Doom With Less Gore: Helpful or Heresy?

So I recently purchased a copy of Doom for the GBA (yes, it exists), and in it, they removed a significant amount of gory textures, and made the blood green. While I personally don't mind this, I know some people might. So I want to know from you guys: is removing most of the gore from vanilla Doom (not Brutal Doom) acceptable, or is it just too much?

Gore could be flowers and confetti for all I care.

Phml said:

Gore could be flowers and confetti for all I care.

I agree. In my opinion, it's the gameplay that matters, not the amount of viscera. And yet, some people complain when gore is removed or replaced.

Take out gore and i'll never play this game again. The way monsters die, their death animations that is, is the reason I play this.

Lycaon said:

Take out gore and i'll never play this game again. The way monsters die, their death animations that is, is the reason I play this.

Monster death animations stayed the same in the GBA version. Only their blood color was altered. And the significant amount of gore removed was from wall textures.

duckkickergames said:

I agree. In my opinion, it's the gameplay that matters, not the amount of viscera. And yet, some people complain when gore is removed or replaced.

Yeah, and some people use 3D-models instead of sprites, fools! >:(
There's only gameplay, nothing else >:(

Looper said:

Yeah, and some people use 3D-models instead of sprites, fools! >:(
There's only gameplay, nothing else >:(

3D models not only eat up RAM when playing the mod, they take away the retro-feel of the game. Same for HD textures. I'm a Doom traditionalist, though, so I'm a bit biased on the matter.

Doom without gore would be disappointing to me. It doesn't make or break the game but to me, it would be like playing the game with gore, but with no music and/or sound. It would just lose something without the gore and to me it wouldn't be the same game.

Gore is like the icing on a cake, shooting gets to be quite bland after the 100th time when it always has the same outcome with no feedback.

The GBA ports have plenty of issues, but the lack of gore isn't on my list at all personally.

Gore is not an essential component of the Doom gameplay experience, but it is a significant contributor to the atmosphere and setting of the game as a whole. You're playing a game in which the material universe gets invaded by homicidal demons; if there aren't any splashes of the red stuff to be seen, then I for one think that something has gone wrong and find it much harder to get into the spirit of things.

The fact that gore causes certain self-appointed "moral guardians" to clutch their pearls in horror is a nice bonus, though.

Having said that, I would agree with the one who compared gore in games to cake icing; the more elaborate and involved the better (see; Brutal Doom), but a confection made entirely of icing is no longer a cake.

i think GBA Doom's complete disaster of arranging the music is way worse than the fact that everything is now green blood.

I prefer the inclusion of a bit of blood and gore but I'm sure I'd live without it if I had to.

duckkickergames said:

So I recently purchased a copy of Doom for the GBA (yes, it exists)

You don't say.


I personally don't mind the toned-down violence but I honestly don't understand how the Hell making blood green makes it less "violent". Seriously, what were the age raters thinking!?

Oddly enough, I played GBA only about 3 years ago (I was 10 then) and I don't remember any green blood. :/
I remember the Jaguar levels, yep, and everything else, but not toned-down violence. The only reason I can think of is that it's a pirated copy, but I'm 99.9999999999799999% sure it's not.


Maybe I'm just remembering it wrong.

duckkickergames said:

In my opinion, it's the gameplay that matters, not the amount of viscera.

NoXion said:

Gore is not an essential component of the Doom gameplay experience, but it is a significant contributor to the atmosphere and setting of the game as a whole.

purist said:

I prefer the inclusion of a bit of blood and gore but I'm sure I'd live without it if I had to.

I agree with these. I like Doom (maps) primarily for their gameplay, but I perceive the game's setting. Gore fits / makes sense there, it would be odd if there wasn't any.

the weapons should have been replaced with stun gun like in commander keen so the monsters are only stunned but not killed, thats also what the new doom needs, a gun that stuns, the bfg would teleport enemies, the supershotgun would be a sleep ray and the chainsaw would be a feather you would use to tickle your enemies

Chex Quest: now with less product placement.

Doomhuntress said:

i think GBA Doom's complete disaster of arranging the music is way worse than the fact that everything is now green blood.

Ugh, yeah. The Music in the Doom2 port is way better. I'm kinda torn on which engine I prefer - The Doom1 cartridge feels more authentic to play I suppose, but the Doom2 cart has overall smoother visuals and accurate music, so it's kinda hard to say which is superior. They're both pretty excellent considering the hardware IMO.

Phml said:

Gore could be flowers and confetti for all I care.

I would so play that mod. You should an Imp with a Shotgun and instead of BrutalDoom/Nashgore blood, you get a puff of confetti and flowers. Give the monsters some party hats and those blow thingies and I think we'd be set. PartyDoom.

I think you can subtract a little gore from the game or add a little gore to the game, ala the weapon-type specific death animations that some purely visual mods (and some gameplay-altering mods too, I guess) add, without harming the presentation. Hell, I'd probably use visual mods that add brightmaps, shell casings, and alternate death animations just for a change now and again, except they're almost all for ZDoom-family ports, not my first choice in terms of engine feel/compat features.

When a mod exists purely to call attention to augmented amounts of blood and gore, or, alternately, to a more 'family-friendly' presentation, I reckon you're losing sight of what's important about the game.

Not that there's not still an audience for that kind of thing, of course.

Doomkid said:

Ugh, yeah. The Music in the Doom2 port is way better. I'm kinda torn on which engine I prefer - The Doom1 cartridge feels more authentic to play I suppose, but the Doom2 cart has overall smoother visuals and accurate music, so it's kinda hard to say which is superior. They're both pretty excellent considering the hardware IMO.

i personally feel that the absolutely abysmal music pulls down the entertainment value by a long shot. authenticity doesn't really matter at all if the music is just... broken. how the hell did they screw up the arrangements to the point that the tracks are playing out of sync?

Eh, I'd probably find it tolerable at the very least. Given I'm not a gore enthusiast, Doom could have absolutely no gore at all and I wouldn't complain.

I didn't mind about the green blood, I remember enjoying playing it on GBA at the time.

But Nintendo's censoring of red blood is laughable. Oh yeah, they now have green blood. Now it's zombies that I am killing. Oh wait? Weren't they zombies anyway in the doom universe? Aren't the zombies in the movies still in red blood? Or what about aliens? Killing alien life: Goooood. Killing humans: Nooooo.

Although I cracked most when they removed the mustache of Hitler in wolfenstein. Hahaha!!!

I never liked that alt gore mode in TF2, it's annoying as fuck mainly because of the high pitched laughing instead of the usual death sound from players who have been killed.

Avoozl said:

I never liked that alt gore mode in TF2, it's annoying as fuck mainly because of the high pitched laughing instead of the usual death sound from players who have been killed.

You mean Pyrovision? Have to double-check, since I always considered the "alt gore" mode to be the -sillygibs command-line parameter. -sillygibs just makes characters explode into burgers, alarm clocks and balloon animals when they're gibbed; they still bleed when taking normal damage and make the usual gibbing grunts, no laughing like Pyrovision has.

I think the worst thing about GBA Doom was no big monsters. At the end of episode one, you fight 2 barons. At the end of episode 2, erm, a crowd of barons!

Also, who remembers that circa 1999 fighting game from the arcades, with loads of different blood colours? My brother and me would go looking for it and see what colour the blood was, it was usually green, though once it was purple and we creased up with laughter. When it was red we'd stand there mesmerised.

Censorship is not necessarily a big deal, but if you take the icing off the cake, it may be hard for me to feel enticed to play. QuakeLive has no gore, however, and it's still fun.

deathbringer said:

Also, who remembers that circa 1999 fighting game from the arcades, with loads of different blood colours? My brother and me would go looking for it and see what colour the blood was, it was usually green, though once it was purple and we creased up with laughter. When it was red we'd stand there mesmerised.

I recall House of the Dead had that. It was pretty much only ever red or green, but I believe blue and purple, at least, were also options.

MFG38 said:

Eh, I'd probably find it tolerable at the very least. Given I'm not a gore enthusiast, Doom could have absolutely no gore at all and I wouldn't complain.

This. Gameplay all the way, baby.

Phml said:

Gore could be flowers and confetti for all I care.

I've long wished someone would make a DOOM mod that does this:

[ yt ] the junk after watch?v= [ /yt ]

So for example, if you have "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmrqmUr0IHc" take the "bmrqmUr0IHc" out of "watch?v=bmrqmUr0IHc" and throw that in the middle.