Blood

The Good
It's probably immediately obvious from the game's title that this isn't exactly a game for the sensitive, but I'll go through the usual caveat anyway. Blood is one of the most violent games ever made, certainly the most violent I've ever played. There's so much red stuff in this game you wonder if it affected the developers' vision. You can shoot limbs off bodies, aim at heads and watch them explode like cans of tomato soup, and splatter gore over the walls when you blast enemies to their component parts with the sawed-off shotgun. Along the way of your blood-soaked journey you'll frequently encounter mutilated human bodies nailed to the walls: some of them are still twitching. The game's violence is so over-the-top and campy it isn't really scary or disturbing -- quite the opposite -- but it's still the reason many people should avoid this game. But those who can handle the ultra violence will find a fun and memorable shooter.

The story: at the age of 18, Caleb already has a reputation as a merciless gunfighter in the mid-1840s American West. He comes across a destroyed homestead and a weeping woman, who tells him that her name is Ophelia and her husband and everything she had was destroyed by a cult of demon-worshippers called the Cabal. Her husband had been a member of the Cabal, but had tried to escape from it, and retaliation had been swift. Tearfully, she asks him if he wants to join the Cabal, and for some damned reason he accepts. The demon the Cabal serves, Tchernobog: The One That Binds; The Sleeping God; yadda yadda, invites a select few of his followers to a secret ceremony. There, he kills everyone, (including Caleb and Ophelia) and uses their power to augment his own. But Caleb survives (well, not really, he dies and gets resurrected. The game never tells us how), and from there on the plot unfolds along fairly familiar lines. Caleb sets out for revenge on Tchernobog and his army of followers, and hopefully I don't have to explain anything else about Blood's story.

The first thing that struck me about Blood was its incredible detail. Get up close to the walls, and you can actually see small details like fungus and slime in the brickwork. Your enemies have several death animations each (one from getting shot dead-on, another from getting shot from the side, another from getting burned alive, etc.), and, true to Ken Silverman's Build engine, you can destroy, move, or interact with almost everything. It's one thing shooting exploding barrels in Doom, but in Blood you can do things like crush enemies by pushing a wooden crate off a ledge on to them, and kick decapitated enemy heads around like footballs. Blood is an insidiously fun, destructive game.

Blood is technologically adept, featuring things such as transparent water, realistic lighting, and great physics. The Build engine is probably the most advanced 2.5D engine ever developed, and Blood takes full advantage of this with things like rooms above rooms (the game's most tense moment is when you're walking a treacherously narrow causeway across a pit of snakes). As far as visual appeal goes the game falls a bit flat, the sprites get pixely and blurred when you get up close (but that's true of every raycast game) and the colours seem a bit bland and washed out. The game is using very old technology and it shows. But the game's system requirements are certainly modest, and I haven't encountered a single bug or glitch while playing -- not even on Windows XP, which apparently is the bane of Build games.

The game's levels (for the most part) are simply awesome. I really pity anyone who is trying to create a mod of Blood 2, all the good ideas have already been used in the game. Rather than just endless levels that take place in a dungeon or building, you'll blast enemies to shreds in locales such as on board a ship, in an abandoned amusement park, and in a snow-covered forest. The design of the levels is top notch, with a good balance of puzzles that require thinking and areas that you can just blast your way through, there are blessfully few "fetch the silver key" style puzzles, although completing some levels usually entails unlocking a secret area somewhere. The weapons are diverse and satisfying. Some enemies are resistant to certain weapon types, so you'll have to be prepared to switch around a lot. Of course, there's the requisite shotgun and pistol, and a few more unusual things like the aerasol spray can and the voodoo doll. I liked it how you could dual wield, with a weapon in each hand. The monsters, I'll admit, are unremarkable, mostly just copies of those from Doom and Quake, with a few rats, bats and spiders thrown in for good measure. But in all fairness they are extremely detailed and have so many different animations that it almost makes up for the fact that Monolith is firing creative blanks.

Blood's multiplayer, I think, deserves its own section. The server Monolith had set up for the game (games.lith.com) was taken down years ago, but as with almost all popular titles that have been abandoned by their developers new servers have been set up elsewhere by fans. Bloodbath (as multiplayer mode is affectionately known) is as exciting as multiplayer FPS games can get. There are just so many varied weapons and powerups, (not to mention Blood's naturally flexible engine that allows for things like bouncing grenades off walls to kill enemy players that are hiding behind corners) that Bloodbath mode kept me entertained for weeks after beating the game in single player mode. The game comes with 9 excellent multiplayer levels, and there's even a utility on the install CD that allows you to create your own.

And of course, there's the humour. There are the obligatory wisecracks from our protagonist (when entering a hospital Caleb will remark "hmmm...a hospital. I might donate someone elses blood.") and things such as the "No Zombies Allowed" sign at the amusement park. There are so many references to H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allen Poe novels that the game's trivia section would probably be twice as large if someone went and documented them all. The game has a morbid "gallows humour" attitude that I quite liked, cue being able to kick zombie heads around. And there are those annoying people that run around incessantly screaming as zombies chase them. They're cute at first, but after a few levels I started ventilating their skulls with a bullet whenever I saw them just to shut them up.

The Bad
here are few things I can really fault Blood on. It aims at providing Doom-style action and succeeds very well at that. The excessive gore is probably nothing more than an attempt to distinguish it from the crowd (there's no such thing as bad press, so the saying goes.) One thing I didn't like was that the game often falls back on jumping puzzles. Jumping puzzles shouldn't really be in FPS games, you can't see your feet and it's little more than an exercise in frustration because of that. A lot of E4L2 is just jumping from wooden pylon to wooden pylon over a pit of lava, and I believe I died more times in that part than in all the other parts of the game put together. That was the only time I was genuinely frustrated with Blood.

The Bottom Line
Other than the violence hook, Blood is a neat little game and a good example of the genre. Recommended if you've got a high gore tolerance and you can find it.

The Good
(Like my Hexen review, this is an old review I've restored. It was written for a college mag a friend and I started in '96, so please don't go WTF when I make dated references.)

1997 has been a slow year for us gamers, maybe because we're all hotly anticipating ID's Quake II and other big names such as StarCraft . Yet I finally have a shooter to sink my teeth into, and be prepared for a shock: I like it better than Quake and I think its easily the best shoot 'em up since the legendary Doom. What interested me in Doom was its setting, I love horror and I love my blood and guts, so blasting hellish monsters appealed. Blood attracted my attention while walking through the game store because of its dark cover, simply showing a classic bloody hand print and a simple enough name.

That simple name tells you all you need to know about the game, there is blood. Lots and lots of Blood. This is easily the bloodiest game I've played, and while that means it isn't for the squeamish, it brings a lot of catharsis and excitement for someone who wants to blow off stress. In many ways the premise is similar to Doom, shooting zombies and hellish minions, but whats different is instead of being set in space, Blood is set in a strange, somewhat surreal version of the 1920's owned by an evil cult. The setting is awesome, and so is the main character, Caleb. Caleb is an undead cowboy who wants to kill a demon god. So yeah, basically his level of awesomeness is on that of Bruce Campbell. This makes him a compelling protagonist and his sick sense of humour is refreshing for those who like bleak and morbid humour.

Gameplay is much like Doom, but enhanced. I actually decided to pass up on Duke Nukem so I'm new to the Build engine. Many of the restraints of Doom are gone, rooms are more realistic with multiple levels, special walls that can be blown apart, and interactivity with objects. Various dark jokes can be found, but even better than the dark jokes, are various references and tributes to H.P. Lovecraft. As a fan of his writings and owing him thanks for my namesake "The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath," I always get a smile on my face when I find a tribute to his writings. The game also has various references to horror movies, and has a tributes and references to movies such as "The Evil Dead" and "The Exorcist." Finding these references are a joy for literature fans as well as horror movie fans.

Weapons range from dynamite, flare guns, Tommy guns (!), and my favourite, the voodoo doll. Did I mention this game was gory? Each weapon makes minced meat out of your foes in different ways, the flare gun will set them on fire and burn their flesh off. The Tommy guns will leave you with something resembling Swiss cheese. There are power ups that let you dual wield weapons and more. This adds for a lot of variety and fun with the weapons. The engine is great, and while I'm sure there have been games like this before, this is my first exposure to a shooter with such variety and interactive environments.

Each episode gets better and better, but that's what one would expect. The game is for hardcore shooter fans only, the difficulty is insane even on "Easy" mode for some. Blood brings back memories of the difficulty of playing "Thy Flesh Consumed" from Ultimate Doom on Ultra Violence. The games AI is also fierce and smart, as well as having great variety. Zombies are great at tricking you, they'll go down but sometimes get back up and follow you. On the harder difficulty levels, you'll learn to make sure to take their head off, that's the only way next to burning them or gibbing them to keep them down. The developers put great thought into the demonic enemies, and this spices up the encounters.

While not as intense as Quake, the multiplayer is fun. What makes it above average is simply the games twisted weapons and the fact that this has to be the only game where you can twist your foes head off with a voodoo doll, and some of the maps have traps that will give you a shock and an upper hand once you figure them out. If you have the game, feel free to set up a game with me.

The soundtrack is very moody. It sounds creepy and despite the dark humour that keeps the game from truly being 100% horror, the soundtrack has some very unique CD music that will send chills. The soundtrack stands out amongst other games like this, and some of the instruments used will raise an eyebrow, but in a good way. The rest of the game sounds great as well, there are tons of great screams and sound effects that compliment the brutal setting and make levels feel realistic. Monsters make various noises, both funny and scary. Much like "Evil Dead," the game is both scary and utterly hysterical. The developers have set up a great soundscape here.

The level design is great, and levels will take you through many dark and strange places. From a hilariously twisted carnival to a Frankenstein like laboratory filled with sick, acid vomiting zombies and severed and possessed hands seeking the first undead cowboys neck they can get a hold of. The soundscapes have sound effects that will keep you in the settings and they feel like real locations.

The Bad
The graphics, while not "bad," feel dated compared to Quake. The game uses sprites, and while the sprites are often detailed it can be jarring to switch from the smooth 3D world of Quake to the rough, heavily pixelated world of Blood. There are a few 3D models used for various objects in the world, but you'll sadly never see any 3D characters or weapons other than pickups. The upside however, assuming you can run it, is that Blood will run at massive resolutions. I played the game at 1024 x 768 and some of the games more impressive effects looked great.

As I said, the game is difficult. While I like this difficulty, there are times that it can be frustrating and sometimes I forgot to make a save and ended up returning halfway through a level. Others won't like this difficulty and if you aren't up for a brutish challenge, then you might want to avoid Blood.

Some of the level designs are somewhat obtuse and annoying. The heavy scripting usually works in the games favor, but other times it brings the game down. The game doesn't always tell you what to do or give you a clue of how to continue, and you'll be annoyed when you find out that you had to trigger some script or place dynamite in some strange place. Sometimes I got bored running in circles trying to trigger some stupid and needlessly cryptic event.

Sound Blaster fans beware, although the game supports the Sound Blaster line, there are various crashes that happened because of poor Sound Blaster integration. There's also stuttering at some times if you have a sound blaster and decide to use stereo sound or high number of voices. Hopefully this will be remedied, but only time will tell. Speaking of hardware issues, the year is 1997 and the game has no Windows 95 executable out of the box nor on the net. Anyone who is a long term gamer shouldn't have any trouble tinkering in Dos, and I know not everyone uses Windows, but I've gotten used to having Windows support and I felt that the game could've been optimized better for it.

The multiplayer only supports 8 players with no co-op. Maybe I've been spoiled by Quake, but I think that they could've upped the player cap to 16. 8 players is still great fun though, but those spoiled on Quake might like to double the player limit.

The music is good, but it does sometimes feel slow paced, and without the CD music it feels somewhat bland.

The Bottom Line
Blood is one of my favourite games of this year and easily the best shooter in years. I doubt it will replace Quake and the upcoming Quake II will likely muffle Blood, which is sad because the game is extremely fun. It is funny, it's creepy, and it pays great tribute to horror movies and literature as well as using a unique setting. If you like your guts, Blood delivers on that too. The unique weapons make multiplayer good enough to hold its own with Quake, and as always, Chie, Mike & I are always up for a good deathmatch on Saturdays, so feel free to bring your copy and play us. Blood isn't for the squeamish, but it's devilishly fun.

The Good
This game is certainly different than majority of FPS games. It has got a very special atmosphere. It is dark and sick and yet humorous at the same time. Especially the level design is way better than in other BUILD games (Duke Nukem and Shadow Warrior). The weapons are also good - you can for example use hairspray as a flamethrower, and if you want, you can set the spray can in fire and use it as a grenade (don't try that at home).

The graphics are very good for a sprite based game and the sound is excellent. Especially the comments from the main character are great... he is a very very sick man, and comments are stolen from famous horror movies and old boardway songs.

The game features very large amounts of blood and gore - using a zombie head as a football is one of those, and you can set enemies in fire - they'll start running around and screaming.

The difficulty levels are well balanced, easiest levels are very easy and the hardest offer almost impossible challenge.

The Bad
Well, the game itself is just great... but... the bosses, especially the final boss, are quite dissapointing. Also, the game has very many bugs, don't even try playing without updating to the newest version (note, UK version can't be updated) - and even after that it may crash constantly on fast computers (at least on my computer). Save often and in at least two different slots!

The Bottom Line
Very very bloody, but imaginative and great FPS. If you don't have it, go get it.

The Good
There's far too much to list here! First off, the sheer amount of stuff you can do in this game is amazing! You can blow huge parts of the environment up! Destroy and entire train! Meet JoJo the Idiot Boy! Kill mimes! Blast zombies and cultists apart and laugh as their blood rains upon your parade! Quote Evil Dead and Shakespeare! And more! I've never seen a 3D shooter with so much wit and charm before Blood came around!

Now, onward...your in-game persona, Caleb, has a unique and sadistic sense of humor. I even think he's a better character than Duke Nukem ever was, and I also love some of the lines he comes up with (especially his "I...LIVE...AGAIN!" when he rises from his grave in the first stage), most of which will draw a few chuckles from the player. Also, there is a wide variety of enemies in this game, all of which also have their cool ways about them (check out the evil hands!), and all of which have some pretty damn good AI about them. Third, your weapons. Man, what variety of tools of death and mayhem have you got at your disposal! I mean...what other 3D shooter lets you kill your enemies simply by stabbing a voodoo doll near them? Or even better yet...grabbing the awesome Guns Akimbo Power-Up and mowing a whole room of baddies with two Tommy guns? Speaking of Power-Ups...they're plentiful, and they're all totally cool.

Graphics and level design are top notch, and I love some of the more unique levels (like the carnival stage!) and the little touches Monolith put into them. All the graphics are excellent for this type of game (which reminds me...who says you need polygons to get great graphics?), and the color scheme (for the most part) feels appropriate.

Sounds and music are both absolutely amazing. The music especially is awesome because it's all recorded in Redbook Audio format and each piece has a cool, errie, creepy feeling about them. Great for Halloween! Sounds are mostly the normal fare: explosions, gunshots, screams, and a few others, but they're crisp and clear, and I love hearing the cultists scream in agony when I stab my voodoo doll in the heart and watch them crumble into dust in front of my eyes. All in all, hardly anything was wrong with this game, except...

The Bad
The game had one big problem going for it: it was shipped with a lot of bugs still left in the program. One especially annoying bug was the fact that Monolith had the FMV sequences played by putting the video in one file, and the audio in another. For a long time, neither would play, because Monolith couldn't align them right. There are a few others, such as the game being unable to loop the CD Audio music properly, leaving you with no music for about half a level sometimes, as well as a couple of tiny level bugs here and there (nothing major though).

The Bottom Line
Despite the nitpicky bugs, I wholeheartedly recommend that everyone who loves a good 3D shooter or a good horror flick grab this game if they see it. Too bad Blood 2 sucked (IMHO), and also that Monolith seems to have vanished as of lately. I'd love to see Blood 3 done, but done in the same vein as that which made Blood 1 such a joy to play, and one 3D shooter I'll never forget.

The Good
A small company known as Monolith Productions, Inc. rose to fame with their first (and probably most brutal) game, Blood, and like most FPSes out there, it actually has a story. Although I don't quite know what the plot is, I can tell you that you play Caleb, and you must fight the forces of Tchernobog and his minions. If I haven't made myself clear, then perhaps the individual cut-scenes that you can watch during the game will make the story clear. If you're playing a pirated version of Blood, chances are that you won't get the required files that store the cut-scenes. I'm afraid that I can't help you there.

There are four episodes: "The Way of all Flesh", "Even Death May Die", "Farewell to Arms", and "Dead Reckoning", and there are a total of nine levels, including a secret level. Like Duke Nukem 3D, Caleb can tour each level based on real locations. For example, whereas Duke3D lets you explore nightclubs, sewer systems, movie studios, and space stations, Blood will have Caleb explore graveyards, carnivals, train stations, shopping malls, and hotels to name a few. In fact, I believe that Blood has more real locations than Duke3D.

In addition, there is varied gameplay on some levels. For example, on E1M3, you are traveling on a train, and you must find a way to stop the train by turning a series of valves. As usual, no level would be complete without a few enemies placed here and there to stop you from completing the level, and these enemies include, but not limited to, cultists, undead skeletons, gargoyles, spiders, piranhas, and butchers that puke slime all over you, plus the average bat and rat. As usual, when you reach the end of each episode, there is a boss waiting to bring you down, but except Tchernobog himself, almost all of the bosses are basically a preview of what's to come in the next episodes.

You have several weapons at your disposal like the flare gun, the sawed-off shotgun, the tommy gun, dynamite, life leech, and the remote detonator. Plus you have the powerful voodoo doll and your gardener's pitch fork. Most of these weapons have alternative firing modes, which are much more powerful than normal firing modes. You are offered some help, as in a few levels, you'll likely find young teenage boys going about their business. When you approach them, all they do is run away, then scream like little girls when hit. However, if you start shooting at them, they come running at you, chanting "Go away!" and "There's no place like home." These boys provide a distraction for the enemies, because when they start running away, they end up shooting them instead of you. Quite often when you not doing anything in the game, Caleb will chant things like "Strangers in the night, exchanging glanches" and "Sailing, Sailing, over the bounty bridge". But you'll also hear his chanting after he defeats a boss. One of these chants I love him say when he defeats the boss on episode two is "Along came a spider and sat down beside her, and said 'What's up, bold bitch'"

This game is one of the bloodiest games I've ever played, even the cut-scenes show Caleb killing things and do sick things like taking a heart out of a mummy and drinking its fluid. This sort of thing is not suitable for minors to watch. There are about five difficulty levels. Furthermore, the higher the difficulty level, the more bloodier the game gets.

It certainly seems that Monolith are a bunch of movie buffs, as Blood contains a lot of movie references that are possibly found in each level. For example, one of the enemies, the Choking Hands, scatter around and say "I'll swallow your soul", which is a direct quote from Evil Dead 2.

The Bad
Blood was apparently shipped with severe bugs. I remember when I first started playing the game, while I was playing the final level of episode two, I did a little bit of exploring, and the game would went to the Monolith logo. The bugs are so severe, that you may end up deleting it off your hard drive. Actually, that's what I did.

What's worse is that when bugs were discovered in the original game and get reported to Monolith, they released several patches to fix the problem, but every one of them introduced more severe bugs.

Fortunately, I was able to snag One Unit Whole Blood from my local computer store, and it's so much better. Not only do you get all the add-ons (Cryptic Passage and Plasma Pak), but you also get to play the game without the bugs, as the version of Blood is V1.21.

The Bottom Line
This game is so bloody, you better keep it away from your children. If you like this game, you might like Blood 2: The Chosen, and be sure to check out the web sites dedicated to the game. The game's official site was launched at the time it was released, but go there now, and you end up at a porno site. ***½

The Good
GAMEPLAY: Refined. Comfortable learning curve. Superb level design. Feels very good to play. Difficulty just right. Awesome weapons. Dark humour and pop-culture references. Fun and addictive. [5/5]

GRAPHICS: The Build (Duke Nukem 3D) engine pushed to its absolute limits. Nice crisp look. Detailed and attractive. Not state-of-the-art but refined. Enemies are 2D but I don't care -- they're quite detailed. [4/5]

AUDIO: Cool. The weapon sounds are crisp and punchy, although a tad more bass would be good (although just EQ it and you'll be right). Music is just there, mood enhancing but never intrusive. The one-liners are... odd. [4/5]

PLOTLINE: Utter rubbish. But fun, like a B-grade slasher. The dark god has forsaken you and you'll get even. Therefore, kill a bunch of boss monsters. Seriously, that's about it. Stylishly, of course. The mood is dark, menacing and grim, with a slight goth-western flavour, unlike Hexen which was goth-fantasy. [4.5/5]

The Bad
Did the weather have to be overcast ALL the time? Some rain FX would've be sooo cool for this game. Ah well, opportunity missed.

The Bottom Line
Duke Nukem 3D with a gothic-western flavour. That is, a tough but comfortable shoot'em'up with incredible level design and not drenched in puzzles. [4.5/5]

I utterly LOVE this game!

The Good
The huge and unusual levels of the game are the best feature. Our character Caleb is memorable and so are his enemies. Players will especially remember the weird, crazed language of the cultists. Weapons that actually cause loads of damage leaving behind pools of blood and severed limbs! Even the limbs of the enemies can be kicked around by Caleb like the Zombie heads!

The Bad
It may look out-dated now, because of it's build engine and 2D sprites. But, real FPS fans don't care about that! It has a few bugs that may cause it to crash. Although, I never encountered them!

The Bottom Line
Blood is one of the most innovative, atmospheric, humorous and bloody FPS game ever made. Here's why, each level is unique with lots of movie references like a whole level dedicated to camp Crystal lake (from Friday the 13th movies), a level based on the movie, Shining and references to H.P Lovecraft characters such as Pickman and Freddy Krueger (Nightmare on Elm street series) etc. There is even a level in which Caleb gets to ride a train! The story is unique, because we are told Caleb is not our typical hero, but he's a hired gun-slinger, who fell in love with a woman, joined a dark cult, Cabal. But, he's betrayed and killed by the god of the cult, Tchernoborg. So, he comes back from the dead to take revenge and eliminate all the members of the cult. It's atmospheric, because most of the levels are dark and scary, with a haunting music. It's humorous, because our hero has amusing one-liners for each bloody occasion, usually inspired from movies in the style of Duke Nukem. It's bloody, because Caleb has a whole arsenal of weapons to eliminate his foes and with alternate fire for each, it doubles the fun.

The Good
BLOOD is possibly the best named game of all time...it's name tells you to get ready for a cultish, dark and with as blatant a gory name as possible, "Blood", a tongue-in-cheek experience...

Blood is definitely a cult classic. In it, you play as Caleb, an undead gun wielding zombie, a former cultist who died in the 19th century, who lives again in the year 1928, who seeks revenge on a the Cabal, who worship the dark god Tchernobog. Caleb takes "guilty" pleasure in nothing more than bloodily killing, and has sinister but drop-dead funny (pun intended) one liners. Caleb is not a hero, almost a villain. The weapons in Blood are great and original, such as a flare gun that will blow a flare into an enemies heart and burn it alive(Quote from the dying: "IT BURNS! IT BURNS!"), and the classic and painful voodoo doll... The atmosphere of Blood is unique, with a moving train level, a carnival, and countless more memorable levels. It is also really fun to kick enemies heads around!

In fact, even though Blood uses the Build Engine from Duke Nukem 3d, which was outdated even when the game came out, its "2.5D" graphics actually make the game better...enhance the experience, partly showed by Blood's god-awful sequel, Blood 2: The Chosen...

The Bad
It's too damn hard!...

Okay, so it's not THAT hard...but seriously, Caleb's easiest enemies, or rather, "target practice", are zombies, which come back to life a few moments after they are killed, and Tchernobog's cultists, which quickly blast you or something, making Caleb dead after a few shots. But in the cultists case this in forgiven, because of the hilarities that spew from their chanting mouth!

The Bottom Line
Blood, even with its outdated technology, is an awesome and very explicitly violent first person shooter. While a little too hard, this game is THE game if you enjoy VERY dark humor, and all the many horror movies which are given great tributes here! Highly recommended!...

The Good
Blood is not a revolutionary game. But it did have the most unusual plot I have ever seen in a FPS. Let me start with level design, for you traverse many real-world locations I have yet to see duplicated in any other FPS. The weapon selection is better than in any other FPS ever made, for where else could you use an aerosol can or flare gun to set your enemies on fire and watch them scream, "It burns!" The enemies are also memorable, for you have cultists which shout Latin-Sanskrit phrases at you (which have real English translations), and zombies who emerge from the ground and say "More Brains." The graphics, while considered poor by today's standards, (though I like them) do add a certain atmosphere to the game. Also, the one-liners from Caleb, Blood's protagonist, are what set it apart from others of the same genre.

The Bad
The bosses are to easy to defeat. Shial is quite scary though. The violence in Blood is intense, so if you do not like violent video games stay away from this one.

The Bottom Line
One of the best FPS around. Much better than Duke Nukem 3-D. Find and play it, you are sure to have one of the best experiences ever in computer gaming.

The Good
Blood is a game that is considered along with Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior to be the holy trinity of Build engine FPS games. I discovered the game several years ago via the website Home of the Underdogs, a great website full of underrated PC games, definitely check it out.

In Blood, you play as Caleb. An Old West gunslinger who used to be part of the Chosen, the elite enforcers of the Cabal, a sinister cult who worship a dark god named Tchernobog. One day, Caleb, his girlfriend Ophelia and the rest of the Chosen are summoned to Tchernobog. Instead of gaining immortality and ultimate power, Caleb is forced to watch as his love and friends get slaughtered by Tchernobog and his minions. Caleb himself gets exiled and put to rot inside a hollow, cold grave. Several decades later, Caleb somehow comes back to life, seeking answers and above all else, bloody revenge!

Like I mentioned before, Blood uses the Build engine made famous in Duke Nukem 3D. Like Duke3D, Blood puts a strong emphasis on varied weapons and enemies as well as huge, highly detailed levels. Blood mostly takes place in real-life locations such as a cemetery, a hospital, a besieged city and even a moving train. There are also some more bizarre locations. One of the final levels in the game is called "in the flesh" and consists of Caleb moving through a living, breathing and occasionally bleeding creature. Furthermore, the environment reacts to what you are doing. Shoot the walls and bullet holes appear, statues and paintings can be destroyed in order to reveal hidden stashes, etc.

The first level, for instance, takes place at a cemetery. You start the level in your crypt and go through the graveyard, blowing up zombies "freshly" risen from the grave. After that, you will enter the memorial church and eventually the cremation room. Another level is one huge tribute to the horror movie (and novel) The Shining. It takes place in the Overlooked Hotel, complete with hallways, bedrooms, secret passages and a hedge maze. If you look hard enough, you can even find the Redrum writings and Jack Torrance's frozen corpse!

Level design aside, one of Blood biggest strengths, in my opinion, lies in its original weapon arsenal. In Blood you have some typical FPS weapons like a shotgun and a rocket launcher (changed to a napalm launcher) but you also get stuff like a flare pistol, an aerosol can makeshift flamethrower and even a voodoo doll (my personal favorite, by the way). Your melee weapon in this game is not a fist or a knife, but a freaking pitchfork. Ideal for stabbing those hapless mimes between the ribs! Not only that, but almost every weapon has an alternative firing mode. For example, the double-barreled sawed-off shotgun can fire either one barrel at the time or both at once for an awesome sounding BLUUUAAAAM!

The enemies themselves are also pretty original. You have typical horror enemies like zombies, psychopathic cultists and gargoyles but also walking hands, hell hounds and even fish like humans with shark heads (you have to see it to believe it). Some enemies will run, crawl or swim straight towards you to stab or bite you, others will shoot you and even others fade in and out of existence to slice you in half. In addition, the enemies are very challenging to fight against, particularly on the higher difficulties. Not only you get to fight more foes, but also because they get new abilities. The cultists, for example, will throw dynamite at you as well as strafing and crouching more often if you choose a harder difficulty level. Simply put, every enemy will test your skills and will require you to use different tactics to overcome the odds.

The game's audio and music also deserve as much or even more praise than its atmosphere. Zombies mumble stuff like "brains," cultists speak bizarre gibberish and the phantoms screams will pierce through your eardrums. Shoot enemies and they will scream out in pain. Set them on fire and they will shout "it burns, it burns" before falling apart into a tiny, smoldering pile of ash. All the weapons sound great and hearing blood dripping to the ground or the pitchfork penetrating flesh is awesomely gruesome. Music-wise, Blood is a far cry from typical game music. No rock, techno or orchestra themes, but ambient sounds like moaning, clock ticking or spiritual chants. It certainly adds to Blood's dark, morbid setting.

Caleb himself, and his voice actor Stephan Weyte, definitely deserve acclaim. Caleb really steals the show as he, like his Build bros Duke Nukem and Lo Wang, loves to comment on everything he sees and does. Enter the hospital level, and he says "I'm here to donate some blood, someone else's." Finish off the final boss and Caleb mutters "good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun." Caleb is pretty much an undead version of Dirty Harry as he has little shows little care for anything but his own issues. He is very morally ambiguous as he is pretty much as violent and psychotic as the cult he fights against. Blow enemies up and he will laugh maniacally, shoot a mime standing around and he will coolly say "I hate mimes." Still, Caleb is a joy to play with and you will constantly wonder what is next in store for him to kill and comment on.

Blood is like a huge love letter to classic horror fans. You will certainly recognize stuff from movies like The Evil Dead, Friday The 13th and Jaws. I do have to say that the game scared me little and that is exactly what the developers intended to do with this game. It uses horror and violence in such an absurd and exaggerated way that it becomes funny and just very entertaining. Like Duke3D, Blood is a game made by gamers for gamers with creativity and overall gaming pleasure put well above making money.

And of course, for a game named after the red liquid that flows through all our bodies, the game has a ton of blood and gore. Every kill is bloody and ultra violent. Throw dynamite to a zombie or cultist and watch as the blood, limbs, organs and other chunks of flesh get scattered all over the place. Shoot them with a shotgun next to a wall and see the blood slowly ooze all over the wall. Shoot enemies with a flare gun and watch them go out in flames. Use the voodoo doll and enemies turn to dust, literally!

The Bad
Like typical 90s shooters, Blood can be brutally hard at times. More often than not, you will enter a seemingly empty room only to get shot in the back by a cultist hiding in the corner or to have a horde of axe-wielding zombies appear from behind a fake wall.

The game's graphics, while detailed, are also very low resolution. Even on higher resolution settings, the game is pretty blurry, particularly the textures. I do have to say that these low res graphics certainly add to the game's B-movie style.

The Bottom Line
For me, Blood, alongside Shadow Warrior and Duke Nukem 3D can be considered the swan song of the 2.5D shooter genre. And along with these other two games, I can certainly recommend you all to give this game a go. Especially if you are looking for a bloody good game (no pun intended) to play for the Halloween season! Now go get your hands bloody!

The Good
Great story. You are evil, fighting evil. Wonderful time period, so different from most games (old west, it seems). Horror based. Zombies (always a plus for me). Fighting cult members. What could be better?

There's a wide variety of weapons, most with dual fire modes.

I find the levels quite interesting and thematically varied. A mortuary and a train station are two of the earliest, and they're very well depicted.

And while I have to agree with Tomer that ray-casting in '97 is behind the times, the ray-cast graphics are an excellent example of what ray-casting can do.

Caleb's occasional comments are fun.

The Bad
Ray-casting in '97.

The creatures (especially the zombies) are a bit blocky and neon-esque in their bright colours.

The screen seems to flicker every once in a while. Dunno what that's about.

The Bottom Line
A good horror-based shooter.

The Good
Not much really. It has excellent controls and a good variety of weapons, which make it a truly excellent multiplayer game (also has some good multiplayer levels). It's not a good game mind you, it's just amazingly fun in multiplayer gaming.

The Bad
Blood has among the most terrible engines to date, filled with bugs and horribly slow (but what'd you expect from Ken Silverman, the man solely responsible for the catastrophe named Ken's Labyrinth?). It less than makes up for it with unbelievably terrible graphics, horrible one player experience, terrible sound effects and generally crappy gameplay.

And who the hell heard of raycasting in 1997, for Christ's sake?!

The Bottom Line
Blood is crap. One of the worst Doom clones ever to come out, it somehow makes up for it by being a great multiplayer game.