So I've noticed divided reception of Brutal Doom lately

[j4rio]

The real question is how many stars would MegaDoomer rate it.

[Gez]

GoatLord said:

For those of you who don't care for--or just plain despise--Brutal Doom, could you elaborate?

If we don't care about BD, it's hard to elaborate.

Personally I felt the changed gameplay wasn't really pertinent (made the game more punishing and therefore slower-paced), the much vaunted fatalities cumbersome and clunky, and the replaced zombie noises just plain awful. I just didn't find it fun to play.

Then there's the annoyance coming from Mark's antics and thousands upon thousands of threads about how Brutal Doom is great/awful (this one included) and the countless "My Custom Brutal Doom mod mod"...

[MFG38]

Patch93 said:

I believe Baron explained it best when I asked about his opinion on it on YouTube one time.

Also, a lot of Doomers are not happy with the fact that many people insult Vanilla Doom because they played Brutal Doom first and claim that Vanilla Doom has not aged well.

After reading that wall of text, I can only say that every word describes exactly what I think about BD.

[Avoozl]

Come to think of it I actually dislike how the SS were using the Wehrmacht voices from CoD2.

[scifista42]

In my view, BD is overrated and overhyped. I have to say though that it's got a LOT of good things in it - impressive effects, aggressive enemies, new cruel balance, using hellspawn's guns and many more. But I'm not a fan anyway, by far not all its choices make for a good playability (usage of certain guns, fatalities, random unexpected actions on monster's death, some annoying sounds, gory mess everywhere). Honestly I'm not into using gameplay mods. The mass internet propaganda is something I don't care about or what doesn't bother me much, neither is the author's personality. I've been glad to try out a few BD versions. I actually preferred some incomplete older version (before v1.0) over the latest ones. It's a fine mod with its pros and its flaws, but as with other gameplay mods I'm not gonna spend time with it to the detriment of my classic Doom.

[Marnetmar]

I used to enjoy Brutal Doom up until about version 0.10. Then it stopped being a mildly entertaining mod and started becoming an obnoxious, bloated mess.

It doesn't help that the creator is a fascist asshat either.

[Suitepee]

I've yet to properly play Brutal Doom. Will work on that.

I agree that I don't like the idea of some people thinking Brutal Doom is everything though, and ignoring everything else.

[Doomkid]

Enjay said:

It's just a mod. I don't get all the fuss - this thread included. :shrug:

Yeah, same here. I think BD is great fun but like any mod or wad, it doesn't "replace" vanilla Doom and I never really thought it was trying to anyway.

Although I will say it irks me when people say its what Doom was "meant to be". Doom already IS the way it's meant to be. It makes deathmatch totally unbalanced, but that's fun every now and again, the same way Cybercrime is fun with its altered weapons.

Long story short, it's a fun mod, but only kiddies would say vanilla is now "boring" since BD came along. Also worth noting, Mark isn't the first insensitive Doom modder out there, he just happened to get more publicity. That by no means excuses being a doucher, but it has no bearing whatsoever on the quality of his mod.

[clamgor]

Sodaholic said:
Maybe the mods buried it? I don't know where you could find it if it's gone, maybe try the Wayback Machine. There's a thread here in Post Hell talking about it, you could find the link to it and check the web archive for it.

I remember the gist of it was that some kid said that he was extremely dissatisfied with his life, and Mark started mocking him and encouraged him to commit suicide. This was understandably nipped in the bud quickly. I don't remember who the kid was, but if you're reading this, know that people have your back. [/B]

I tried Wayback a couple hours ago. Nuthin' turned up. I found the link to it, and ZDoom got rid of that thread.

Enjay said:

It's just a mod. I don't get all the fuss - this thread included. :shrug:

Well, people are kind of concerned about what's wrong with the author of the mod rather than the mod itself.

Although this place is rather, a constant echo of how brutal doom is so glitchy, how SergeantMarkIV is an ass and how his fanboys are so dumb.

I think who ever stumbles upon this will get the gist after the first 3 pages (if people continue posting). It's a good thing a flame war hasn't started with some dumb fanboy coming in here and defending his oh-so-precious favorite mod/"standalone game" (depending on what they believe).

[Jaxxoon R]

To be honest the monster-on-player fatalities were a pretty cool idea, if horribly animated. Seeing a revenant tear the marine's head off and then daintily drop him to the ground was honestly kind of funny.
Everything else though just doesn't work very well.

[BlueFeena]

I just find it loud, dumb, and obnoxious. I can't begin to describe how annoying it is when I can barely hear anything over the ear-rape-tastic ASHISAJIKJDF demon screaming sounds. As someone who's studying art and animation, the mod's lousy animation and poorly modified graphics don't do it any favors.

Lastly, I'm just tired of people referring to it as, "WHAT DOOM WAS MEANT TO BE" --- bullshit. If anything, had Carmack and the rest of id had more horse power to work with, Doom probably would have wound up more like Quake or Quake 2, which were perfectly fine games.

[tourniquet]

I tried it once...but never again!

[reality 2.0]

brutal doom gets boring after a while. its fun for a bit because I've never played a doom wad with this much violence and gore. Once you're desensitized the shock is gone. Then it becomes same old, same old. I've been playing brutal doom for about 2 years, it's not fun anymore and Sargent mark iv being an asshole has hurt my opinion of the game a bit.

[Coopersville]

Apart from it clashing with wads not made for that kind of thing, it's really good.

[Maes]

The community is getting softer as it gets older, that's the sad truth.

[Xegethra]

Gez said:

Personally I felt the changed gameplay wasn't really pertinent (made the game more punishing and therefore slower-paced),

Really? I thought it sped it up a little bit. I guess that's because they tweaked the player speed a bit, I'm no more cautious in Brutal Doom than in Vanilla Doom, it's always fun to just pop out and shoot loads cus Doom is like that. I'm not the best player in the world, definitely not, but unless it's PSX Doom I tend not to crawl around.

But yeah, mods not perfect, but I still think it's a good silly romp through the game every now and then.

[Rubilacxe]

Generally, I don't care for it. I teethed on mods like Immoral Conduct - when I saw Brutal Doom, it just felt like a clone of that with more blood and a more modern source port.

Speaking of the blood - I'll echo what many have said here. The level of violence in BD is a bit disturbing for me. It's one thing to play a game where the general purpose is to shoot things, but the original Doom gameplay looks like a cartoon or a cheesy action movie compared to Brutal Doom. And I like it that way. With all the sadistic tendencies the mod displays, I feel less like the last human trying to survive and more like a serial killer, and I'm not really into that sort of thing.

I do, however, appreciate that Brutal Doom has attracted a more mainstream audience to the Doom modding scene. Or to Doom in general. There's a whole generation of gamers who never had a desire to play Doom, and now they are finally seeing what all the fuss is about. Although some of the newcomers just stop at Brutal Doom for their modding fun, others explore what else the community has to offer. I think it's great to have more people see all the hard work these mod authors put into their projects. Particularly if its a multiplayer-oriented mod - that just means more populated servers!

[Xaser]

Crasger said:

Also, I've been looking around for that topic where he encourages suicide. It appears to be lost. Anyone find it on some archive so I can read up and contribute properly my honest opinion on this discussion?

Oh fother of muck.

What's happened is that the original thread was posted in ZDoom's off-topic board, and the goddamn motherfucking piece of shit auto-pruning bastard feature deleted the fucking post. Great job. A+. Slow clap.

I archived the thread on my HDD at home in case of this, and I'll toss it up somewhere later tonight (if I 'member to). I don't like resurrecting old shite but the evidence has to exist somewhere, so it goes.

[doom_is_great]

I think it's pretty good. Love the intensity of the mod. I also love the variety it offers since there are so many ways to annihilate your enemies and destroy. Not all the corpses look the same, in other words. The only thing that I don't like is that the mod really isn't offering anything new lately other than "new blood decals" or "new blood effects" or some new death animations.

Anyway, other than that, I like BD and hope that Doom 4 will be similar at least in terms of intensity and violence.

[Da Werecat]

doom_is_great said:

Anyway, other than that, I like BD and hope that Doom 4 will be similar at least in terms of intensity and violence.

Please, no.

[doomgargoyle]

I like BD, but RGA is much better.

[Joshua Schäferhund]

To be honest, the problem with Brutal Doom's violence isn't that it's way too extreme, but rather how it gets in the way of gameplay. There's only so much you can do with gore before it becomes annoying and hinders the pace of the game.

[Snakes]

I've never understood the infatuation people seem to have with Brutal Doom. It seems like it appeals to the lowest common denominator and that sort has latched on to it with a Kung fu grip. Sergeant Mark is pretty much a bastardized, but that's common knowledge at this point.

[Seeker_of_Truth]

This thread itself shows the divided reception of Brutal Doom. Anyway, for my part, I don't really have anything against Brutal Doom. I play it when I'm in the mood to play it, but I don't think it's the "way Doom should have been." Obviously SMIV has himself a reputation, but I try to keep that separate from Brutal Doom.

[TimeOfDeath]

Haven't played it.

[40oz]

TimeOfDeath said:

Haven't played it.

Neither have I.

I've got no interest in weapon or gameplay mods. They disrupt the integrity of the game that I enjoy. Learning the new behavior of monsters and altered weapons is not interesting to me, and I will always find myself falling back to Doom's default sets, so I don't see the appeal of gravitating away from that.

If anything though, I should mention that it's publicity is apalling to me. Whenever John Romero posts something about Doom on facebook, there's no shortage of "Try it on Brutal DOOM!!!" posts or whatever. And any requests by players for a map author to change his map because it's not balanced or compatible with that particular gameplay mod is laughable.

[Bashe]

Just about everything I could have said has already been said in this thread, so I can only just echo that it's an okay mod for the most part but incredibly overrated and obnoxiously prominent. If people like it, that's fine. I find it to be okay in co-op for just some mindless good fun for a while, but I wouldn't play it solo, and it certainly isn't "the way Doom is meant to be played!!!!!!!!!!!" And of course, Mark is...Mark.

Threads like these also don't really help, giving the mod yet more attention, even if there is some decent discussion going on.

[joe-ilya]

Why don't you talk about beautiful doom? I'm sick of threads about brutal doom they're the same boring threads posted about a year ago.
Beautiful doom just ads nice effects and some nice secondary attacks, nothing else.

[Memfis]

What do you mean when you say that Brutal Doom is overrated? Like, there are many people who like it. Are you saying that they should stop having fun with Brutal Doom because you think it isn't that great? Or what?

[mrthejoshmon]

Memfis said:

What do you mean when you say that Brutal Doom is overrated? Like, there are many people who like it. Are you saying that they should stop having fun with Brutal Doom because you think it isn't that great? Or what?

Overrated means people love it to death and say how its the best ever but when in reality it is not.