Pirate Doom is a Doom 2 mod featuring 18 maps and plenty of new goodies such as weapons, enemies and boss fights. You start off on your ship that has been boarded by the demons of hell and one of the first things you’ll notice about them is that they are all sporting pirate themed clothes such as the Imp having a nice hat and the zombie gunners having beards. The pirate theme goes deeper than just having new clothing for enemies and tweaks a ton of little things such as Imps throwing hatchets instead of fireballs and their hats gently floating down once you kill them. Zombie gunners now spout off one liners and say things like “Yar matey!” which does a ton to immerse you in the setting they were going for. Even the UI has been slightly tweaked to appear like wood-grain and Doomguy now has an eyepatch. There is a ton of attention put into the little things like that which really make it feel very different than anything experienced in Doom.
Weapons have all been changed to suit the theme and you now start with a flintlock as well as a cutlass. The flintlock is pretty much the pistol from the base game just featuring a new look and sound effects. Your cutlass is a really useful weapon for close range and you can swing it anytime with a simple mouse right click. It is a ton of fun dodging projectiles and slicing enemies up though ranged weaponry is still the main focus here. After a while of shooting and killing demonic pirates off of your ship you will come across your trusty shotgun which has a secondary attack allowing you to smack people with the butt of the rifle. The shotgun will be your go to weapon for the majority of the early sections until you come across a cannon. Yep, you can carry and run around with a cannon and it is exactly as powerful as it sounds and there is plenty of ammo for it scattered about so most enemies will stand no chance against you until you start reaching the end of the game. It gets really crazy toward the end and is quite a challenge.
Music has all been changed to suit the environment and fits in really will with whatever location you happen to be in such as in a sunken ship. It is a goofy game so walking around a creepy ghost filled sunken ship doesn’t require you to breathe. If that location sounds awesome, well it really is. Pretty much every map is amazing, featuring a bunch of cool lighting or wacky stuff such as a circus. The Doom engine is over two decades old and this manages to produce some breath taking locales which really say a lot for the talent of the team behind this mod. Level design is no slouch either. Every level has a great flow to them and are of decent length. You will still be hunting around for keycards like in Doom and they are well placed making it unlikely that you will ever get lost. All maps stray a bit from the pirate theme such as the aforementioned circus map and one that has you exploring a mysterious island full of tribal enemies that would like nothing more than to blow a dart into your good eye.
The last level features an actual boss fight and it will test your skills as a FPS player. The new weapons like the cannon and the dynamite flinger will be your best friends for this fight as he can take quite a bit of punishment. Health items have been changed into the holy pirate trinity of Rum, Vodka and Beer. In a neat change to the formula, you can shoot the liquor bottles which effectively destroys your health items so it may not be wise to go in chaingun blazing. There are so many of these small touches added to Pirate Doom which will constantly make you forget it is a Doom mod and not a standalone game. Even if you do not like pirates this is definitely a mod that should be played if you are a fan of first person shooters, though you will have to own Doom 2 to play it. New enemies, great levels and a ton of attention to detail makes Pirate Doom stand as one of the best Doom mods I have had the pleasure of playing.
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