"Batman Doom" is a video game released in 1999. It was created by ACE Team Software. It is a total conversion of Doom II replacing all the maps, enemies, and weapons to now have a batman theme.
I was originally looking for Star Wars Doom mods when I found this. I did find one, but all it did was change the looks of the maps, but all the maps were basically the same. "Batman Doom" is actually a fully made campaign, and possibly the only Batman first person shooter that I can think of. It is a 32 map set that do include two secret levels which are sadly very hard to access. (I still found them though.)
The development team went through a lot of trouble to turn Doom II into Gotham. They made everything look like a cityscape, and I think they did really good. I am pleasantly happy with how nice everything looked for a game made in '99. The only really odd thing was that the doors, which clearly had doorknobs on them, still moved up like the original Doom doors. You get used to it, but it was still silly. To be fair, there was no way to actually get a door to swing open in Doom... although they still somehow do it in the final level. I... I don't actually know how... but... they did... just that one time.
During the long campaign you go up against the likes of Killer Croc, Tally Man, Penguin, Scarecrow, Two-Face, the Joker, and finally there is a showdown with Bane after having to refight all the former bosses in quick succession. Oh, yes. And I know you are all asking, "Who the heck is Tally Man?!" Tally Man is a DC villain, but not really a Batman one. I think they got him mixed up with Victor Zsasz, who is basically the same type of villain. You can do your own research into it, but it did give me a giggle.
As far as character design, the enemies look like they were barrowing from the Animated Series, but Batman's design reminds me a bit too much of the Hanna-Barbara version. It all works through.
The weapons were all changed to be non-lethal types, although I personally feel that the tern "less lethal" should be used. Some of the weapons I got felt really overpowered. I certainly don't want to be shot by any of them. Some were a bit more obvious such as the taser which replaced the chainsaw. Oh, and I would be silly not to mention the most overpowered shotgun I have ever used in any game ever: The Blastgun. It fires a whopping 20 pellets with a huge radius. It takes a long time to reload, but if you get up close to someone and fire this, they are probably going down. I used this more than any other weapon.
In case you are wondering if Batman gets to do any fist fighting, you really don't do very much of it unless you wanna get hurt. Personally, I would have preferred the game drop you on a berserk item at the beginning of each level (and maybe remove the red filter) to give Batman a realistic melee prowess throughout the entire mission, but I guess this was a lost opportunity.
Each mission had you go back to the Batcave to see who the next villain was going to be. These maps were always small and had no enemies, but there was always a special secret hidden in each one that was fun to look for. It also gave you a chance to unwind a little between missions.
These missions are very well crafted and actually feel like you are in Batman situations. They captured the spirit of Batman extremely well. They do get better as the game goes on. I was not enjoying the first few maps as much, but that was mainly because I didn't have a very good arsenal yet. Once you get better weapons, the game all around picks up. Getting stuck with a limited supply of Batarangs kind of sucks.
All the enemy types were appropriate. They even gave the Penguin wind-up exploding penguins to fight. Cute! That said, I think the enemy list could have been a little better. The developers did simple enemy replacement, but they had to use entire enemy slots to replace with the bosses. That's too bad.
The two secret levels were based around the Scarecrow. You find the first one by finishing him off extremely quickly, which is not super intuitive, but it pales in comparison to the second secret map which has you trying to lead an enemy to walk to a certain spot to get a door to open. Without a guide, I would have just killed him. Once you get to that last secret level though, you won't be disappointed.
I think I've said enough. I do recommend "Batman Doom." It's well worth your time. You can find it in the regular mod list of the Doom+DoomII Remaster. And despite the weapons being non-lethal, it doesn't actually feel like it. In fact, one of them was an actual flamethrower. How is a flamethrower non-lethal? See what I'm getting at?
This blog was written on February 14, 2025. Happy Valentine's Day!
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