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Touchdown

The tone of DOOM [BEWARE: walls of text]

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About the tone of Doom 2016 vs Doom 1993, I'd say a good reason for that is that 2016 was not 1993. The world changed, people changed, and what made sense at a time has changed, too.

 

This article is a pretty good take on it I felt: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/doomguy-knows-how-you-feel/ I'll quote  a few excerpts:

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It is often assumed that a fundamental question in games is one of “agency” — particularly the player’s ability to make meaningful “choices” within a game world. However, DOOM is built with a different, and, I would hazard, more accurate assumption in mind: games work primarily on an affective plane. The question they ask is not “what will you do?” but rather “how do you feel?” And DOOM doesn’t think you’re feeling particularly good at the moment.

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In this way, to begin with, DOOM doesn’t feel much like a first-person shooter at all. It has all the visual trappings of one, although the implausibly large arsenal the player carries feels like an enormous “fuck you” to the gritty “realist” modern-day shooter. But mostly it feels — in its tactile qualities, the way you grip the controller, the sway of the player with the diegetic universe, the closed circuit of single-player feedback — much closer to “character-action” games like Bayonetta or Devil May Cry. It plays far more like an ultraviolent ballet or circus than a shooting gallery with check points.

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Games are machines for producing affect, but they are also pedagogical ones: DOOM is instructing us. Pankaj Mishra recently argued that ours is an age of anger. Doomguy occupies the subject position of the 21st-century rage agent par excellence: put-upon, yet powerful; crumpling like a fragile heap from just a few demonic projectiles but with a rage potential unmatched; disenfranchised but with so many tools of power at hand.

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And yet DOOM wants to roll the dice on you. DOOM thinks you will learn to love rage again, to experience its visceral pleasure. DOOM wants you to unlearn all those lessons in civility, in comportment, in tone, in the “benefit of the doubt.” DOOM wants you to consider that when “they go low,” you will scrape the pits of Inferno to go ever lower. DOOM wants you to feel more. But — and perhaps this is sheer, irrational hope on my part, a shard of redemption in a game of bleak glee — DOOM wants you to remember that it is all so stupid.

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DOOM ends with the last remaining representative of the UAC, taking some kind of poorly explained “key to Hell” away from you, to preserve the “positive” aspects of the energy project while doomguy is relegated back to storied legend. You are inert in this; there is no gameplay. Fifteen hours of the carefully conducted and orchestrated flow of rage is suddenly bottled up as you realize what every human being on Earth should have realized [...]: they are just going to keep doing this, come Hell or high water. DOOM is going to teach you to love rage. This machine kills demons.

 

 

On jeudi 10 mai 2018 at 1:26 PM, Doomkid said:

Hell, if we take all the in-game text and manual text into account from Doom2 and Doom64, there's almost subtle hints that he's sort of starting to enjoy all this bloodshed in a sick sorta way.

 

I wouldn't call it "almost subtle", it's completely there.

 

Heck it even starts in Doom.

"You've never heard of anyone escaping from Hell, but you'll make the bastards sorry they ever heard of you!"

 

By the time Doom turned into The Ultimate Doom, you were already in full-on Doom Slayer mode, just look at this ridiculous text:

"You stepped forward and brought forth eternal damnation and suffering upon the horde as a true hero would in the face of something so evil."

"But now, you see spread before you more potential pain and gibbitude as a nation of demons run amok among our cities."

 

And don't forget about PSX Final Doom:

"The havoc you left behind as you smashed your way through the Master Levels is mute tribute to your prowess. You have earned the title of Master of Destruction."

 

So yeah, even in the  nineties, the Doomguy was established as a relentless monster-killing machine, a master of destruction who only sees potential gibbitude when he looks at demons.

 

(Don't forget that the badass survivor didn't technically survive. He died in that teleporter on Phobos, but then rose back in Hell. It's just that he was too badass to get turned into a possessed zombie like the other marines.)

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27 minutes ago, Gez said:

(Don't forget that the badass survivor didn't technically survive. He died in that teleporter on Phobos, but then rose back in Hell.

 

What?

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36 minutes ago, Agent6 said:
1 hour ago, Gez said:

(Don't forget that the badass survivor didn't technically survive. He died in that teleporter on Phobos, but then rose back in Hell.

 

What?

That teleporter at the end of Phobos Anomaly that takes you to that room? That's the point in the plot. You die in that room and find yourself in Hell.

 

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Once you beat the big badasses and clean out the moon base you're supposed to win, aren't you? Aren't you? Where's your fat reward and ticket home? What the hell is this? It's not supposed to end this way!

It stinks like rotten meat, but looks like the lost Deimos base. Looks like you're stuck on The Shores of Hell.

The only way out is through.

The E1 end text. Since your health is reduced to 10 or below to exit, it's implied that you died there and that's how you got to Deimos.

 

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You've done it! The hideous cyberdemon lord that ruled the lost Deimos moon base has been slain and you are triumphant! But... where are you? You clamber to the edge of the moon and look down to see the awful truth.

Deimos floats above Hell itself!

You've never heard of anyone escaping from Hell, but you'll make the bastards sorry they ever heard of you! Quickly, you rappel down to the surface of Hell.

The E2 end text, which explicitly states you're in Hell.

 

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The loathsome spiderdemon that masterminded the invasion of the moon bases and caused so much death has had its ass kicked for all time.

A hidden doorway opens and you enter. You've proven too tough for Hell to contain, and now Hell at last plays fair -- for you emerge from the door to see the green fields of Earth!

Home at last.

You wonder what's been happening on Earth while you were battling evil unleashed. It's good that no Hell-spawn could have come through that door with you...

The E3 end text, which explains that you've proven yourself to be too badass for Hell to possess or control otherwise.

In other words, at the end of E1, you die, and the rest of the game sans-E4 is about you breaking out.

 

Also, here's the E4 end text, which Gez also referenced.

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The Spider Mastermind must have sent forth its legions of hellspawn before your final confrontation will that terrible beast from Hell. But you stepped forward and brought forth eternal damnation and suffering upon the horde as a true hero would in the face of something so evil.

Besides, someone was gonna pay for what happened to Daisy, your pet rabbit.

But now, you see spread before you more potential pain and gibbitude as a nation of demons run amok among our cities.

 

The reason you don't die at the end of MAP20 of Doom II is because there's an actual portal leading straight to Hell instead of a trap like on Phobos.

 

Also, if we're going to discuss the attitude the protagonist has toward Hell, not only does Doom give us a clear picture, but so does Plutonia, and TNT, slightly.

In particular:

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You've bashed and battered your way into the heart of the devil-hive. Time for a Search-and-Destroy mission, aimed at the Gatekeeper, whose foul offspring is cascading to Earth. Yeah, he's bad. But you know who's worse!

Grinning evilly, you check your gear, and get ready to give the bastard a little Hell of your own making!

Plutonia MAP21 enter text.

 

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The Gatekeeper's evil face is splattered all over the place. As its tattered corpse collapses, an inverted Gate forms and sucks down the shards of the last prototype Accelerator, not to mention the few remaining demons. You're done. Hell has gone back to pounding bad dead folks instead of good live ones. Remember to tell your grandkids to put a rocket launcher in your coffin. If you go to Hell when you die, you'll need it for some final cleaning-up...

Plutonia end text.

 

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You hear the grinding of heavy machinery ahead. You sure hope they're not stamping out new hellspawn, but you're ready to ream out a whole herd if you have to. They might be planning a blood feast, but you feel about as mean as two thousand maniacs packed into one mad killer.

You don't plan to go down easy.

TNT MAP12 enter text.

 

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The vista opening ahead looks real damn familiar. Smells familiar, too -- like fried excrement. You didn't like this place before, and you sure as hell ain't planning to like it now. The more you brood on it, the madder you get.

Hefting your gun, an evil grin trickles onto your face. Time to take some names.

TNT MAP21 enter text.

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47 minutes ago, Agent6 said:

 

What?

The teleporters kill people. Only demons and zombies can take them safely.

 

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For the last four years the military, UAC's biggest supplier, has used the remote facilities on Phobos and Deimos to conduct various secret projects, including research on inter-dimensional space travel. So far they have been able to open gateways between Phobos and Deimos, throwing a few gadgets into one and watching them come out the other. Recently however, the Gateways have grown dangerously unstable. Military "volunteers" entering them have either disappeared or been stricken with a strange form of insanity--babbling vulgarities, bludgeoning anything that breathes, and finally suffering an untimely death of full-body explosion. Matching heads with torsos to send home to the folks became a full-time job. Latest military reports state that the research is suffering a small set-back, but everything is under control.

 

There's no player-usable teleporter in E1* besides the E1M8 demon head that teleports you to darkness where you take damage and enemies attack you. Once your health gets below 10%, the level ends. The implication is that you died.

 

After that, however, you find yourself on Deimos, which is in Hell. And starting from that point, you can take teleporters without any further side-effect.

 

* Except for one in E1M5, but it wasn't there originally. I consider it non-canon. :p

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Let's not forget the Map11 DOOM2 text:


"You have won! Your victory has enabled humankind to evacuate Earth and escape the nightmare. Now you are the only human left on the face of the planet. Cannibal mutations, carnivorous aliens, and evil spirits are your only neighbors. You sit back and wait for death, content that you have saved your species.


But then, Earth Control beams down a message from space: 'Sensors have located the source of the alien invasion. If you go there, you may be able to block their entry. The alien base is in the heart of you own home city, not far from the starport.' Slowly and painfully you get up and return to the fray."


Doesn't really sound like a blood-thirsty killing machine that only wants to rip&tear, now does it? ;)

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Doom II also avoids what Doom I already set down: that the monsters are demons.

It repeatedly calls them aliens, cannibals, and spirits, but Doom I explicitly refers to them as hellspawn.

That aside, Final Doom, in its ambiguous canonicity, takes place after Doom II, and only E4 really suggests that the protagonist has this murderous mindset against Hell. Doom 64, which takes this to Doom Comic levels, I think, also takes place after Doom II, and the argument could be made that Doom 2016 takes place after Doom 64, since it's also stated in 2016 that the Slayer was found in Hell, and at the end of 64, the protagonist stays in Hell to make sure they never try any invasions again.

 

Also, there's this little tidbit from the Doom Wiki's page on the protagonist:

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The character's personality is never examined to any extent in any of the games, though it could be said he is passionate about battling hell's hordes as, after a new weapon is picked up, the protagonist grins devilishly, and also grits his teeth intensely when firing a weapon continually. When taking damage, the marine similarly clenches his teeth in anger and pain, and otherwise his eyes are constantly and alertly darting to and fro.

Passionate about battling hell's hordes != bloodthirsty machine that only wants to rip and tear

 

And this for Doom 64:

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The game's background story text implies that he is the same person from the first games, denoting him as "the only experienced survivor of the DOOM episode".

 

And this for Doom 2016:

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The game heavily suggests but never states with certainty that this version of the protagonist bears some relationship to, or may even be, the same protagonist that featured in the original series. Elements of his backstory, such as a choice to remain in Hell, surviving an event known as Armageddon, and repeatedly fighting against the demons across dimensions and great stretches of time, suggest a possible unification between the various story lines. This is, however, left intentionally vague and open to interpretation. It is possible that future updates will reveal more about his history.

I don't like Doom 2016 very much, but it's difficult to deny that the similarities are there.

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On 5/8/2018 at 10:38 PM, Touchdown said:

In my opinion this is caused by both time distorting people's experiences + an unhealthy popularity of Brutal DOOM* (which is pretty much DOOM Comic the mod) undoubtedly fueled by a bunch of high profile YouTubers making videos about it and, later, gaming media looking for clicks.

Almost everyone i've seen jacking off to NuDoom shits their pants and throws a temper tantrum whenever someone just mentions the word "Brutal", so they have to call the cursed mod "Bruddal Dewm".

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1 hour ago, Gez said:

The teleporters kill people. Only demons and zombies can take them safely.

 

 

There's no player-usable teleporter in E1* besides the E1M8 demon head that teleports you to darkness where you take damage and enemies attack you. Once your health gets below 10%, the level ends. The implication is that you died.

 

After that, however, you find yourself on Deimos, which is in Hell. And starting from that point, you can take teleporters without any further side-effect.

 

* Except for one in E1M5, but it wasn't there originally. I consider it non-canon. :p

 

So... our hero would be some kind of undead from that point onward in this case?

 

Damn, I had no idea that's how the teleporters actually worked, and are normally unusable by humans.

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34 minutes ago, Agent6 said:

So... our hero would be some kind of undead from that point onward in this case?

"'No! I must kill the demons' he shouted
The radio said 'No, John. You are the demons'
And then John was a zombie."
                                                                     
Chimaera 9: 11

Edited by Boilers!

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On 8/11/2018 at 2:46 PM, Touchdown said:

Let's not forget the Map11 DOOM2 text:


"You have won! Your victory has enabled humankind to evacuate Earth and escape the nightmare. Now you are the only human left on the face of the planet. Cannibal mutations, carnivorous aliens, and evil spirits are your only neighbors. You sit back and wait for death, content that you have saved your species.


But then, Earth Control beams down a message from space: 'Sensors have located the source of the alien invasion. If you go there, you may be able to block their entry. The alien base is in the heart of you own home city, not far from the starport.' Slowly and painfully you get up and return to the fray."


Doesn't really sound like a blood-thirsty killing machine that only wants to rip&tear, now does it? ;)

 

I find it strange how no one seems to bring this up. I'd say that he is indeed a blood-thirsty killing machine, but only because he wants to protect humanity. If there's nothing to fight for, why even bother?

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On 8/11/2018 at 11:39 AM, Gez said:

The teleporters kill people. Only demons and zombies can take them safely.

 

I always took the backstory of Doom as implying that the teleporter technology they developed basically relied on passing through Hell as a sort of conduit or something, and the "volunteers" were either abducted or possessed by demons in the process. Somewhat similar to the plot of Half-Life where the teleporters the scientists develop actually opens a portal to Xen, the interdimensional borderworld, which is now invading us.

 

Edit: It also just occurred to me that the effect in Doom 3 when you step into a teleporter is you flying down a pulsating meat sphincter tube while horrible screams echo in your head:

 

 

So in that game at least it's pretty explicit that even teleporting next door makes you pass through Satan's intestines.

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17 minutes ago, Linguica said:

 

I always took the backstory of Doom as implying that the teleporter technology they developed basically relied on passing through Hell as a sort of conduit or something, and the "volunteers" were either abducted or possessed by demons in the process.

 

 

If you were to take an ordinary person, such as one of the civilian employees of UAC, and sent them through a portal that traveled through Hell, it would probably leave them at least somewhat warped, even if they weren't possessed in the process.

 

The fact that Doomguy spends a big chunk of time in Hell and can still manage to function and not be a gibbering, incomprehensible meat puppet afterward speaks volumes about Doomguy.

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agreed, really, the doom guy is not god, i really like the new system, is funny, but left some times with low hp and search health, the thing i hate is the glory kills, the term i loved, but the glory kills cure you much, it reduce some the damage of the enemies, and reduce the cure of glory kills

 

perfect

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If you read the intermissions of Doom you will see "after defeating the two bad asses" that tones down the seriousness for me. In addition reading the manual and monster descriptions aren't any better. The tone is very much like a comic imo.

 

Quite frankly I don't think Id was consistent with Doom's tone. It had lots of mish mash of ideas that merged into the classic Doom we know and love today. It worked out fine of course.

 

Also regardless of people calling it Doom4 or connecting dots and linking story to other games, I believe this Doom is a remake, it's own thing. Therefore no evolution of Doom guy, just a remagination of one.

 

I would love to see more serious elements too though. I want to be horrified and in awe at the same time.

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I call this the "Prepare to die" effect.It's when a game starts to rise in popularity and both companies and the general public focus on one particular thing about the game which is then marketed as the core aspect of it.I really hated because it overlooks everything else about the game and gives the people that want to look into it a false perception,as an example i would have never been interested in Dark Souls if everything i ever heard it about it was "YOU DIE ALOT GIT GUD" which thankfully i didn't (Thanks Youtubers!) to be honest with the whole "Rip and Tear" line they are just shooting themselves in the foot and "betraying" what Doom really is but what do i know about Doom in the first place?I never experienced Doom in the 90s so i think i see Doom differently from all you vets. (Just like i do the 80s)

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On 5/11/2018 at 4:11 PM, Agent6 said:

 

This literally sums up most of my problems with the game.

I mean the original Doom guys literally died in Phobos, went to hell then proceeded Destroyed everyone there including Hell's Mightiest Wariror, and climbed back out to Earth. Doomguy has always been the first image to some extent...

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On 8/11/2018 at 8:49 PM, Agent6 said:

 

So... our hero would be some kind of undead from that point onward in this case?

 

Damn, I had no idea that's how the teleporters actually worked, and are normally unusable by humans.

This is also vaguely implied in D2016 lore, that no human besides Hayden (who is nearly 100% mechanical) and the Doom Slayer have managed to return from Hell.

 

On 8/11/2018 at 7:59 PM, Aquila Chrysaetos said:

And this for Doom 2016:

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The game heavily suggests but never states with certainty that this version of the protagonist bears some relationship to, or may even be, the same protagonist that featured in the original series. Elements of his backstory, such as a choice to remain in Hell, surviving an event known as Armageddon, and repeatedly fighting against the demons across dimensions and great stretches of time, suggest a possible unification between the various story lines. This is, however, left intentionally vague and open to interpretation. It is possible that future updates will reveal more about his history.

I don't like Doom 2016 very much, but it's difficult to deny that the similarities are there.

Haven't ID now 100% confirmed he's the same guy due to the lore in Quake Champions?

 

Doom was never 'serious business' for me. I thought the Comic was a fun and over-the top depiction of a slightly unhinged version of Doomguy. Its in all the flavour-text already. I also immediately drew the link between Doomguy and Doomslayer. Its again basically all but confirmed in the D2016 lore; that Doomguy stayed after D64, then completed god knows how many custom megawads in different dimensions and became the Doomslayer after the Wretch (whom I actually imagine as a trolling Angel) dropped him a powerup for his old worn out UAC armour. He's also taken so many Berserk packs by this point that even his regular melee smacks cause glory kills to staggered demons. Eventually the demons got so tired of this shit they deliberately sealed him away like the boss of a generic JRPG.

 

The Doom Eternal trailer has further helped establish he is still sane behind the rage; he strolls through Phobos, and though all the NPC's are godly afraid of him, he doesn't care, and leaves them all alone, just dragging that fella to the lock and taking up the guards Plasma Rifle and just wading right back into what he now known and done for aeons and eternity (again, being suffused with all the demonic energy and invincibility spheres has doubtless made him immortal).

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20 minutes ago, eharper256 said:

Haven't ID now 100% confirmed he's the same guy due to the lore in Quake Champions?

I don't consider Quake Champions to be canon.

However, I also don't consider any Quake to be canon except the first, so form your own conclusions from the information provided.

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On 8/13/2018 at 5:31 PM, Aquila Chrysaetos said:

I don't consider Quake Champions to be canon.

However, I also don't consider any Quake to be canon except the first, so form your own conclusions from the information provided.

Quake II and IV are their own separate universe. No demons or Lovecraftian horrors like the original Quake, but plenty of alien cyborg bastards in what amounts to a grim space war setting.

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