Brutal DOOM is good!

[BIL]

No doubt this is where Steakfries got his surname

When Barry dies and gets a Final Blast, he will tense up while flying, even though he is dead. This may hint that he is in fact not dead. However, once he lands and slides, he will appear limp again.

Steakfries sounds like he'd be right at home!

Gave v20b a quick spin via my home-modded UDE4 ("Thy Balls Contused"). As always with BD, several steps forward, a few sideways and a few back! And by back I mean bugs :[ Still, rovely overall.

Best new thing: chainsaw finally has a command swing on alt fire. ITS GREAT KIDS! exactly the shearing arc motion I always wanted! You can float like teh bee with a glancing nip ("OURUU!"), or go balls-deep for the serious lovin (*BRAWRWWWARRRARRR* *SPLAT*). Not even Barry can handle that but watch yo back while carving up fuckers! Good stuff.

Also, the new Quick Kick is great. Now the weapon will scoot over to the side while the boot lashes out. Much snappier, rove it!

Zombie and imp corpses are once again hyperdestructible. No corpse is safe!

Worst new thing: v20's lovely punch combos are all cocked up and random now, at least it seems. Eh. On balance I'll take the chainsaw. Wunna deez days I'm gonna Frankenstein together a custom build with all my favourite stuff.

Bug: plasma rifle shots don't hurt splodin barrels, only the splash damage from ground/wall will blow 'em. Doh! Oh wellz.

The touted performance upgrade does seem noticeable on my wheezing potato - E4M9's opening is usually a bit of a slideshow, but not nao.

[soprano1]

http://www.destructoid.com/john-romero- ... 4701.phtml

Wonder how it looks in BDOOM.

[KennyMan666]

I played Romero's map. It's pretty good, though brutal at the start - I don't really think it was designed to be pistol started. Died a bunch before I realized there was a shotgun in the first room.

Also lol that gif in the first post makes me understand instantly why Brutal Doom has the reputation it has and why it's pure dreck.

[BIL]

And ass-hurt over BD makes me LOL too! Everyone's a winner. ;3

Sorry to offend for real, I was just mucking about with CVARs one day and thought it looked funny. First thing I do is disable taunts, personally. Beneath the silly gore/comic material BD isn't "dreck" in the least. (you can even use CVARs to reinstate the boring vanilla monsters and/or weapons!)

[Obscura]

KennyMan is right, though -- Brutal Doom is garbage. Completely ruins the weapon balance and enemy balance of the best FPS ever, and turns it into a generic hitscan-fest.

[BIL]

Do explain the (to borrow some of you chaps' hyperbole a sec) mythically perfect enemy balance of the vanilla DOOM games. Honest question, because I've gone back to them and felt bad for the poor useless arthritic things. I'd rather everything have a decent shot at killing the player than nothing.

Here are my quick observations of vanilla monsters. I may be wrong! I dunno, I just kill these things I don't analyse them in a secret lab.

Rifle/SG/Chaingun = useless alone. worse than useless in packs.
Imp = lmao
Demon = an unarmed monster to pick apart at range, oh noes.
Spectre = a poorly camouflaged unarmed monster to pick apart at range, oh noes.
Lost Soul = a slightly more insistent unarmed monster, A for effort.
Caco = a flying Imp, oh noes.
Baron = a damage-sponging Imp, oh noes.
Knight = an Imp, oh noes.
Cyberdemon = its time to circle strafe.
Spider = its time to circle strafe.

DOOM 2 originals = generally excellent! BD gives them a number of nasty upgrades to ensure they still equal or surpass the now not useless D1 set. Not seeing a problem.

Don't get me wrong, I do get why vanilla monsters are needed in custom maps. They're clapped-out in the original games though.

And If you're getting hitscanned, you need to take cover. Technically hitscan doesn't exist anymore in BD, though as usual, you can pick/choose via CVAR.

[qmish]

Brutal doom turns doom in tactical shooter like SWAT 3 or Rainbow Six

of course, if you play on highest difficulties

[BIL]

Black Metal 4 Life motherfuckers. Unless it's a WAD you've never beaten, in which case that's a very bad idea and you should play UV instead. Just like with vanilla Nightmare!

And BD doesn't change DOOM into anything. In vanilla gunners will prey on exposed players with their fast, weak attacks. Heavier attacks can be evaded while returning fire. BD's the same, only gunners are competent enough that ignoring them has consequences.

[Obscura]

Do explain the enemy balance of the vanilla DOOM games. Honest question, because I've gone back to them and felt bad for the poor useless arthritic things. I'd rather everything have a decent shot at killing the player than nothing.

The vanilla Doom games, aside from Plutonia, are easy, but that's because of their level design rather than the enemy balance.

That said, most people who are Brutal Doom afficianados have never played the game the intended way. Have you ever played it in a sourceport that properly replicates the original behavior (prboom-plus or Chocolate Doom), pistol starting every level, and not using saves (just hit the "use" key to start the level over with just your pistol on death)? If not, you've never played the game the way it was intended, and have only, in effect, credit-fed your way through it.

With that said, it's probably easier to explain it to you by just pointing you at pwads you should play. So, I'll do that instead. All of what I will mention here should be played in prboom-plus, with the Doom2 iwad, with pistol-starts and no mid-level saves, in complevel 9 unless otherwise specified. If you're not familiar with your command-line Doom, that means you need to launch the wads like this:
prboom-plus -iwad doom2.wad -file wadname.wad -complevel 9

Impure Offering Single map, made by yours truly, plays in the map 20 slot, also requires cc4-tex.wad, which you can get here. Proper command line for this is:
prboom-plus -iwad Doom2.wad -file ImpOffer.wad cc4-tex.wad -complevel 9

Resurgence Full megawad. If you want to skip the warm-up maps and just jump straight into the fire, feel free to idclev 20.

Grime. Single map, and one of the best ever. Guaranteed to leave a scar on your balls if played on UV difficulty.

Sunlust. Gorgeous and vicious megawad. If you just want to die as fast as possible, you can skip to map 15.

Scythe 2. A classic megawad, and one of the most influential wads ever. If you want to skip the foreplay, feel free to skip to map 23, which is guaranteed to kick your ass. This one should be played in -complevel 2 instead of -complevel 9.

That should keep you busy for a while. Have fun!

[BIL]

Thanks for all the links! I loved Scythe but never did catch up with the second, good to see it with a solid endorsement.

The vanilla Doom games, aside from Plutonia, are easy, but that's because of their level design rather than the enemy balance.

Aha, that does explain things. I do love BDOOM, but any endorsement is strictly in the context of the retail WADs and the jolt of life it gives their now-tired action.

As far as the 20+ years of original content, yeah, I'm sure BD is unneeded at best and hot garbage at worst. If I were to use it in an unfamiliar custom map, it'd have to be one specifically designed for it. Not that I play many custom maps to start with! (Scythe was the last, years ago)

That said, most people who are Brutal Doom afficianados have never played the game the intended way. Have you ever played it in a sourceport that properly replicates the original behavior (prboom-plus or Chocolate Doom), pistol starting every level, and not using saves (just hit the "use" key to start the level over with just your pistol on death)? If not, you've never played the game the way it was intended, and have only, in effect, credit-fed your way through it.

I'm actually more familiar with original WADs in DOS than anything more recent, haha. Having said that I always equated "serious" play with no saves outside of level starts, and indeed thought myself right hardcore for it compared to them quicksaving chumps.

I'm sure that'd make things more interesting, but I'm more a fan of single-sessioning the retail episodes/WADs and starting over on death (to borrow another bit of arcade custom). I might've thought differently had id not ditched Wolf3D's "Lives" count. That one I always pistol-start after a death mid-episode.

[Obscura]

The thing about not pistol-starting the classic Doom maps is that, according to Sandy Petersen, they were explicitly balanced around pistol starts. It really shows, too; a lot of maps that make no sense at all with carryovers suddenly gain new life when you have to hunt for guns. E3M3, for instance, is a big nothing when you come in with guns, but it's a lot more exciting when you have to spend the first half of the level trying to evade monsters because you don't have a way of fighting them, and the Mastermind in E3M8 is more worthy of his station as "final boss" when you have to make desperate runs around the outside for cells, soaking bullets all the while, instead of just bringing in a BFG and wasting him in two shots (it's still not hard, but it's tougher than E2M8 for certain).

Scythe 2 isn't really much like Scythe; it plays more like "Alien Vendetta on steroids". There was a third, unfinished entry in the series, Scythe X, but it sadly wasn't very good.

EDIT: Also, let me know how you do with Impure Offering. I'm wondering if I'll add a second shmups farm member to the list of those who gave up on it, hehe. If you want a map where the default properties of Doom monsters are being used to tailor them to fill very specific niches, it's certainly a great example when played on UV!

[Ed Oscuro]

I agree that DOOM plays better when you handicap yourself somehow, but needlessly dying is a major disincentive for players who take pride in playing well. Pistol starts are the best handicap in DOOM, but it doesn't handle them as well as it could. Despite every level being playable from a pistol start - and from a pistol start with no secrets - the game design continually reinforces the bonuses given by secrets and hoarding items from the end of a stage, and of course it frames a pistol start as a punishment for suckers (and, indeed, no great player is dying on Ultraviolence to begin with, unless you're messing around with a difficult set of rules like Tyson). So, despite the good of a pistol start, the game isn't "designed" to be played that way. Petersen saw the good of pistol starts, but in his 10 weeks at iD before the DOOM release nothing changed in how the engine handled the player dying - and, lo and behold, DOOM II shipped with a ton of his maps, but there still wasn't a sensible pistol start mechanic. I might treat the idea of pistol starts being preferred more seriously if the game actively promoted pistol starts beyond "you got killed because you suck, so play with a pistol now." If the tally screen mentioned it, or if there were an easy pride-preserving way of starting with pistol only, then sure.

It's a serious misunderstanding of the game's design to talk about an "intended" way to play to begin with, just as it would be to say that hitting par time is "intended" or that 100% completion is intended - you can't achieve a fastest time and 100% secrets at the same time (par time with 100% secrets should be achievable in some levels, but certainly not all). DOOM is intended to be replayable according to a variety of different ways of playing, and the level tally screen gives a perfect incentive to aim for one goal or another. Pistol starts don't get any special treatment here, which is actually rather odd in hindsight.

DOOM's handling of pistol starts is one of the areas where the game design is close to being successful, but doesn't quite get there. In normal gameplay, players who are getting killed typically need the hand-holding of starting again with their original level loadout, rather than a pistol start. The same is true of the save system, put in at great expense by iD at a time when it was still a major selling point and rare to find in many games. It's mainly a convenience for players, and the fact that it can be abused didn't dissuade iD from putting it in.

Pistol starts also don't do much to alter the final difficulty of a stage. Ammo conservation will be more of an issue, and powerup spheres make more sense, but pretty soon you're tossed some toys to deal with bigger threats, and it's back to playing easy Ultraviolence again (I typically don't ever use anything more powerful than the shotgun and chaingun for normal enemies, as anything more is typically overkill). Additionally, episodes have structure too, and it's not an accident that you tend not to get the BFG at the beginning of the first level. But even then you don't usually need these toys except when they're out in the open.

DOOM's design in general makes more sense if you remember some of the history of its design:

- John Romero has always emphasized par time in his discussions of the game design as an important design element.
- The dismissive treatment of players who die is somewhat in line with the old iD / Apogee Software tradition of games getting easier the further along you go, and of course the DOOM-era "Romero attitude"
- It's very likely the early game design explicitly denied pistol starts, as Tom Hall's early game design seems to have called for re-exploration of maps in the vein of Blake Stone, which would make pistol starts on dying less sensible (indeed, Blake Stone forbids pistol starts on death, and it would be unplayable with them).
- Secret hunting is more or less a holdover from the old days of 2D iD / Apogee titles, and is just there to engage the inner squirrel in players. These are also naturally completely superfluous to "good game play" but even to this day players will bitch mightily if a level level doesn't include them, no matter that they don't help game balance.

Also, Nightmare mode.

[Obscura]

or if there were an easy pride-preserving way of starting with pistol only, then sure.

Hit the Home key; it'll immediately restart the level in a "fresh" state. Sadly, ZDoom doesn't replicate this behavior.

Even if DOOM was intended to be played from a pistol start, it's a serious misunderstanding of the game's design to promote pistol starts as the "intended" way to play

Petersen has said on multiple occasions that he only designed his levels with pistol start in mind, and didn't even consider continuous play.

(Links: http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Pistol_start and https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ ... doom_call/ )

As an important aside, I don't think that pistol starts do much to alter the difficulty of a stage.

Well, that's just dumb. Try playing Map 29 in Doom 2 from a pistol start (especially if you don't find any secrets), and compare that to playing it with an IDFA at the start to have the weapons you'd have carried in. It's a world of difference.

Ammo conservation will be more of an issue, but pretty soon you're tossed some toys to deal with bigger threats. Additionally, episodes have structure too, and it's not an accident that you tend not to get the BFG at the beginning of the first level.

The stock levels are actually really bad about giving you weapons in early levels that break later ones. The BFGs in E3 and the plasma rifles in E2 come to mind instantly.

- Secret hunting is more or less a holdover from the old days of 2D iD / Apogee titles, and is just there to engage the inner squirrel in players.
- John Romero has always emphasized par time and secrets in his discussion of the game design as something worthwhile.

These two points seem to contradict each other.

Also, Nightmare mode.

Was never intended to actually be playable, and wasn't in the original version.

[Ed Oscuro]

Right, good points all, but you're still missing the bigger point; DOOM is Romero's baby, not Petersen's. Petersen was only there for 10 weeks before the original DOOM release, but he still didn't get the engine changed the very slight amount it would have needed in time for DOOM II.

And even Petersen isn't the hardcore pistol start afficionado you're painting him to be - if that was the case there wouldn't be freebies for secret hunters. The essence of secret hunting in DOOM is playing a minigame which only makes games easier and take longer - but they're intended to be in the game. The entire idea of secrets is anathema to preserving the difficulty of a pistol start, as is the idea of episodic progression.

Yeah, I know that some of these points don't work well together - like the game itself. That's the entire point, dude. Not every game is designed like it should have been.

That said though I don't want to quarrel with the major point you're trying to make - that starting with a pistol is often the most fun way of playing, and that level designers should have more total control over your loadout. That is obvious stuff in retrospect - since DOOM most games have been designed with the assumption that by a certain point a player will have certain equipment (like DOOM), and this is why Half-Life and Half-Life 2 strip your weapons away at certain points.

[BIL]

This discussion brings to mind Thy Flesh Consumed, which I was single-sessioning via BDOOM/Black Metal quite compulsively last year. There's a really nice spacing of armours and plasma/minigun ammo throughout the first six maps, creating an arcadey pressure in the leadup to and during E4M6. Found an excellent continuity in budgeting out minigun/plasma rifle rampages, and a real urgency to stretch armours to the breaking point via topup bonuses. And of course a stupid mistake could quickly bring the whole affair crashing down in flames. Was enjoying whittling my clear time down... I don't know how deliberate that was, but it worked great for me.

I don't think even pistol start would stop it from falling apart in M7 and M8 though, both of which suddenly bequeath tons of resources and suffer from the original game's typically weak endbosses.

Freedom is good I suppose. I had a buddy who'd quicksave after literally every kill in Plutonia, reasoning that DII monsters never dropping ammo was mean. The saying about people secretly enjoying the inferiority of their best friends never rang so sneeringly true!

[Obscura]

Rifle/SG/Chaingun = useless alone. worse than useless in packs.
Imp = lmao
Demon = an unarmed monster to pick apart at range, oh noes.
Spectre = a poorly camouflaged unarmed monster to pick apart at range, oh noes.
Lost Soul = a slightly more insistent unarmed monster, A for effort.
Caco = a flying Imp, oh noes.
Baron = a damage-sponging Imp, oh noes.
Knight = an Imp, oh noes.
Cyberdemon = its time to circle strafe.
Spider = its time to circle strafe.

DOOM 2 originals = generally excellent! BD gives them a number of nasty upgrades to ensure they still equal or surpass the now not useless D1 set. Not seeing a problem.

Since you edited this in:

Zombieman -- usually there when you need something that's not a threat but actively takes up space. Think of him as a "meat wall", generally.
Sergeant -- high burst damage and threat at close ranges, priority target in such situations. Also, frequently used just as a way of giving the player some ammo.
Chaingunner -- high priority target, area denial. When you have some of these guys, they either have to be the top priority (useful for giving enemies such as PEs or Viles time to work their magic), or they're flat-out area denial, saying "you can't come to this area without getting shredded, stay behind cover".
Imp -- need limited space to create pressure, but in tight spaces with tightly controlled weapons/ammo, they get the job done. Also, good for "gradual attrition" sniping, and also great for keeping that "a body hits the floor every few seconds" pace going.
Pinkie -- runs interference on player movement, and is reasonably beefy. Using a nice, thick horde of them to screw up player movement around Viles or Cybs is a classic.
Spectre -- if you're playing in GL ports, these guys are easier to see than they are on an authentic renderer. They definitely catch people out in classic video settings. Particularly fun to use sneakily in levels that prioritize rocket-launcher action.
Cacodemons -- pinkies that fly and shoot fireballs, but even beefier. They also don't work correctly in GZDoom, because in that port you can just run under them lol. Good for limiting a player's movement and smothering him. Flight means that they can follow a player around well in a map that's designed for them; as such, limiting ammo tightly and unleashing a Cacoswarm is a great way to bully a player around a map, and can also lead to ambushes from unexpected angles.
Baron/HK -- the nobility is threatening in two situations. One is when used in very tight areas; having an advancing Baron or three in a hallway that's tight enough that you can't slip past them is a classic fight for a reason. The other is when you need to conserve ammo; it's tricky to melee more than one of them at once, and the punishment for fucking it up is high (this is a mainstay of the Chord series).
Cyberdemon -- sometimes placed as a tool for the player to use (infighting ahoy!). Threatening in tight spaces where you can't really get away from a wall, because of their splash; also threatening in hallways, where circle-strafing isn't an option (think about that one at the end of the hallway in Plutonia map 32 for a great example). Great for times when the player is likely to be distracted by other threats. Particularly hilarious when teamed with Arch-Viles; the Vile reduces your movement area to nearly nil (gotta stay behind that pillar!), then the Cyb fills that area with a rocket.
The Spider Mastermind is legitimately really hard to use well, and doesn't fill much of a niche, but you can't circle strafe him in vanilla -- he's a hitscan. Unless you meant "arachnotron" by "spider", in which case, anyone who just dumps them in the middle of a field to get strafed is doing it entirely wrong.

The higher DPS inherent to Brutal Doom really screws over the Doom 2 squad. Also, the changed Revenant missiles don't really fill the same role; they're not as good as pushing a player out out of cover into the maw of a waiting Vile/Arachnotron/Chaingunner brigade.

[BIL]

All useful assets in a clever mapper's hands, I've no doubt (as you say, vanilla retail maps generally aren't clever about their enemies). Totally forgot about DOS Spider's hitscan.

I actually prefer being able to move under Cacos in source ports - getting blocked by one floating hundreds of feet overhead always felt incredibly irritating and artificial in DOS. Slippery slope, I know! I hate vanilla Wolf3D's doors that enemies can insta-kill you through the instant they start opening, too.

[BrianC]

I decided to look up a couple of the Doom levels since they sounded awesome and found out I already have both Scythe levels. I really need to get back in to playing Doom. I now have the latest versions of prBoom-plus and Chocolate Doom, as well.

I should try that one Wolf3D source port. I like how Wolf3D runs in DOS Box. Disappointing how the version that comes with the Steam version is outdated, but it wasn't hard to set it up in D-Fend Reloaded with a the latest DOS Box. Too bad DOS Box hasn't officially updated since 0.74.

[qmish]

Damn shmuppers, complaining about credit feeding even in Doom thread.

[Squire Grooktook]

Had a sudden urge to play Doom today, and after a few "credits" of Doom 1 and 2, I decided to finally give Brutal Doom a try.

Overall, pretty good. I like the aesthetics. I like the kick. I REALLY like the new melee attack on imps. So far I liked the campaign the official download came with (Hell On Mars). Haven't had a chance to learn the other in's and outs of the mod yet, though.

Overall really liked it, looking forward to playing it some more.

Dunno what Obscura means by it making Doom more of a "hitscan" fest. Does the Hell on Mars use too many zombie soldiers? Does he mean the imps (dodgeable on reaction) melee attack? Dunno. Too early to make an ultimate judgement on my part, but it's good fun so far, and I haven't noticed anything mood breaking.

Of course, I'm a very casual and not too good Doom player, so maybe the hardcore analysis is not for me. It's funny for me to hear people talk about OG Doom being easy, when I struggle with 3 imps on Hurt Me Plenty in the og games. Only ever cleared Doom 1 once lol. So this is a casual perspective at best.

[Wooph]

Is there a way to play Brutal Doom without the reloading feature?.

[BIL]

I vaguely recall that being possible in earlier versions via Brutal DOOM Mutators, but I never tinkered with those myself and from a glance at the ModDB page they seem to be missing... sorry! I'm not online much atm due to a busted PC, but I'll have a look about.

[Wooph]

The Doom 2016 weapons Addon for Brutal Doom was just released. There's no reloading here so I'm satisfied with this.

[Blinge]

Just finished Brutal Doom 1's original 4 campaigns on ultra violence. Now I feel like a badassssss

Christ the Romero levels were tough. especially as I started M2 / perfect hatred with precisely 0 ammo.

[soprano1]

Necrobump to show the AVGN playing Chex Quest (and liking it), then ending the episode playing it the Brutal DOOM mod, fucking hell :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg0y9i5E7nY
Skip to 14:06 for the mod part.

[BIL]

A rong, rong time ago~

Given further range, the ability to shield and maybe a selection of sweep/overhead/stab, this approach would work great with a really nice broadsword. Maybe a potential BHexen would be more interesting than I'd thought.

I'm talking swords that spill a slaughterhouse's worth of guts on the floor with one stroke and flesh-broiling magicks that cauterise assholes shut. I want to launch an incandescent sphere of cracking hellborn death at a rampaging mob and have only red mist, raining entrails and the odd screaming double amputee left in its wake, BDBFG-style. Then go to work on those unlucky sods with BEEFCAEKORIZOR, my bastard zweihander broadsword.

edit: Needless 2 Say monsters would need a BD kick up the ass too! BD wouldn't be nearly as good without the hyper-bloodthirsty new monster routines.

I got wet.

Oh BTW this finally happened The sword at least!

Chapter 1 "INFILTRATE THE CASTLE DE MUERTE USING STEALTH"

Spoiler

OFFICIAL MANGA TIE-IN

Spoiler

(type "give dsweap" in console)

Was actually dicking about with a custom Berserk map a few months ago, haha (that's it in the gif, the front gate of the dread... CASTLE DE MUERTE ).

Might finish it now I've got a bit of free time. Duelling Barries is fun! Hell, so is duelling Cyberdemons! Really nice finesse touch to it. Sends out short-ranged multi-hit arcs biased to the player's right (and left, on followup swing) - use IDDTx3 map cheat to see. Meaty attack will oneshot anything up to Barry, even a glancing blow can take the fucker's head off. Use crouch to sneak under projectiles kind of like in the manga! (CONVICTION/CHAPTER OF THE BINDING CHAIN)

He says it's just a joke weapon, but it's a great start. Would like an overhead chop on alt fire ala the Chainsaw. And perhaps combined [shield + charge attack] if button is held. Can already use RAWKETS and GRENADES for even more Guts cosplay cred!

[drauch]

Speaking of, he just announced a new Vietnam mod, Vietdoom. I'm a huge fan of the ultra janky NAM, which this uses plenty of assets from, so I'm mega pumped.

[Dochartaigh]

I didn't know there was a brutal doom topic here, might as well ask my question since I just installed it last week on my Win10 computer:

Is there any fix for the sound? I have to turn it off then back on to make it work. Also sometimes cuts out mid-game as well.

There's no 1920x1080 resolution for these either, right? Playing on a 4K TV and closest 16:9 resolution I saw was 720p (or something like XXXX by 720).



I'm using the most recent (yet still old) v21 build from here: https://www.moddb.com/mods/brutal-doom/ ... m-v21-beta

Base program is this one since I didn't know how to build all the HD packs and such myself: https://www.moddb.com/mods/brutal-doom/ ... d-build-v2

^^ both are by the original creator Sergeant_Mark_IV, uploaded right around the same time, and I believe are the newest. (don't know if there's better mods/hacks/textures out there now, since this is from 2015)

[BIL]

Speaking of, he just announced a new Vietnam mod, Vietdoom. I'm a huge fan of the ultra janky NAM, which this uses plenty of assets from, so I'm mega pumped.

Ohshi - might be time for a BWADDOCK status mugshot! :O

Is there any fix for the sound? I have to turn it off then back on to make it work. Also sometimes cuts out mid-game as well.

Sorry, borderline PC-illiterate here. BDv21 seems to behave on my Windows 10 machine, but I couldn't say why. Have you looked into the Compatibility Options menu?

[God]

Has anyone figured out how to bash an imp's head against the wall like in the trailer for v21?

And Romero has put out an episode 5 for Doom. It's called Sigil and has a Buckethead soundtrack.