Here's Doom 2, running on a chainsaw

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Bethesda and id Software's Doom reboot is just a few days out, which makes this the ideal time to have a look at Doom 2 running on a chainsaw. But not just any chainsaw, no: This is the Painsaw.

It's actually a toy saw, into which creator and self-professed not-creative guy George Merlocco crammed a Raspberry Pi Zero loaded with Chocolate Doom, a source port created as an “accurate reproduction of the game as it was played in the 1990s.”

The timestamp in the video, done up in era-appropriate VHS quality, is set to December 10, 1993—the launch date of the original Doom—but the included WAD is actually E1M1 from Doom 2, since it makes the chainsaw available right from the start. Because if you're playing Doom on a chainsaw, you're pretty much obligated to use the chainsaw.

A closer look at the Painsaw's creation can be had at painsaw.rocks, which may be one of the most perfectly-appropriate URLs I've ever encountered. Doom, by the way—the new one—comes out on May 13. It won't run on a chainsaw, but it does pretty well on a GTX 1080 under Vulkan.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.