Gore Doctor Review

It would be easier to summarise this review in six words: the game’s bad, don’t buy it, so you, the reader, can steer clear of this title. Yet, saying so would insult your intelligence to be able to interpolate Gore Doctor as a four-hour asset flip with a longer list of special thanks and asset packs used than the people who worked on it in the end credits.

In-game, you are an enslaved person with the name Subject B3029, given to you by the Gore Doctor, Dr. Abnel Gorberg. According to the documents and secondary information you find, the doctor has gone mad trying to save his wife from an illness, leading to him working with a satanic cult to further his research. Doing so, the doctor, with the help of the cult, kidnaps people and forces them to kill and dodge Saw-like traps in hopes of survival. Outside of the game, you have finished it just before lunch.

On the surface, Gore Doctor seems like a typical Saw clone: an evil kidnapper with plans to have people torture themselves in hopes of freedom, which never comes, as a twist has to be played in every ending. Diving deeper, it’s a lazy display of satanic panic, blood, and gore for the sake of spectacle, cookie-cutter death traps, and a predictable twist ending tied up in a half-assed bow. The fact that the Steam page for the game has the tag “Well-Written” is a joke.

The controls work as well as can be expected; you can walk and look around, squat, sprint, and jump. General movement and the occasional hazard can be overcome, but trying to climb boxes and other obstacles can stick you in place and/or won’t let you move. Combat doesn’t fare much better: the two firearms you find work as they should, but the only melee weapon, the axe, has inconsistent attacks. You can swing at an enemy in the same place and distance, and the odd swing won’t connect. This feature can be a nuisance in mini-boss fights.

The antagonist from the co-op game Lunch Lady makes an appearance as the first mini-boss, typecast as a cannibal cook. Armed with a makeshift weed whacker, she chases you around the cafeteria or around an overturned table with enough space to hit her and not the opposite. The second, a clown with a large hammer, is a bit more clever to fight. The floor has whizzing sawblades jutting out of it, prompting the player to use them to damage the clown when he does charge attacks. The final boss, the Gore Doctor, is easy as piss since the game gives out all the ammunition you need to put him down. 

Yet, a hidden antagonist you face several times is a supernatural force that narratively does nothing other than to be spooky. Which leads to the needless amount of satanic props and gory smash cuts when interacting with things littered throughout the game. There’s a sense that the developer didn’t really care about making a good game, as their other title, Songs of Rats, looks more interesting and is visually unique for an RPG horror.

The voice acting is nothing worth talking about, as it sounds like the type of impressions kids used to do in the age of cassette recording in the bedroom: high-pitched voices and poor audio quality. Any other audio work is forgettable since I cannot remember if the game had a backing track. The end credit heavy metal track is baseline average, though it was picked to summarise the feel of the game for a reason.

Gore Doctor has no redeeming or worthwhile qualities for it to be even checked out by the most curious of cats. Lastly, just to make you aware of it, Gore Doctor uses AI-generated images for artworks and in a puzzle during the end-game. If AI was your dealbreaker, you’re more tolerant of bad, rushed games than I am.