“Total Chaos: Director’s Cut” is one of the scariest and most innovative horror experiences in recent years. It’s a total-conversion mod for “Doom II” by Sam “wadaholic” Prebble that crawled into the limelight with the help of online forums and YouTuber Pyrocynical.
You play as a coast guard that intercepts an S.O.S. one day and then gets shipwrecked at its origin: an island mining colony named Fort Oasis. With no alternative, you embark on your journey guided by the distress caller’s transmissions. Unbeknownst to you, the number of people needing rescue went from one to two.
Fort Oasis is one of the most atmospheric settings since “Silent Hill.” The island combines concrete jungles and townlike buildings dipped in gloomy grayness. There are piles of debris everywhere along with silence that’s deafening enough to kill a man.
Judging from all the signs that read “GET HELP,” nobody will save you but yourself.
It’s evident that “Total Chaos” wants you to wallow in desperation because rarely do you find a campaign-based game with survival mechanics besides health. Additionally, there’s a hunger meter, radiation meter, and meter for if/how much you’re bleeding.
Stamina is tricky to utilize. Run dry, and you’ll have no way to run or fight, which happens commonly because of how active you’ll be.
You’re able to grab and store items in your inventory to tend to these factors, although some have negative effects. Something like a stimpack will grant health but raise hunger and cause bleeding for a second.
The inventory itself is challenging to manage. You’ll encumber yourself before you know it, requiring you to choose what to keep based on how many squares an item occupies and its numerical weight.
For example is the mobile gas cooker which cooks rotten or raw food, makes the food more filling, and gives stamina bonuses. Its only downside is its absurd weight.
The only thing that matters is survival. “Total Chaos” is filled to the brim with moments that catch you off guard when you least expect it. What helps dread settle in is the silence, distant crying, and loneliness.
Earlier on, you have the option to explore a seemingly harmless graveyard, but you’re told via radio there is nothing there and to proceed. By choosing to enter the graveyard anyway, there is food, crafting materials, and a powerful handgun to find.
This is rewarding, but obtaining these proves difficult once you realize there’s an invisible foe that appears for a millisecond while inflicting damage and making your vision flash red.
It’s your choice about how to deal with situations “Total Chaos” drops you into. Falling into a den of giant hibernating arachnids, should you slowly kill them one by one or risk waking them by running straight for the exit?
Reading a map of a forest, should you just head straight for the objective or take a detour and risk looting an abandoned warehouse after what you’ve been through?
Other times, you’re forced to face danger head-on. You wish there was a way to avoid monsters like slender black beings that move when you lose eye contact, but, unfortunately, all you can do is run.
“Total Chaos” constantly crafts intrigue, but not much with its story. The narrative is discovered across notes and the mysterious distress caller’s dialogue.
In its second half, the game rams so many obvious hints down your throat about what’s happening. Given their nature, the genre turns from a monster-basher into a psychological thriller. Its use of symbolism isn’t original aside from one of its three big plot twists that only began development in the final chapter.
Even with that said, this opens up replayability. There’s an alternative ending that is rewarding to experience if you replay the game which is achievable by finding all the secondary solutions to problems found earlier, like avoiding specific monsters with new routes.
This is still a mod for a 20th-century game, so expect a few technical issues like infrequent autosaves, wonky A.I., and small items like 20 shotgun shells weighing as much as the mobile gas cooker. “Total Chaos: Director’s Cut” is an astonishing use of ancient technology and creates something modern and terrifying out of it. Thanks to wadaholic, it’s safe to say this cult classic mod is worthy of being remade as a standalone game with a fresh coat of gray.
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