# improving the brutalist mytho-psychology of doom 4 e3 > (..) an installation of non-organic often impossible smells - "oxygen flash of metal fire energy washing drying in the wind mineral carbon sand dunes nail polish cellulose pure air of the high mountains ultimate fusion burnt rubber flaming rock" > ~ the smell of doom: of the use of artistic labels in perfumery consider that with "doom 4 (e3)" the once awesomely dark (psychic) landscape of the original now feels slightly too generic and unmemorable to improve doom as it currently stands is to understand its awesomely brutalist mytho-psychology (ie. how its ancient mythic landscapes directly inform the psychology of the player as the main character) **a retro-spective** "oldskool doom" had a strongly defined sense of itself - it was very much "its own thing." players suddenly found themselves somewhere they could not account for using traditional rationality models: doom was a nightmarish fever dream with its own cryptic ill-logic terribly alive with exacting baroque angular menace perhaps it wasn't just the immediacy of the violence of teh garme that provoked the early controversies surrounding it but the fact its very look and 'garmefeel' were disconcerting disorienting - "uncanny" in the freudian sense despite the wickedly advanced lighting the landscape of "new doom" is however no longer enough of a character - does not have much character - and feels a mere convenient backdrop that ticks off the required boxes (mainly "industrial.") in this regard it could be set anywhere // video here even the trailer logo has been bleached as if to subconsciously reflect a slightly more direction-less and flavourless 'design by committee' feel **feeling doomed** to move through oldskool doom was to move through an elaborately signaled gothic landscape - a grand occult theatre of heavy (/handed) teenage symbolist rock-power drama. let's rock! gliding smoothly through new doom however feels a little too much like pushing an armored shopping cart through a sprawling mall of mildly antagonistic fellow shoppers double-jumping around ala unreal tournament while hoovering up mario-style powerups the strong sense of warped style and horrifying place of oldskool doom is here only given a perfunctory nod. even new doom's ultra-gory finishing moves somehow seem a parody of the ambient dread offered by the original; od felt genuinely odd nd feels.. ok nothing unexpected or bizarre how to improve / tweak new doom in this regard **+** make mars a living machine for eating souls - eg. casually have people fall from the ceiling into the molten steel vats **+** more hanging chains **+** adjust the lighting to enhance the character of place (ie. improve chiaroscuro) **+** doom is about archetypal architectures; consider this research base church on mars as the anti-body of science what new doom might get right in an endlessly masturbatory age of apparently limitless 'self(tm) improvement' it is the very body of doom guy which offers the most potential in terms of expressing truer doom-like narrative and meaningfulness there is a need to make ir a fleshy expression of the ontological terror of the lone individual thrust into a darkly horrifying situation against impossible odds - yet armed with extreme toughness a thick necked indomitable muscularity and an iron hard mental will - to terminate with extreme prejudice **how to improve new doom in this regard** **+** an industrial hell is full of crushingly heavy objects; up the feeling of weight and inertia in the player (eg. how ey lands) in the monsters and in the percussive force of the impact of the awesome weapons **+** allow the player to be knocked right over or through the air smashing against the walls **+** use the weighty 'reality shaking' of the bfg9000 as a design metaphor **+** allow our anti-hero to permanently don a demonic berserk helmet (*metalloclang!!*) see also: gloom garme // republic of bob