Editorials
[#DOOM25] Have You Heard of… ‘DOOM RPG’?
Believe it or not, DOOM wasn’t always an ultra-frantic shooter with a big, clanging pair of gore-stained balls swinging to and fro alongside Vince McMahon esque strides. Indeed, there was a time when over a decade ago, id Software dipped its toes into the RPG genre by releasing DOOM RPG – a labor of love that was pretty much the most unexpected marriage of things since David Arquette and pro-wrestling.
Long before Android or iOS-powered smartphones were a thing, id Software would bring DOOM RPG to mobile devices that were powered by Java, and the now-defunct SymbianOS. However, in order to do a proper job of it, id Software would enlist the talents of mobile developer Fountainhead Entertainment, who would fill in the technical gaps that The House That DOOM Built would naturally have in dealing with such an unfamiliar platform.
The end result was that DOOM RPG was every bit the blood-soaked off-genre homage to id Software’s magnum opus that we all hoped it would be, and more importantly, it was a game which inarguably showed that DOOM could exist outside of its FPS genre comfort zone. Of course, it didn’t hurt that DOOM’s leap to the RPG genre reassuringly included all of the cornerstones of the core DOOM experience.
With the action unfolding from a familiar first-person perspective, DOOM RPG once more casts players as Doomguy who, just like in the mainline series, must blast his way through a demonic horde and close the portal that links our reality to that of Hell. Bolstering the familiarity of its setting is the fact that DOOM RPG also brings back many of the recognizable weapons and monsters from the core franchise too, including the shotgun, rocket launcher, zombie troopers, imps and even the Cyberdemon for starters.
Beyond that near and dear collection of villains and premium bang-bang, DOOM RPG strikes out into titular genre territory in earnest and this is most noticeable in how the game handles the twin cornerstones of the DOOM franchise – movement and combat.
In the case of the former, movement is no longer rooted in the free motion style of traversal that was championed in the 1993 original. but was instead replaced by a turn-based system that permitted the player to turn in 90-degree increments while they move from space to space. It’s a system that is miles away from the super frenetic shooter beats of the main series for sure, but in the case of DOOM’s new RPG digs, taming player agency in this way made a lot of sense from a pacing standpoint, too. Think traditional DOOM meets something like Dungeon Master or classic Bard’s Tale, and you get the idea.
Likewise, combat was similarly reimagined in this way. No longer permitting the player to freely put shotgun to face and pull the trigger at a split-second whim, in DOOM RPG players were instead required to face their grotesque enemies in turn-based combat scenarios where depending on the weapon and armor you were using at the time, the damage you would do to your foe and also receive from them would adjust accordingly.
Now, before you start vomiting in your mouth at the very thought of DOOM’s iconic gunplay being slowed down to an orderly plod, allow me to assuage you to the contrary – though turn-based, the execution of both movement and combat in DOOM RPG remains reassuringly rapid. Certainly, moving around the environment and vanquishing enemies with all manner of iconic DOOM weapons such as the shotgun, plasma gun, and even the mighty BFG9000 feels much swifter than you might expect, and manages to go some way to encapsulating the essence of id Software’s transformative shooter.
Other traditional elements of the core experience have also been tweaked and modified to fit this new DOOM, too. Take the enemies for example, though they’re a familiar bunch they are each color-coded to provide an indication of difficulty that scales as you press on through the game. While another neat wrinkle to the proceedings came in the form of a new mind-control dog collar, as it allows Doomguy to enthrall Hellhounds and direct them to attack his enemies with reckless abandon or defend him from incoming attack – it was almost like a not-shit, demonic Dead to Rights. Almost.
Anyhow, this being a genre effort, DOOM RPG wasn’t going to let you get away without doing RPG things and so players could expect to get stuck into a fair amount of talking to folks and using computer terminals to progress through the story. In fact, in many ways DOOM RPG’s story-driven exploratory beats somewhat mirror those seen in DOOM 3 – the difference, of course, being that when id Software released DOOM 3 in 2004, they forgot to append the ‘RPG’ bit on the end.
Ultimately a beautifully odd little curio, if anything the existence and subsequent modest success of DOOM RPG proved that there is still sufficient creative latitude in the DOOM setting to fashion games that exist outside its traditional FPS mold – so let’s try something like that again eh?
From child-eating witches to village-burning dragons, fairy tales have always had a foot in the horror genre. That’s why it makes sense that, for every The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia, there are also darker and more adult-oriented stories about magical worlds inhabited by ravenous monsters and cruel villains.
Funnily enough, these sinister tales were precisely the ones that I gravitated towards back when I was a kid, and I was reminded of this while watching Netflix’s recently released I Am Frankelda, Mexico’s first ever feature-length stop-motion animation and one hell of an entertaining parable about the intersection between fiction and reality.
In honor of this special kind of horror-adjacent fairy tale, today I’d like to share this list recommending six Dark Fantasy films that horror fans might enjoy.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be defining Dark Fantasy as fantastical stories that don’t shy away from the more macabre elements that fuel classic fairy tales. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own grim favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
I’m fascinated by bizarre attempts at blockbuster filmmaking – especially when the resulting movies are somehow still fun despite their corporate-mandated origins. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is precisely one of these strangely compelling studio projects, as this surprisingly successful action-thriller boasts a lot of heart (and tongue-in-cheek humor) for a CGI-heavy creature feature.
Directed by Dead Snow’s Tommy Wirkola, Witch Hunters re-frames the classic fairy tale as an origin story for a duo of badass monster-slayers. Of course, it’s the flick’s anachronistic aesthetic and overall visual flair that make it stand out from other action-horror endeavors from around the same time.
5. The Wolf House (2018)
Made in the tradition of faux cursed films in the same vein as Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made, the eerie backstory to 2018’s Chilean animated flick The Wolf House (La Casa Lobo in the original Spanish) already makes it a nightmarish experience before the flick even really begins.
After all, the movie is presented to us as a faux propaganda film produced by the leader of a death cult (heavily inspired by the real life Colonia Dignidad), with this hybrid animated feature using complex movie magic to simulate a single uninterrupted shot as it tells the story of a lazy young girl who runs away from an isolated colony and encounters a creepy old house in the woods.
4. The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Out of all the Monty Python alumni, Terry Gilliam has had the most interesting career outside of the original comedy group. From fascinating canceled projects (such as his scrapped adaptation of Watchmen) to dystopian parodies that feel more relevant by the minute (1985’s Brazil), even his “lesser” films are still intriguing in their own way.
2005’s The Brothers Grimm is one such project, with this peculiar movie attempting to combine the comedian-turned-filmmaker’s unique visual style with a more blockbuster-oriented plot reimagining the titular brothers as con-artists rather than mere writers. The end result isn’t exactly a masterpiece, but it’s still a legitimately fun ride with plenty of memorable monsters and wonderful performances by both the late, great Heath Ledger and Matt Damon.
3. Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010)
2010’s Dante’s Inferno game may have a reputation as something of an unapologetic God of War clone, but I’d argue that the now-obscure game was aesthetically unique enough to deserve a bigger fanbase. However, while the title remains trapped on the seventh console generation, its highly underrated anime adaptation is a lot easier to get a hold of!
Animated by 6 different studios in order to make the 9 circles of hell feel unique from each other, this may not be a completely faithful adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s poem, but it’s still one heck of a great (not to mention gory) time that I’d highly recommend to fans of Netflix’s take on Castlevania.
2. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
My personal favorite entry in the Underworld franchise, Rise of the Lycans, is a highly ambitious prequel that actually works better if you haven’t had the story spoiled to you by the previous Underworld films.
While the rest of the series features plenty of urban fantasy elements as the movies combine machine guns and modern environments with gothic storytelling, Patrick Tatopoulos’ prequel fully embraces its fantastical origins and tells a classic tale about a doomed romance between a werewolf and a vampire amid a medieval uprising.
And the best part is that we get a lot more Michael Sheen as the fan-favorite Lucian.
1. Solomon Kane (2011)
One of my personal favorite movies on this list, MJ Basset’s criminally underseen adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s other iconic warrior is thoroughly steeped in horror ambience and features plenty of memorable monsters. However, it’s also a classic origin story for a swashbuckling hero that wouldn’t feel out of place in a tabletop RPG.
While I’ve already written about how the film deftly combines both horror and fantasy elements without breaking the bank, I’ll never pass up an opportunity to recommend the bizarre movie where James Purefoy expertly plays a puritan John Wick.
It’s just too bad that we never got the other films in this intended trilogy.
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