"Yes, you can remake DOOM with only text character. No, not in the way as say, that Quake Text-only remake was, but in the traditional top-down style. And guess what is the scariest part in this whole thing (besides the demons)? It actually works. It works so well that it nearly rivals the original game itself, in my honest opinion. Although I never was huge fan of DOOM so...

How does the DOOM: RL differ from the original? Most noticeable difference is that you have Traits. Okay, apparently we have a lightweight RPG system in place. A little character development hasn't ever hurt anyone. They range from "Ironman" to such traits like "Hellrunner" and "Son of a gun", "Reloader"... Et cetera. They just give bonuses to your hitpoints, damage, body armor, accuracy and reloading time and various other things. The damage is determined somewhat randomly, for example double-barreled shotgun is (6d3)x2, or roll 12 three-sided dices and see how much you got. Even the path of fire is randomized, you can accidentally blow up something totally different than that ugly ex-human sergeant who was waving that ugly shotgun at you moment ago.

In a true roguelike fashion, the dungeons are randomized. Except for few of course, but mostly it's random. You have these levers, doors and bonus items placed at random locations, but be vary about the levers. They can turn the floor into acid or spawn few big hellknights to ruin your day if you happen to be jinxed. Basically, what you would except from doom is here. Except not the keycards, thanks developers! That was considerate thing to do. Cough, anyway. You also have these stairs of course, to take you into various levels inside the Phobos base. You also have red stairs, that take you to special locations... Hell's Arena for example, strips you away from all your guns and armor and pits you against hordes of enemies in a vain attempt of collecting the reward. When you die, which happens quite often it seems, your poor marine's score is put on highscore table. And if you happen to beat the game, I tip my (fur)hat at you.

I think I already mentioned the gore... Yes, this game has it. In the form of red %'s, #'s, and "'s. The blood actually spurts from the poor zombies when you fire that chaingun at them! Rip and tear, says the Doom comic!

To sum up, I really like this roguelike. I'm not great fan of them, I usually find them too complex and time-consuming to truly enjoy them, but this one is both simple and good timewaster in the morning while you're waiting for that coffee. Except that you might get stuck in the front of the screen, waving your hands in terror as that lever just summoned huge amount of Demons behind your back and you don't have any medpaks left, and that dratty shotgun is out of ammo again..."

Note: The download here is the Windows version - you can get the DOS version from the official website.