new animations and lots more gore.

It never stops feeling satisfying to shoot your way through the hordes of demons and the reason for this is in how the enemies will not only react differently depending on where you hit them, but they'll change their animation depending on where in the environment you kill them (if they're near a wall they'll slump against it) and what weapon you kill them with (killing them with the plasma gun will disintegrate them). If you use a rocket launcher or a grenade you will rip them apart sending their limbs flying and covering the area in blood, not only on the floor either. you actually cover the walls and ceiling too. It's always nice to look back at a room you've cleared and check out what a gory mess you've made because of how dynamically the blood sticks to the environment.

The levels are now more interactive, enabling you to shoot lights out, destroy certain props like chairs, plant pots and the tortured corpses of your comrades and you can walk over your dead enemy and blood shoe prints will appear where you have walked which is a very nice touch and harkens back to Duke Nukem 3D.

So many new textures and objects have been added to the game with this mod. I would say the vast majority of the game consists of new assets rather than using ones already in the original game which is great because while it retains the visual style, it's still different and new. The obvious main assets that have been re-used are the enemy sprites, but even they have been tinkered with by the addition of new animations (which blend perfectly with the old animations and match the character designs completely).

At some points in the game, the army will airstrike certain locations, clearing out some tough enemies before they have a change to attack you.

One of the best things about the start of the game is how it actually feels like you're exploring a real place. There aren't just random rooms put there to have a shootout in, they all actually make sense to be on a space station. You'll be fighting through cafeterias, sleeping quarters, offices, gun ranges and even bathrooms.

The only problems with the games visuals aren't even in the main game. The main menu looks very similar to the original Doom's but the background changes and displays text (telling you who created the mod) the issue with this is it's shown behind the main menu text, making it unreadable and also look a bit ugly and unprofessional. Considering this is the first thing you'll see, it might be a bit off-putting, even when the actual game isn't like that at all. The games credits could play at the end of the game or simply be accessible through the main menu rather than being in the background of the menu.

The only other visual issue is one I've already mentioned where during the text intermissions sometimes it wasn't aligned properly and it also contains quite a lot of spelling and grammar errors.

The Hell levels feature castle-like structures which makes a nice change from the space station and city settings in the other chapters.

The music in Brutal Doom consists of original content (most likely created by fans of the mod and/or Doom itself) and content taken from other Doom related sources. One such song is played in the first level and is taken from the Doom film. I'm also pretty sure that some of the Hell levels use music from either the PlayStation port of Doom or the Nintendo 64 version of Doom (but it could just be inspired by it). The music itself fits the game perfectly, it achieves the over the top adrenaline pumping feeling that the original game's had, but updates the tracks to be more modern and not Midi (this updating process fits with Brutal Doom's overall goal). During the Hell levels things slow down and become more ambient and creepy which fits in extremely well with the sound of the tortured marines screaming and begging for help in the distance.

Speaking of which, there is some voice acting in the game, and it all sounds really good. I'm unsure whether it was taken from something or if it was recorded specifically for the game, but it works very well. It isn't used often but when it is used it's effective in what it's trying to do. The aforementioned screaming and begging is particularly horrible and the bursts of radio transmissions you sometimes hear give some context to how desperate the situation is on Earth.

The sound effects of all of the actions you perform and all of the weapons you use are all very good and add a lot of weight to each shot and each punch or kick you perform. The shotgun in-particular I really like the sound of, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it sounds different to the original game, albeit very similar.

You need to shoot this wall in the Necropolis level in order to escape the falling ceiling before it crushes you. I was stuck here for quite a while because it's the only point in the game you need to shoot a wall to progress.

To put it simply, if you like the original Doom games and you want more of it, then Brutal Doom is perfect for you. If you like the idea or concept of the original Doom but don't like some of the original controls or mechanics then Brutal Doom is for you too.

It doesn't try to change the structure of the original games very much, which some people will probably see as a good thing, but I would like a bit more variety, maybe more fleshed out boss battles or a tank driving section or even just more turret sections would make the game a lot more engaging. The lack of any cutscenes or voice acting which moves the story forward is slightly disappointing as the only way you know what's going on is by reading a wall of text, but the story itself is decent enough and does what it has to do.

Honestly, I would have been happy for this experience to have been released as a full Doom game rather than a mod (especially if it were fine-tuned slightly). Doom (2016) appears to have taken quite a lot of inspiration from Brutal Doom too, which only goes to show how good this mod actually is. It makes me think, if Bethesda were to re-release Doom and Doom II on new consoles I hope they add mod support like they have with Fallout 4 and the upcoming The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Special Edition so more people can get their hands on Brutal Doom.

7/10

Pros
- Keeps the core concepts of the original Doom but modernises the controls and aspects of the gameplay.
- Enemies respond to their environments and where you hit them, making shootouts a lot more dynamic.
- New weapons and weapon variants are great and changes the formula a little bit.
- Enemies are now more dangerous, possessing many more moves and being much more aggressive.
- The blood and gore keeps the action entertaining and visually interesting and you can even change the gore level to be less or more by using a slider in the main menu.

Cons
- It gets slightly boring after extended play and certain levels are too long. It could do with being slightly shorter.
- Boss sections mostly don't need any real strategy to beat, you just shoot and move.
- The fatalities and certain other abilities are too hard and too limited to properly use.
- Story is progressed by walls of text rather than cutscenes or voice acting.
- The main menu looks messy and slightly unprofessional.