Even so, it takes me out of the experience. Suddenly able to stare at the "golem" squeezing a clay adversary between his mighty fingers, I start to think of " Claycat's Doom." Perhaps that's only fitting. Watching Doomguy rip and tear a pinky demon or some other monster myopically frames the experience. That visual hoopla wasn't possible back then, and feels anachronistic.įurthermore, too much interaction between the audience and clay belies the clay's true nature. In my mind, it's the equivalent of seeing Ray Harryhausen's infamous skeletons being able to fight at sixty frames-per-second, while spilling the blood of Jason and his Argonauts with squib effects, cables, and pyrotechnics. Thus, it looks understandably bizarre to see them given extra frames of motion or abilities beyond what the technology allowed back then. The character models were rotoscoped clay figurines. Having glory kills in a classic Doom game might seem novel, but it also exposed a particular limit of the visual style seen in 1993. B&B introduces a plethora of venues by which to make clear visibility a thing of the past.ī&B allows classic Doomguy to glory kill his enemies, too. Even so, fast movement in these older games doesn't scramble the image no matter how fast Doomguy moves, there's no such thing as motion blur in his world by which to obscure what we're seeing onscreen. Fast movement and arcade-style action are in line with classic Doom. Watching B&B being played, I can't see through the visuals-in-motion, because movement makes them dense. Regarding the visual "eyesores" previously mentioned, a Doom champ of the modder school might say, "Once you get moving, you'll barely notice!" But my argument still stands. Mods like B&B largely alter the look of what can be safely changed inside a "classic" Doom experience. Doom's technological limits cause its levels to look a particular way and these can't be changed short of altering the base nature of the game and how it plays. In other words, you can introduce new images for the projectiles, but the level design can't feature true 3D. As iconic as it is, Doom remains heavily dependent on its own visual style being tied to its ancient graphics engine. To see modders introduce motion through objects other than sprites feels incongruous. Anything that actually moved was a 2D sprite, including the projectiles. And while Doom featured polygons, they were of the most basic sort. I suspect this "modernized" approach attempts to increase the visual fidelity of the gameplay to better match the box art. These components cause me to stare even harder, while the projectiles become eyesores instead of being at home in the gameworld, they invade it and the screen. You should not only be able to see them, but also-ironically enough-be able to see what threw them at you (when movement allows) in a way that isn't visual smoke. The simplicity of the game's visual design allows for an endless series of simple"reskins":Īs your eyes try to see through what's flying towards you versus looking at the object itself, the projectiles become distracting. The point here is to critique the inclusions themselves and what effect they have on the classic Doom experience.ĭoom is a game whose source code has been available for decades, helping foster its longstanding modder-base. If you dislike a particular aspect of the mod, you can simply disable it. To their credit, B&B are extremely customizable, allowing the player total control over what they decide to modify. As a result, the ensuing carnage resembles something closer to Doom 64 (1997) or Disruptor (1996). However, the projectiles, gore and explosions they produce have much more detail than would've been possible twenty-seven years ago. The monsters and levels are largely what they were in 1993 they are still pixelated, with the same color palettes and artistic approach, albeit with added animation frames. One problem I have with with B&B is their current treatment of projectiles, gore and explosions.
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