Doomed

I watched the movie ‘Doom‘ at the weekend. I know – I should save statements like that for the nearest confession booth and expect at least a mild brainscrubbing. I claim no great worth for the movie as anything other than a CGI-daubed, gore-splattered gunfest. I did take great glee in the BFG1 and watched the 6-minute long first-person pseudo-single-take section of the film with considerable fan-boy excitement.

I would like to think that the general atmosphere of the end of the film – a claustrophobic trip through a locked down facility full of infected scientists hungry for blood ending with a showdown with the super-powered ex-commander of your team – could be translated over to my first PARANOIA mission, ‘Patch Job’. I would hope that over time my writing has improved – and that I still have a long way to go after PARANOIA: The Underplex – but my ‘Crash Priority‘ mission did leave a lot to be desired. I read the reviews – and, to be honest, when you’re sharing mission book space with the likes of ‘Stealth Train’, then what hope do you have? I would dearly like to try again from scratch and make it more memorable – and could probably take it in different directions.

A riff on the ‘Doom‘ ending would certainly be one direction. The Troubleshooters have been sent to repair the systems in the underground station and find what at first seem to be ordinary citizens and tech crews trapped down there. However, Rex-I’s condition has spread – like the Black Oil from ‘The X-Files‘ or some similar horror film parasitic invader – and the ordinary citizen start turning against – and ultimately attack – the characters. You need to add a few more corridors, ducts and maintenance gantries to offer tantilising options to reaching the goal, and the chance injury of the players to plant the seed of uncertainty about infection within the team… Then, end the whole thing with a Rex-I who fights like The Rock and looks like a metallic Auric Goldfinger.

Well… it works for me.

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