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duckkickergames

Doom With Less Gore: Helpful or Heresy?

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The amount of blood and gore in Doom is just right and should not be altered. No less, and certainly no more (I'm looking at you, Brutal Doom.)

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dethtoll said:

No less, and certainly no more (I'm looking at you, Brutal Doom.)


I can admit it's too much but if I knew how to, I would tone down the gushing amounts of blood, remove fatalities, helper marines, stupid flipping off function and greatly reduce limbshot chance.

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Gameplay is obviously the "king", but to me atmosphere is also very important and gore constitutes a significant part of this atmosphere. Thus, I strongly oppose removing it.

If you think that "only gameplay matters" I suggest you also remove sprites, textures, sounds and music. None of those will affect the gameplay right? Tell us how fun it's going to be...

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Honestly, I played the GBA Doom for a bit, but got so bored by it that I just went back to my PSP and played regular Doom on that. So much better, and as it was originally intended.

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doom is gory? i like playing with ketchup mod and smooth monsters, as it only adds buckets of blood and new death animations without changing anything of the classic gameplay.

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Patrol1985 said:

If you think that "only gameplay matters" I suggest you also remove sprites, textures, sounds and music. None of those will affect the gameplay right? Tell us how fun it's going to be...

There are plenty of TCs that do exactly that, and the core mechanics of the DOOM engine still shine through. So yeah, pretty fun.

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Blood is blood, I don't care if it's red or green, but I need blood of some sort. I mean, it helps serve as a form of visual feedback for how much damage I'm doing. You can't read monster health levels or anything, but the amount of blood gives you a good indication of, "Okay, he took the full blast of a super shotgun," or, "Damn, I just nicked him." I'm not saying the blood is absolutely necessary or anything, or that I couldn't judge based on aim how much damage I likely did, but it's an extra little thing that helps, you know, when trying to figure out if you're gonna need one more blast or two to take down that cacodemon or hell knight.

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DOOM has always been a violent game. Back in the day it was pretty damn graphic with the gibs, impaled humans and body parts hanging from the ceiling. That was always a part of what DOOM is. The key in my opinion is the 'right amount'. With gore the thing is that if you go too far it becomes silly. But if you remove it, the experience will lack this element of violence that is important in DOOM.

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Patrol1985 said:

If you think that "only gameplay matters" I suggest you also remove sprites, textures, sounds and music. None of those will affect the gameplay right? Tell us how fun it's going to be...


From time to time I play with textures disabled, you can do that in ZDoom. To me it sometimes look more beautiful, there is a certain beauty to the abstractness. But Doom's lightning model isn't conductive to that sort of play, you don't see the edges too clearly and you can miss switches or doors if there isn't enough contrast in the underlying architecture. On more modern games like L4D, I'm having a lot of fun with some "orange" levels (maps using only BSP brushes with WIP editor textures).

I also replace most PWAD music with the PSX soundtrack these days. Granted this is not complete silence, but I can't handle that either (tinnitus). Games with ambient noise are pretty fun, i.e. Dark Souls.

To say only gameplay matters is generally an exaggeration, but for me it can work. This doesn't mean the elements you list are pointless, because they do have gameplay uses and so they are part of gameplay.

Sprites/character models let you see the enemy's field of view, and their state, standing, crouched... Animations tell you when they're about to shoot, when they're charging up, when they're interrupted. Textures give you contrast and visual hints, and can act as shortcuts to video game concepts through real world meanings (i.e. stepping on an electrical wire does damage to the character). Sounds give you insight regarding each actor's position or current state, your own footsteps let you know whether you're sneaky, etc..

Music, admittedly I'll give you that one, music is completely atmospheric in most games (and sometimes nonetheless critical to the experience). *edit: although come to think of it, while this is accurate for Doom and many games, perhaps "most" is a bit of a stretch. i.e. even in something as rudimentary as Serious Sam/Painkiller, music switches between peaceful and fighting and has a gameplay utility, telling you whether monsters are currently aware of your presence. Some games push this much further, dynamically adjusting the music with your actions. Hitman Absolution does a stellar job in that area, every single one of your moves is punctuated appropriately with music (a shame nobody cares to look at this game seriously because "omg misogyny / omg not like blood money", it's probably one of the smartest games we've had this decade).

Some people in this topic have said without gore there would be no way to tell enemies are in pain. But gore isn't the only way you can have visual feedback. When hit enemies could flash briefly red, or sparkle, as is done in plenty of games. Anything as long as there's something. Visual feedback is critical to the game, but to pick gore specifically is a purely aesthetic/atmospheric choice. Now it's very easy to argue this is the most sensible choice given the setting, but it's not actually required for the game to function.

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As phml said, blood is only a relatable representation of damage. Many other games overlay sprites with a flashing color or blinking to indicate damage, and that's much more visually communicative of what's happening than what blood does (unless the game in question uses blood excessively) I'd much rather see arena shooters deviate away from using people carrying guns and more into using robots, affixed with weapons in their chests that explode or have some kinda electrical discharge when taking damage. Much more dynamic and fun to watch than liquid blood splats imo.

For what its worth, many games, or games like Doom could be designed literally with no textures, except perhaps with different colors or patterns to reprsent walls that can be interacted with, like Doors or Switches. The adversaries could be represented by simple shapes and change colors according to colorcoded sequences to determine what action they are doing. i.e., yellow for moving, green for preparing to attack, red for taking damage, and gray for dead etc. etc.

I've never had the opportunity to help create a game with that model, but I like to think a game could be better designed intrinsically if that was used to structure the inherent gameplay of a game first, then build the visuals around it, provided the gameplay created out of it is relatable to any realistic thing. I feel a much more focused set of goals is presented when an unfinished game has all of its visual clutter taken away from it. Then you can move on making sure the visuals that are given to the player clearly imply what is happening, or going to happen, or any other information that would keep the player questioning what he's doing or what he's supposed to do.

Doom 2's character models for the new monsters, were obviously designed long before it was actually decided what they will do (except for the chaingunner and hell knight probably) Revenant fires two turrets, shoots one missile? Mancubus fat as shit, not very slow? Arachnatron has stronger weapon than its mother? Archvile, skinny little twig, has almost as much health as a hell baron? etc. etc.

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40oz said:

Doom 2's character models for the new monsters, were obviously designed long before it was actually decided what they will do (except for the chaingunner and hell knight probably) Revenant fires two turrets, shoots one missile? Mancubus fat as shit, not very slow? Arachnatron has stronger weapon than its mother? Archvile, skinny little twig, has almost as much health as a hell baron? etc. etc.

Wait, the Mancubus apparently DOESN'T move slow? Dude, have you played Puppetmasters as a Manc?? Even if you're not looking through the Mancubi's perspective, it's still really slow.
I can only guess that they decided two missiles would leave the Revenant unfairly overpowered. That said, Alpha versions of Doom II show the Revenant firing ONE rocket (yes, ROCKET) so that's a very valid point.
But, even if the early Pain Elemental DID fire Cacodemon fireballs, the model still shows a Lost soul emerging from its mouth.

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Many other ports made on Nintendo handhelds turn the blood green. I remember playing the first Resident evil, and the blood was changed to green. I guess it's just because Nintendo's modern audience is children, so they don't want "realistic" blood flying around. But, I don't think that green is any better.

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If Doom had less gore then I guess for one thing there wouldn't be any usage of the blood liquid in maps.

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Avoozl said:

If Doom had less gore then I guess for one thing there wouldn't be any usage of the blood liquid in maps.

Except for ketchup-factory themed maps, or giant-painting-palette themed maps. ;)

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scifista42 said:

Except for ketchup-factory themed maps, or giant-painting-palette themed maps. ;)


Map 25: Ketchup-Falls


I disliked the GBA ports for multiple reasons. Gore wasn't one of them.

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facelessdoomer said:

Many other ports made on Nintendo handhelds turn the blood green. I remember playing the first Resident evil, and the blood was changed to green. I guess it's just because Nintendo's modern audience is children, so they don't want "realistic" blood flying around. But, I don't think that green is any better.


Nintendo's been censoring games as a matter of course in the US for decades, dude. If anything, they've stopped -- though too late for Doom GBA, it seems.

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I can take lot's of gore or very little gore, it depends on what the mod or original game is trying to do.

If a game is meant to be very gory, I can have that....but if it fails to deliver on the gore I will be disappointed.

Also if a mod adds in lots of gore, again if it is meant to I can take it and be happy. If there was a mod to take away gore, I can dig it as long it fits in the setting or theme of the mod.

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I need the gore to create an atmosphere in my maps:

Entering a room in which several butchered marines and various body parts (Pool of blood and bones, Pool of brains and pool of guts) are strewn about the place show that something big and evil is up ahead.

Hanging bodies that have been mutilated, strung up in an ancient structure show the true malevolence of the demons and the horrors they commit to your fellow man.

Various gory remains of people who tried to fight back between the dead demons show that a brutal and painful battle once commenced here where man fought tooth and nail against the forces of hell (and ultimately lost).

Large piles of bodies and meat in running blood (the BLOOD flat and possibly BFALL are used) with demons standing over them to show that they gathered the dead/survivors and devoured/executed them and mercilessly, rending the flesh, drinking the blood and breaking the bone.

Or that classic horror scene of a corpse that has expelled an inhuman amount of guts and blood, so much that the room has been absolutely caked in the red liquid showing that true pain occurred in this room.

just basically my attempts to tell a story that happened whilst you were not there.

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dethtoll said:

Nintendo's been censoring games as a matter of course in the US for decades, dude. If anything, they've stopped -- though too late for Doom GBA, it seems.

I would imagine it's less that Doom GBA was censored because Nintendo wanted it to be, and more because the publisher did. I believe Nintendo's censorship policies had ended sometime mid-SNES era.

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I couldn't care less about it. Doom on GBA has low-resolution, washed out graphics to the point that red looks green already. But it's amazing that I have a handheld device that can play Doom at all - and it's much better than on touchscreen - that I can forgive that some graphics are cut.

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Bra-fucking-vo, mrthejoshmon. Whenever I'm mapping, my layouts suddenly look a lot more interesting and immersive when I start using the various decorative sprites. I'm reminded of how so many of my horrific memories of PSX and N64 Doom were related to the careful consideration of these sprites, which allowed your imagination to run wild. I would fill in the blanks and the maps would become a lot more unsettling.

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Shadow Hog said:

I would imagine it's less that Doom GBA was censored because Nintendo wanted it to be, and more because the publisher did. I believe Nintendo's censorship policies had ended sometime mid-SNES era.


It's certainly possible that Doom GBA was censored by the publisher, though given that Nintendo's overall censorship practices didn't really end until well into the N64 era after the introduction of the ESRB, I wouldn't be surprised if the censorship was Nintendo-mandated as they do still censor their own games.

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geekmarine said:

You can't read monster health levels or anything, but the amount of blood gives you a good indication of, "Okay, he took the full blast of a super shotgun," or, "Damn, I just nicked him." I'm not saying the blood is absolutely necessary or anything, or that I couldn't judge based on aim how much damage I likely did, but it's an extra little thing that helps, you know, when trying to figure out if you're gonna need one more blast or two to take down that cacodemon or hell knight.

UV-Max would help with that.

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dethtoll said:

It's certainly possible that Doom GBA was censored by the publisher, though given that Nintendo's overall censorship practices didn't really end until well into the N64 era after the introduction of the ESRB, I wouldn't be surprised if the censorship was Nintendo-mandated as they do still censor their own games.

And I'm telling you that that makes absolutely no sense, given the GBA came out after that policy had ended.

I mean, shit, you're trying to tell me that Doom for the SNES can go totally uncensored, but Doom for the GBA, hey now

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dethtoll said:

Nintendo didn't magically stop censoring their games after the ESRB was founded.

Nintendo didn't publish Doom on the GBA, Activision did. It wasn't "their game" to censor.

And really, you keep insisting that Nintendo's '90s policies were somehow still in effect in 2001. Do you have evidence it was Nintendo calling those shots, and not publishers doing it themselves? Because I have a hard time believing the company that let games like Conker's Bad Fur Day or BMX XXX fly uncensored would give a shit about the color of blood.

Just to reiterate: the Nintendo that had all of Mortal Kombat's blood changed to sweat is 1992 Nintendo, not 2001 Nintendo. We're arguing 2001 Nintendo here.

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They also let Bionic Commando get by with a swear word and Hitler's exploding head, and that was in the 80s.

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Green blood seems more nauseating to me. Reminds me of the original Evil Dead film where the creators tried to dampen the severity of the gore by making some of the blood spurting out white which had the opposite effect. Can't imagine GBA Doom would like much of anything, though.

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Honestly, I'd rather have a toned down blood mod than an unrealistic overly gory mod, but hey. That's just me. As it's been said in the thread several times, the gameplay of Doom is what matters, not the amount (or even colour) of blood particles.

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