Dooms series Review

"There is no horror if there is no fear. There is no fear if there is no horror."

No, dear readers, I'm not gonna be talking about id's "Doom" series. I'm sure there are enough mainstream reviewers to analyze those. What I have in mind, is to introduce you to "Dooms", probably the most infamous RPG Maker game series ever created. So without much delay, let's begin.

Finnish indie game maker Tuomo Laine, better known under his nom de guerre Mister Big T, has been the most controversial person within RPG Maker community for as long as I can remember, and I was first introduced to his games back in 2005. His every appearance online would be followed by a wave of haters attacking his games and even him personally. Strangely, I haven't heard much of him during the last few years, and haven't seen any new noteworthy games by him. Has the guy retired from the game making, or is he just laying low?

Anyway, he earned his reputation due to the content of his games. The "Dooms" series in particular combined over the top violence, explicit sexual content, child abuse, Lovecraftian horror, outrageous mutilation of English grammar and some of the worst mapping in RPG Maker history into a trashy but unforgettable mix. And the creator was high or drunk during the majority of the development process by his own admission. Moreover, his 4th entry into the series has been dubiously honoured by the annual Misao Awards by winning the "Worst Game of the Year" award. So, let's take the closer look at every game in the series.

Title: Dooms
Release date: 2002 (original)

2010-04-13 (remake)

Developer & Publisher: Mister Big T

Mister Big T has been embarrassed by the first entry in the series for a long time. When he still had his website, "Dooms" was missing from the game list, was stashed in an obscure place, and you could only download it after reading a wall of text why you shouldn't do it.

Sprite sex. Yay...

Admittedly the game had horrific balance issues. Boss enemies were hard as fuck, and I remember to have needed reloading earlier saves multiple times when I played the game for the first time. Many years later the author remade the game by partially rewriting the plot and removing all the battles altogether, turning "Dooms" into an adventure game, like the later entries. I lament the fact that I haven't saved the original version for posterity, as it seems to be completely gone from the Net. It would have been interesting to compare the differences now. On the other hand, the remake is also gone - even Big T's account on rpgmaker.net doesn't have the game anymore.

The original intent of the game was to be a serial killer simulator. We play as the ordinary guy Bob, who comes home earlier than expected and encounters his wife in bed with some other dude. Bob does the only sensible thing and kills them both, horribly mutilating the bodies. He is arrested and sentenced to a life in prison. 32 years later he manages to escape when some green haired dude Hougain attacks the prison. It's never made clear if Hougain intentionally freed Bob or not. What do you think Bob does with his newfound freedom? He goes on another killing spree and is arrested again. In prison he meets a child murderer Jack, who dresses as a clown to attract children. Though I have to wonder what kind of dumb fuck you have to be, in order to be attracted to a horrific clown who dresses like IT from the namesake movie.

Oh, sliced up a few people.

Later the plot devolves into some nonsense about some sort of military experiment to create super soldiers (do these ever turn out right?) and the government releasing murderers countrywide as part of some bigger plot. The word Dooms is mentioned only once without context, though it's possible to deduct that they are talking about some demonic force. All in all, the plot doesn't make sense even after drinking a round of vodka shots and squinting hard, but don't worry, it makes up for that with some pixellated blood and sprite sex :-)

The mapping and clipping are atrocious. The maps look huge and barren without any buildings or people to populate them. The controlled character can easily walk onto walls and furniture, as there is barely any collision detection. Not to mention, that the battles were taken out of the game in a very jarring manner. It's incredibly narmy to see boss enemies splattering all around just seconds after boasting about killing the main characters. It would have been better if the developer left the battles in playing on automatic. It would have made much more sense than the current situation.

What ultimate goal, and who are you?

On the other hand, the potential is there. No other RPG Maker game of that time let you play as a serial killer who goes around slicing innocent people up. And Jack the Clown became an iconic villain and appeared in three more installments of the game (though only as a flashback in the last one). To sum up, "Dooms" is a pretty shitty game, but it paved the road to its sequels and I really enjoyed those.

Links of Interest

Mister Big T's profile on rpgmaker.net
Download Dooms (remake)
Waybacked original MBT site

Final Verdict: 34%
*** *** ***
Title: Dooms 2: Seas of Blood
Release date: ?
Developer & Publisher: Mister Big T

By many considered to be the best game in the series, "Dooms 2" is also my favourite. It clearly shows how far Mister Big T came since the first game.

"Dooms 2" is less of an adventure game and more of an interactive movie. There is very little gameplay, with most of the scenes playing in an uninterrupted fashion. At the start of the game you are given a few characters, whose stories you want to listen to. As you listen to these stories, more and more episodes are unlocked and the plot starts to become clear... erm, clearer.

Tell me about your mother.

At first glance the game appears as a typical "save the world from an ancient evil" cliché, but is in fact a very personal tale, where a cadre of characters are struggling with their inner demons. In my opinion "Dooms 2" finally succeeds at the psychological horror angle, the author strived for. The characters, whose inner voice we can listen to are the aforementioned Jack the Clown, Bob, who somehow survived the first game, a religious zealot Bryan, who wants to go to Heaven through pain, a psychiatrist June with a dark secret and a mysterious man Will, who briefly appeared in the first game as a nameless old man.

I don't think that when MBT created the first game, he had any overarching plot in mind, thus somehow "Dooms 2" does a very good job of retroactively tying the two games together into a mostly coherent plot. Of course, the game is still a mindscrew, however you look at it, but this time it's a compliment.

No comments whatsoever.

The game allows us to get a glimpse into the pasts of our characters in order to see what makes them tick. Everyone here is a deeply broken person, but the author does a decent job of making them sympathetic. Hell, even Jack gets his sob-worthy backstory, though he is still an unrepentant villain.

There is a brief plot split near the beginning, where you can get Bob killed or make him surrender. If you choose the former option, it creates continuity problems, because then June's plot makes little to no sense, as we never see her defection to the dark side. It's just *bam* and she's suddenly working for the villain. It's pretty obvious that it's a non-canon branch, and a pretty useless at that as it doesn't influence anything else of importance.

That child's room appears to be completely barren.

On the negative side, MBT's mapping still sucks hairy donkey balls, the English language is wonky and that one movie clip ripped from "Bible Black" not only doesn't add anything to the game, but is also prone to crashing the program. Moreover, Graig's scenario has absolutely no influence to the plot at large. It seems that he was added as a character just to make the game longer, because his storyline doesn't tie together with the whole.

Despite the flaws, I still consider "Dooms 2" to be a pretty good game even today. It's not really scary per se, but it can get pretty unsettling and the storyline tickles my bone for the weird and the bizarre.

P.S. I'm not so sure about the game pulling "Omikron" on the player at the very end. If you have never played "Omikron", know that in addition to featuring David Bowie, the game is known for breaking the fourth wall and involving the player directly into the action. It worked in that game, but here it just seems pretentious.

Links of Interest

Download Dooms 2: Seas of Blood - Director's Cut
Waybacked original MBT site

Final Verdict: 75%
*** *** ***
Title: Dooms 3: Rough Day
Release date: 2005
Developer & Publisher: Mister Big T

The third title in the series has the most fitting subtitle yet: "Rough Day". Our protagonist Caroline surely had one rough day: she has some bloody nightmares, she kills her mother under the influence of psychedelic drugs and she is sentenced to a psychiatric facility. And despite having a similar name like a minor character from the first game, and looking exactly like her, she is definitely a different person. Let the mindfuck begin!

Your mapping still fucking sucks.

As luck would have it (or is it really luck?), she is confined in the same mental hospital, where Will, the old man battling Dooms, is the director. Psychiatrist June is assigned to her care, and she has to unravel Caroline's inner demons, specifically, why she has nightmares involving a creepy little girl Mia and Jack the Clown himself.

The plotting in this game is definitely much tighter than in the previous works. "Dooms 2" felt like a stream of consciousness with plot barely restrained by its cornerstones. "Dooms 3" has the most concise and technically polished plot yet out of the three games, however it lacks a certain charm from its predecessor.

What. The. Fuck.

I barely consider the third part to be a "Dooms" game. If not for the presence of Jack and Will, no one would be able to tell that it has anything to do with the other two entries. It's like one of those cases, where the game was initially conceived as a completely different product, but was later made part of the franchise. "Rough Day" has only the tangential relation to the overarching plot and rather focuses on the smaller, more personal, problem. It's basically a tale of personal identity, inner discovery and self-acceptance. Natheless, the author tries quite hard to create a continuity with the previous game. A body of the character from "Seas of Blood" appears just to establish that, yes, these games a two parts of the same story. Though if I remember correctly, the same scene introduces a continuity error. Going by the second game, the body should have been found in the water, not on the ground.

I approve of the advise.

Don't misunderstand, I do like "Dooms 3", but the game is very different from the previous ones. For example, I would call it the first true horror title in the franchise. The first game was a narmy actioner, which tried to be a horror game and failed miserably, while the second one was a psychological suspenseful thriller. For the third part Mister Big T doesn't skimp on the bloodshed and includes images of explicit torture and murder. Quite unnecessary I would say, but to each his own.

There are a few secret sub scenarios hidden within the game, which reveal a little more information about the mysterious Mia. If I remember correctly, there are supposed to be three of them, but I have only ever found two. "Rough Day" also has three possible endings, based on the last boss battle. Here I see a lost opportunity. There were some branches in the main plot. For example, on one occasion you can choose which of the four bosses you want to face. On the other occasion you can take a few different ways to escape the hospital. Sadly these choices amount to nothing, as they have no major influence on the plot or the ending.

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

Endings (during final confrontation):

Death - get hit by Jack twice or lie about wanting to join him.
Reunion - tell him you want to join him.
True - stab Jack and then throw beer or cake at him.

Secrets:

After breaking the window in the asylum, break the fourth window and check the file cabinet. That will mark the location of Mia's house on the map. Once out of the asylum, go to her house and check the cupboard on the very left. You will get a "Subchapter 1".

"Subchapter 2" is on the second floor of the hospital, on the very bottom left.

That girl doesn't look very happy.

Moreover, "Dooms 3" has a leftover token battle system, which works really well with the plot progression. The battles are very easy, with enemies dying in a few hits, but such a presentation is better than the silly removal of the battles in the remakes of the first and second games, though it wasn't so egregious in "Seas of Blood" as it was in the first title.

All in all, I like "Dooms 3", but the second installment is my preferred one still.

Links of Interest

Download Dooms 3: Rough Day
Waybacked original MBT site 

Final Verdict: 71%
*** *** ***
Title: Dooms 4: End Game
Release date: 2006-11-05
Developer & Publisher: Mister Big T

"Dooms 4". The last game in the notorious tetralogy and Mister Big T's magnum opus. According to him, he restrained himself during the production of the previous three games, but let himself go all out for the finale. So, "Dooms 4" has blood, guts and brains galore, which resulted in the game vanishing from the Internet just like the first part, because no indie RPG site wanted to host the title.

Even only as a flashback Jack is still the best character in the game.

It's a good luck that the game has been sitting on my hard drive for the last eight years untouched. I dusted it off and of we went of to meet the wizard. While I have previously played the first three "Dooms" titles, I have never played the forth part before. Not because I was scared to do so, but because I have an attention span of a goldfish and simply never got around to it.

The protagonist of this game is Rie, a heretofore unseen character, who is a Dooms cultist. She participated in a botched ceremony, where Caroline was supposed to be sacrificed to Dooms, and somehow survived the ordeal. From that moment she is completely consumed by her need for revenge against Mia and considers it her life's goal to kill her. She teams up with Steve (we have totaly forgot he even existed anymore), who has completely cracked in the asylum, and embarks on her quest.

Mia gives me Erika vibes from Umineko.

"Dooms 4" was a massive disappointment, and that's putting it lightly. I would rather use stronger words to express the same sentiment. The game fucking sucks!!! Mister Big T was so preoccupied with his guro fetish that he forgot that the game actually needs plot. Sooth be told, "Dooms" never had the most coherent of plots, but that was a part of the charm with the previous games. "Dooms 4" completely loses it: it's just a jumble of barely connected scenes that make no sense even if you are drunk, and even less so when you're sober. Rie is a terrible character, who only thinks about a revenge for no good reason, when she should actually be mad at the cult. Steve acts as a cardboard cutout, who is only here to shoot some guns and then die in the most anticlimactic scene ever. Half of the mystery appears to be some mysterious disembodied voice snarking at Rie and Steve, but its origins remain unknown. The character alliances also appear to be confused as fuck. Why are Rie and Saki admiring Will, when they are on the opposite sides of the conflict.

Saki has been... disarmed.

The game only creates more questions with each passing minute, but gives no answers. The famous phrase from another MBT game "Final Phantasy XXX" comes to mind: "You don't get no pussy" (sic). It should be rephrased as "You don't get no satisfaction" for "Dooms 4". The game is hollow. It's like the author wanted to do something, but didn't know what, so he threw everything into the mix hoping something would stick.

Some things did stick, though. The game is highly customized, with some interesting minigames. How many RPG Maker games have you seen that not only include third person shooter sequences, but also a fighting minigame and a first person shooter episode. The game also eventually acquired a voice add-on, which breathed some life into the game, though the plot didn't start making any more sense and an least some of the actors appear to be uneducated morons taken of the street. For example, the guy playing Steve cannot even pronounce the word "gynaecologist"... or Rie's name for that matter.

Have you ever tried making an FPS in RPG Maker?

The game has a more pronounced replay value than any other entry in the series (and the game is short enough, that replaying it doesn't hurt that much, though it's inconvenient). There are nine possible endings to find, and I managed to reach eight of them.

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

Gruesome Ending - Take the book. Choose to remove the mask or say you have no regrets. Join the cult. Lose the final battle.
Happy Ending - Take the book. Choose to remove the mask or say you have no regrets. Join the cult. Win the final battle.
Goddess Ending - Take the book. Choose to remove the mask or say you have no regrets. Refuse to join the cult.
Regret Ending - Take the book. Say you want to change. Join the cult. Say you believe Mia.
Suicide Ending - Take the book. Choose to kill yourself.
Piggy Ending - Don't take the book. Get on your knees and beg.
Lesbo Ending - Don't take the book. Try to seduce Mia. Tell her about your mother. Kiss Mia.
Dream Ending - Don't take the book. Try to seduce Mia. Tell her about your mother. Get "down" with Mia.
True Rie Ending - ?

I have no idea how to get the True Ending though. There was a shadowy figure which promised a secret boss if I got at least three different endings, but all it did, was showed me a few pictures, claimed it to be a climax of the game and then went to credits. No dice.

All in all, the ending gathering was such an inconvenient ordeal due to the programming. In order for the game to correctly notice that you acquired another ending, you have to restart the game from the very beginning. You cannot just load a save in the middle of the game and choose another option, as that wipes the previous ending from the list. I don't know if that was a deliberate choice by Mister Big T, or a limitation of the engine, but either way, it sucks.

Finish her.

I won't even bother talking about all those guro images MBT loaded into "Dooms 4". They are there just to shock easily susceptible audience, and, probably, to hide the flaws with the plot and gameplay. They become trite and irritating, rather than shocking, five minutes into the game.

Oh, high the mighty have fallen! The series really went strong with the previous two titles, but the tetralogy eventually ended not with a bang, and not even a whimper, but a fart. It's a sad end for "Dooms", but what can you do. C'est la vie.

P.S. The game claimed that it was missing files "disclaimer2" and "uber" to me. I overcame the problem by replacing those by copying and renaming some other pictures. The first one didn't create any problems, but I wonder if the second missing file wasn't the reason behind the weird supposed "secret boss" sequence.

Links of Interest

Download "Dooms 4: End Game"
Download the voice add-on
Waybacked original MBT site

Final Verdict: 41%
*** *** ***
Title: Dooms 5: Endless
Release date: 2007-09-28 (demo)
Developer & Publisher: Mister Big T

"Waaait a minute", I hear you saying. "Didn't you tell us that Dooms is a tetralogy and End Game was the last title in the series". Indeed it is so, my imaginary friend! However, there was a time when Mister Big T was thinking about creating a fifth entry in the series and even released the demo. Of course this demo is gone from the Internet, and, of course, I have saved it from oblivion on my hard drive. It's time to see what the crazy Finnish guy was up to after the monumental stinker that was 'Dooms 4".

Sadly, or maybe luckily, I couldn't play the demo as it is missing some crucial resources. It even refused to start, but upon adding the title screen from "Dooms 4" I could enter the game. However, starting a new game crashed the program again, and this time I couldn't figure how to circumvent it. I hope someone out there still has the working demo and in the meantime I'll upload the broken demo. Maybe someone will be able to figure how to fix it.

Links of Interest

Download "Dooms 5" demo (not working)

So, that's the saga of Dooms. You might like it and you might hate it, but everyone agrees that the series is something unique within the RPG Maker world. Give it a try if you aren't scared away by its extreme schlockiness. It's bizarre, it's poorly made and it has the weirdest plot this side of Carlton Mellick III, but there is something attractive underneath it all.