Brutal Doom

Brutal Doom is a gameplay mod that was created in 2010 by Sergeant_Mark_IV. It works with Doom and Doom 2. It won the first ever Cacoward in 2011 for Best Gameplay Mod and a MOTY award for creativity by Mod DB in 2012.

Perhaps the most obvious and eye-catching feature of Brutal Doom is the adding of features like additional blood (blood gets splattered on walls and ceilings if enemies or the player get hit), the ability to blow off body parts with strong weapons like the shotgun, and the addition of special iluminating effects on projectiles and pick ups. It is compatible with ZDoom, GZDoom, Skulltag, and Zandronum.

While primarily a gore mod, it goes further and alters the gameplay by changing many other aspects, such as the sounds, graphics, and combat. One such change is the increased difficulty, making enemy behavior more unpredictable and dangerous (many attacks do double the normal damage to the player) and altering their attacks. It makes the animations smoother and gives the player new abilities.

Primary changes

 * Dramatic increase of gibs creating a much gorier atmosphere.
 * 3D bloodspots allow all textures to be covered with blood, including the floor and ceiling.
 * A more dynamic interface. For example, blood splashes on the screen if the player kills Brutal Doom - Classic FPS Action Enhanced enemy up close, and glass cracks or bullet holes may appear on the screen when the player gets injured.
 * When the player is critically injured (30% health or lower), the screen gets stained with tiny blood splatters, and a dripping sound is played intermittently as the marine's blood drips continuously on the ground (albeit this is just a visual effect which adds to gameplay realism and does not incur in further health loss).
 * New death animations for all enemies. Body parts can be torn apart by regular fire on various locations on the enemy's body, cut in half with the chainsaw, melted with the plasma gun, burnt into smoky scorch by fire or electricity-based attacks, and blown to smithereens by explosives.
 * Corpses can be further mutilated upon death.
 * Many enemies have new attacks (more details below), and many enemy attacks do up to twice the normal damage.
 * Many of the game's weapons have been altered or tweaked in various ways, such as by making it necessary to reload or by adding secondary functions (see also below).

Additional changes

 * The berserk pack's functionality is greatly expanded. With it, the player can perform fatality-style finishers on monsters. Killing monsters in this way will replenish a bit of health, depending on the enemy, and the player is also invulnerable while the animation plays. Other abilities include grabbing and throwing Lost Souls and explosive barrels, and using stunned monsters as meat shields (a "stunned" monster will be sitting still, making constant pain noises). Meat shields absorb a set amount of damage from projectiles, during which the player will be limited to using the assault rifle. They can also be thrown for decent damage.
 * 2lb2nau.jpg in Doom II. Player blowing up an Imp's head via shotgun blast.]]Implementation of headshots for all monsters - except for the Cacodemon, Lost Soul and Pain Elemental. Headshots deal as much as double damage (depending on the weapon), and can gib the monster's head for one of many special death animations (see the screenshot at the right). Autoaim does not assist in getting headshots.
 * Invisibility spheres are replaced with captured marines. Punching or kicking the marine will free him and he will follow and aid the player against the demons. Captured marines spawn with random weaponry, with the stronger guns appearing less frequently. The marine can punch enemies at close range and even perform fatalities on them (being fully invulnerable in the process) to replenish his own health, just like the player can do. However, any nearby demons will attempt to kill any restrained marines as soon as they are in the player's sight. If the marine is killed in battle after being freed, his weapon will be dropped for the player.
 * If the player kills certain monsters (or shreds their corpses) with the chainsaw or rocket launcher, they can take their weapons. This includes the Revenant's twin rocket launchers and the Mancubus's flame cannon, both mapped to key 8 (key 9 for the Mancubus cannon in version 0.18 onwards).
 * Enhanced lighting and shadow effects for decorations and projectiles similar to those found in the Doomsday engine.
 * Enemy bullets now act as projectiles, albeit very fast ones, allowing the player to dodge them given sufficient time and distance.
 * The fists are faster and can make quick jabs. They are also a silent attack and will not alert enemies. The alt-fire throws a slower but more powerful right hook punch. Punching a Zombieman, Shotgun Guy, Heavy Weapon Dude or Imp from behind before the enemy has noticed will snap their neck, killing it instantly without alerting other enemies.
 * A kick attack has been added to shove enemies away from the player, similar to the one in Duke Nukem 3D. It is bound to Q by default. Like the fists, this attack is powered up by berserk as well. If performed in the air, it becomes a flying kick with the marine's foot turned 45 degrees, dealing even more damage.
 * The chainsaw uses the Doom 3 Chainsaw sound effects and blood splatters on it when sawing an enemy.
 * The pistol is replaced by an assault rifle, matching the player's sprite, which unlike the original pistol remains useful even late in the game. The assault rifle has a decent fire rate (close to the original chaingun) and is one of the most accurate weapons in the mod. The alt-fire mode allows the player to aim down the sights to snipe enemies (starting from version 0.18, the aim is made via a realistic telescopic crosshair embedded on the weapon). It has a clip size of 30.
 * The shotgun now fires ten pellets per shot instead of seven, to balance it with the Super Shotgun. Like the assault rifle, the sights can be used to reduce spread. Aesthetically, it now has a black synthetic pump and stock instead of wooden ones, and also has a vented heatshield on the barrel. Its clip size is 8.
 * The super shotgun has a faster reload time, and at point-blank range will deal an additional damage boost. It now has the option of firing only one barrel at a time, thus shooting only 10 pellets.
 * The chaingun is now correctly referred to as a Minigun (as well as resembling the more traditional design of said guns), and fires 50% faster but also requires a spin-up and cool-off before and after firing respectively, similar to the plasma gun. The alt-fire mode makes the barrels continuously spin, further increasing the firing rate but also drastically decreasing the accuracy and alerting monsters. The recoil from continuous firing will constantly push the player's aim upwards (version 0.18 only). Unlike most of the reworked guns, it does not need to be reloaded.
 * The rocket launcher has a much smaller splash damage area, but it causes 50% more damage on a direct hit. It holds 6 rockets per clip. It is also the only weapon that reloads automatically after emptying a full ammo clip and when the player selects it for the first time.
 * The plasma gun now has a different firing sound, deals roughly double damage and can cause minor splash damage to enemies (and players, if the bolt hits a nearby wall), but fires at a slower rate. The alt-fire mode fires a spread of 14 plasma bolts in a shotgun-like pattern, which can do as much damage as two rockets. It has a clip size of 50.
 * The BFG9000 uses the Doom 3 BFG sound effects and the primary energy ball deals double damage. Instead of the original BFG's hitscan tracer attack, it simply deals damage in a very large radius. It can also fatally injure the player if the energy ball explodes too close (only applies if it hits an inanimate object or obstacle and not an enemy), again unlike the original BFG. It now expends 50 cells per shot.
 * Most weapons cause kickback, especially the Super Shotgun and the BFG9000.
 * The player is able to flip monsters off by a bindable command known as "Offend". This command will alert nearby monsters as if the player had just fired a weapon. There are other bindable commands, such as "Wave". Pressing the wave button during a fatality (see below) will allow the player to see his own wave animation in third-person.
 * There are several voice acted taunts and one-liners voiced by Chinese Tony Danza, that can be spoken with keys J and K. Many of these quotes are taken straight from the infamous Doom comic,and others from action satire such as "Hail to the King Baby" from Sam Raimi's "Army of Darkness".
 * The player's ammo capacity for bullet weapons has been increased from 200 to 300 (and from 400 to 600 with a backpack).
 * Both the Grenade Launcher and the Rail gun from the Skulltag source port have been given new sprites and attributes. The Grenade Launcher is a standard issue M79; it has a much larger blast radius than the Rocket Launcher, but fires much slower. The Rail gun fires at a slower rate than the vanilla Skulltag Rail gun but uses half as much ammunition, has a scope for zooming in, and reloads after 5 shots instead of 4.
 * New sprites for the rockets and box of rockets, backpack, armor bonus, armor and megaarmor.
 * Zombiemen will sometimes rapidly fire off 5 shots without pausing. Also, both he and the Former Sergeant must stop to reload their weapons after a while.
 * Shotgun Guys now fire 8 pellets per shot instead of only 3.
 * Wolfenstein SS officers changed radically into soldiers in accurate SS uniforms with a demonic appearance and fanatical military voices. They possess more complex behavior, frequently dashing left and right, making them hard to hit. Their powerful MP40 submachineguns, mapped to key 8 (key 0 in v0.18), can be picked up and used by the player. The MP40 has a higher rate of fire than the assault rifle and a 32-round magazine.
 * The Imp now has a jumping pounce attack like its version from Doom 3 that it will use at close range, and can sometimes shoot two fireballs in quick succession. Its projectiles are now much more detailed, with several sound and visual effects. The player will have bloody slashes marking his screen in the direction an Imp connected with a melee attack.
 * A dodge system was introduced in v0.18, allowing some enemies (mostly the weaker ones, such as Zombies, Imps and Lost Souls) to occasionally dash/roll/fly sideways to avoid projectile attacks.
 * Melee-oriented monsters, such as Hell Knight and the Demon, will perform fatalities on the player and even other monsters if they kill them with a melee attack.
 * Demons are faster, both in movement and attack speed. Because they are melee-only monsters, they will always perform any available fatalities on a successful kill, which includes biting lesser monsters in half and eating their entire upper body.
 * Spectres are completely invisible, save for their eyes, making them much harder to detect - however, they briefly flash into a translucent state upon attacking and taking damage. They become visible upon death, with a red gaseous substance marking the kill.
 * The Cacodemon will frequently shoot two consecutive projectiles and can shunt itself out of the way of incoming attacks. It also floats a bit faster than its classic Doom counterpart. Aesthetically, their melee attack now has actual sound effects, unlike the classic Doom Cacodemon's silent gaping maw. If a Cacodemon bites a player to death, a sideways animation will be shown depicting the monster eating the player's upper torso then dropping the player's mutilated lower half to the floor as the monster squares back up to the camera.
 * The Hell Knight now can sometimes shoot three consecutive projectiles, in a similar fashion to the Imp and Cacodemon.
 * The Baron of Hell has gained two new projectile attacks: in the first one, it launches 3 fireballs in a wide spread instead of one. In the second one, albeit quite rare to happen, the Baron will throw certain monsters that it recently killed (frequently former humans) like a missile towards the player, in the same concept of the meat shields described above, incredibly causing massive damage - but this attack cannot be performed with corpses that were already placed in the map by the designer.
 * Chaingunners, Hell Knights and Barons of Hell can be kicked in the crotch, stunning them for a few seconds (applies only from version 0.18 onwards).
 * Arachnotrons are much larger, around the size of a Baron of Hell, and also move faster. Their plasma shots now are the same firing sound and blue projectiles fired by the player's own plasma gun.
 * Lost Souls now have half of their original health and deal less damage, but fly around and attack much faster, which can potentially cause unlucky or slow players to miss attacks constantly - making them one of the more frustrating enemies in the game. Their flames have been removed from the sprite and are now generated by particle emitters. Upon death, Lost Souls explode in a fire puff and leave small bony chunks on the ground. Also, they no longer bleed when attacked, producing metallic sound (from chainsaw attack) and sparks instead.
 * Pain Elementals explode upon death, causing heavy damage to nearby environmental objects, monsters and the player as well. Said explosion can only be prevented by killing them with a fatality.
 * Revenants always fire two guided missiles at a time (matching their animation of both shoulder cannons lighting up when firing), and non-guided missiles are fired in volleys of four. Guided missiles are slower, have a much more limited fly pattern (they tend to travel downwards to the ground unless they can reach their target or hit any obstacle) and are now indicated by a reddish glowing color. Non-guided missiles are fired more rapidly, fly faster and glow with a yellowish lens flare effect.
 * Mancubus fireballs have a blast radius that deals slight fire damage. They leave damaging flames for several seconds after hitting a surface.
 * Arch-Viles are less powerful, as their attack takes longer time to charge and they have less hit points, however they can resurrect enemies without having to stop and face the monster's corpse. Their appearance also changes, as they now sport large stereotypical ram-like demonic horns.
 * The Cyberdemon has a new melee attack: a devastating stomp, which against the player almost always means instant death. In addition, it shoots its fire-engulfed rockets faster and for longer (four per volley instead of three), in a wider angle, giving it a limited ability to lead its shots against circle strafing players. As of version 0.18, using the "Offend" command in front of the Cyberdemon will enrage him, drastically increasing his aggression, firing speed, and the amount of rockets fired per attack. Visually, its death animation has been enhanced with a massive 3D explosion that deals no damage. As an aesthetic correction, the rockets are now fired from the Cyberdemon's rocket launcher arm instead of the middle of his legs.
 * The Spider Mastermind's gatling gun now fires high-caliber, earth-shaking explosive rounds. Its reaction time is much quicker, nearly instantaneous, giving the player little time to get out of its way. However, its bullets travel slower than normal bullets, so they can still be avoided if the player has a lot of room to circlestrafe. Perhaps the most dramatic change to this monster is that it has four times as much health as its vanilla counterpart (3000 to 12000), although it will take increased damage from some weapons. The creature's mechanical chassis absorbs most of the damage inflicted (it nullifies around 7/8th of the attack's original damage value), producing metal sparks from gunfire and chainsaw attacks. Like the Cyberdemon, its death animation is greatly enhanced (but still harmless).
 * Decorative props, such as trees, hanging corpses and lights, can be destroyed. Destroying hanging corpses will occasionally reward the player with health and armor bonuses.
 * All NPC's now wade through liquids instead of walking on top of them (their sprite appears partially submerged), causing splashing sounds to play. The various liquid textures are also enhanced.
 * Enemies randomly drop demon strength runes upon death, which act similarly to berserk packs (albeit they do not recover health as much as the berserk pack does).
 * In certain versions, Commander Keen's head is replaced with that of infamous pop star Justin Beiber.
 * Brutal Doom also has certain "mutators", or mods, that tweak the gameplay further; such as by changing the assault rifle back to a reskinned pistol, and giving the former humans the ability to speak and taunt the player.

Previous features from older versions (no longer applicable)

 * In versions prior to 0.18, firing weapons too close to walls and other solid surfaces dealt minor shrapnel damage to the player.
 * The Cyberdemon had the ability to launch grenades as well as rockets.
 * The Spider Mastermind possessed a BFG.
 * In versions prior to 0.17, both the Cyberdemon's and Spider Mastermind's exploding death animations dealt heavy damage (or instant death) to anything near the explosion - in newer versions, they still explode violently upon defeat but dealing no damage at all.