Batman DOOM

At first glance, Batman Doom seems like a crusty '90s TC with some awkward, poorly-scaled sprites and bland, linear level designs. As the TC progresses, however, you begin to see how all these elements come together to make a really fun experience that's true to the Batman spirit. Each map is unique, with some of the standouts being a hospital that fills with poison gas, a house of horrors filled with death traps, and a chemical plant that ends with a massive explosion. The weak links were MAP07 and MAP08, as they featured cheap sniper enemies who could shoot you within a few tics placed far above your FOV. Be sure to use a compatible source port, or else you'll run into some serious bugs like enemies who throw molotov cocktails straight down at their feet.

To play this mapset properly on vanilla setting i use these files together:

batman.wad

vbatman.deh

original molotov behaviour

I was a kid of around 9 or 10 years old when i first saw images of Batman Doom on some magazines and i rememer thinking ''holly heck, its surelly looks amazing and a Doom clone of Batman surelly will kick-ass''.

But for some reason, when i finally got it on a bootleg wad CD-rom, i couldn't play it as intended as it was a break behaviour on vanilla, so i just played it on a source port, zdoom, like ten years after it original release.

Be it the port, be it i didn't get much into it at that time, but i didn't enjoyed it much and i quit playing it just when i reach map21.

Now, i replayed it completelly. And certainly, this mapset is pretty advanced for 1999.

Maps varies from being pretty short, to awe inspiring big. The texture work is amazing with tons of midtext usage for amazing effects.

Every map has it merits, so i will showcase them a little:

-map01: we start on a rooftop, as our dark night is shown on every issue cover since it first appeared. After that, we jump to the street level and after taking some thugs, we take a subway to a different part of the city. The subway effect is just amazing, making you really feel like taking a train. After that we take down the gang leader and the maps ends.

-map02: this is one of the most innovative things i've seen, especially made on a mapset from 1999, and this is non less than a Hub map. Yes, we see here the next objetive, take some health some ammo, a little secret, and then we go out onto the next crime thug on the run. Here start the episode of Killer Croc. More mapset needs something like this for awesome inmersion. Only other one i know that use something similar is Back To Saturn X made almost 13 years later, so yes, this was pretty advance for the time.

-map03: we go down the sewers following the trail of Killer Croc, and we found some thugs down there, too. Theare are a lot of neat tricks in here. Thugs coming out of water and spilling it around, flowing water sound, raising water, some of the best looking fake 3D bridges. But there are also a few flaws, like an unobtaibale secret near the start, and some bumpty walk through the sewer area.

-map04: is a Killer Croc's chase through some building complex and into the forest. Killer Croc fight is an outstanding moment, as it can really take the rocks from the ground and throw them to the player. Amazing dehacked work.

-map05 we returned to the batcave for the next mission briefing, and it seems Tally Man is on the loose.

-map06: we are now in Chinatown and we are able to look at first hand the warring conflict between two gangs groups. It ends with a colloseum fight with two gang leaders.

-map07: Tally Man is escaping on a helicopter and we need to find our way to chase him. There are a lot of verticallity in this map, and its quite awesome at the end how we board a helicpter and have to fight our way with a lot of minions on a really tight space.

-map08: we reach Tally Man's hideout an its non other than an abandoned factory. The map is big and there are a lot of interesting sights for sure. The combat is tighter and difficult here, too, with not only hitscanners all around, but also incoming projectiles from different sides. The fight with Tally Man at the end is just awesome.

-map09: we are now again at the batcave, and we notice that the Penguin has a big criminal output.

-map10: Oswal Cobblepot's casino is full of thigs and corrupt gaming, and after making some thugs speak, we found that the Penguin has taked hostage a whole hospital. We need to rescue them.

-map11: but it was a trap!!! There is gas leaking on the whole hospital, and there are automated bomb penguins setting everything on fire as we move on.

-map12: we finally found the trail of the penguin, but we reach to late to the rooftop, he already boarded the hellicopter. To our surprise, he challenge us to a fight. Exploding penguins around and a flying machine coming for us with only a thin spot to cover.

-map13: we return to the batcave after seizing the penguin, and we found that the Scarecrow is rampaging through the city tunnels.

-map14: we are on abridge leading to the tunnels of the city, and there are TNT bundles all around, destroying walls, and a lot of deadly traps taht can kill you on the spot. Scarecrow certainly is making his trail hard to follow.

-map15: we reached a house of fear, and the scarecrow is hiding on it, but he also take Mayor Kroll as hostage and we need to rescue him before its too late. There are really awesome dehacked trick here. Like firebreathing walls that hit really hard, and the final fight against the Scarecrow with the Mayor in the middle, if he dies we lose.

-map31: We defeated the Scarecrow but as soon as we are returning to the batcave there is call for help. The scarecrow escaped and is hiding on the city. We need to find him, but he is trickier than the last fight, he spreaded his confucing gas all around and we are under his illusion.

-map32: we fall under the illusion of the Scarecrow and we are now being attacked by strange creatures on a surrealistic landscape. Awesome sight for sure, but really short map.

-map16: thats it, we finally snaped from scarecrow trick and we follow his trail through a cornfield. But at last, we finally seized him.

-map17: we return to the batcave just to learn that Two-Face has breakout from Blackgate prison and we need to stop him.

-map18: difficult ramp from here and on, tighter spaces, island prison, new flamethrower enemy. The area is full of really neat sights, unfortunatelly we are late, Two-Face already escaped into the city.

-map19: We arrive too late to the city, Two-Face already robbed a bank and go away with all the money.

-map20: we are on the trail of Two-Face and we are up to catch him once for all. After fighting some thugs through the city, we caught Two-Face red handed and he face us with his rocket launcher. Fortunatelly, we made him explode himself.

-map21: the crime lords are getting tougher, and we found at the bat cave that the Joker is planning something big. We need to find out what.
-map22: gigantic abandoned factory map, awesome sights, marvelous details, and an ending that just made my jawd drop. At the end, we have to detonate a TNT to cross, but the chain reaction is bigger than we though and we need to reatreat hastly before the explosion kills us. Just amazing use of the IOS explosion effect.

-map23: the Joker seized a whole mansion and is having fun there, we need to stop him.

-map24: We found that the Joker has taken a whole theatre for his own amusement, and at the end we fight him but we are not able to seize him as a lot of thugs jump into the fight to stop us.

-map25: the Joker run away into the Gotham Cathedral, and at last we are able to seize him once and for all.

-map26: we return to the bat cave and found that Bane has breaked into an armory.

-map27: the armory hit was just a decoy, we are now to late for the bigger treat Bane is planning.

-map28: Bane break into the Arkham Asylum and let loose all the crime lords we captured, so we face Killer Croc, Two-Face and Tally Man on a rematch.

-map29: we continue throught all the destroyed corridors of Arkham Asylum and we fight the Penguin, Scarecrow, and The Joker once again.

-Map30: Bane break through our mansion, he knows who we are, and he challenge us to a final hand to hand combat. He is fierce and deadlier as a raging bull, but after a long fight, we defeat him.

From the description we can see that maps are mostly linear, but there are too many neat details and secrets that let us spend time exploring around that we doesn't feel at all the maps being linear.

In fact, there are a lot of interesting details to look into that we can lose a good chunck of time on just one map, even when it is kinda short. The sense of adventure on this mapset is something that must be experienced. All the changes make for a total inmersion like just a few other mapsets offer.

After all, this is an amazing Total Conversion, and it surelly deserves to be among the best outputs from this community. 

Done with these settings:

- GLBoom+ 2.5.1.4. complevel 9.

- Avenging Angel, aka skill 4.

- Continuous.

- Saves every 10 minutes or so.

- Also loaded the patch to avoid game breaks. 

A nice total conversion that almost felt like an entire different game. Cool maps, if a bit too linear, but this is old school so it's fine. Good enemies replacements, very cartoony, specially the bosses, Croc grabbing rocks and throwing them to me, Joker with a weak archie attack, Bane and his words "YOU ARE NOTHING" "YOU PATHETIC FOOL", rofl... Slum lords and Snipers were the most annoying ones, and Scarecrow as the hardest in my opinion, a revenant made of grain stalks.

I liked the sprites replacements, and the slot machine is a cool new sprite, always giving me something different. The weapons are not too convincing, for example the chaingun's replacement is a little underwhelming compared to the single batarangs, which are cool to use. Blastgun and Azarael's gloves are the best, the flamethrower and gas bombs only serve if the enemies are close, plus bombs are useless against tall actors. Oh and the chainsaw replacement is cool too. 

Some nasty traps including mines and silent robots. Secrets were ok and underwhelming, the ugly part is that a lot of them require wall hunting via hit or shots. Also, maybe because of playing on AA but, health is really tight in most maps, and ammo might become a problem in further maps for batarang starters. There are also some cool hacks, like the train section, explosives, a timing battle to reach the secret map, map 22 stood out with the finale.

Anyway, I liked this, pretty short, not amusing but interesting. It's a 7/10