Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold
Description official descriptions
Aliens of Gold, the first game in the Blake Stone series, pits the space-age British secret agent against Dr. Pyrus Goldfire; a madman bent on world domination. Using a mastery of genetic engineering and a tremendous reserve of wealth, Dr. Goldfire intends to unleash a mutant army upon the Earth.
The first chapter begins in Goldfire's S.T.A.R. Institute headquarters building. Each level has Blake fighting through guards to find an elevator keycard for the next level. Dr. Goldfire will personally appear along the way to fire shots at Blake, and his genetic creations also pose a tough challenge. Each chapter lasts 10 levels, and brings Blake closer to reaching Goldfire, only to have the mad doctor escape to a new installation in his network, and the start of a new chapter.
Blake Stone uses the Wolfenstein 3-D engine to render its levels. Basic gameplay and enemy AI is similar in most respects. Some of Blake's innovations include silent weapons that can kill guards without alerting others. Alerts are given to the player through text messages on the HUD. Health can be gained through use of wall-mounted vending machines, operated with tokens picked up off dead guards. An automap and stat-tracking are both available during gameplay. Finally, there are friendly AI characters who offer clues and powerups when you speak to them - provided Blake doesn't accidentally shoot them first!
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Credits (DOS version)
80 People (58 developers, 22 thanks) · View all
Engine Programmer | |
Engine Tools Programmer | |
Jam Productions | |
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Music | |
Texture Mapping Engine |
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Cover and LINC Computer Illustration | |
Comic Book Illustration | |
Comic Book Storyline | |
Financing & Resources |
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Special Thanks to [1] |
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Apogee Technical Support | |
[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 72% (based on 10 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.4 out of 5 (based on 65 ratings with 10 reviews)
James Bond meets Flash Gordon in a bargain bin near you.
The Good
Generally good use of the Wolfenstein 3D engine, with a few minor enhancements. The manual is full of lovingly-drawn comic book art and backstory, suggesting that the producers of this game truly appreciate the old-fashioned action hero genre.
The Bad
The plot/setting is kind of silly, yet not at all humorous--so don't expect an Austin Powers-style romp. There really isn't much here that wasn't done in Wolfenstein 3D, so this game lacks the impact of that classic.
The Bottom Line
Although not terrible, this game is really only worth buying if you need to play every FPS out there.
DOS · by PCGamer77 (3158) · 2015
What can I say, this ain't Doom.
The Good
At the time I bought the game I really didn't have too much else to play so, I took it upon myself to beat the game. I actually felt ok about buying this one, at Sam Goody the day before they had all of their full version Apogee games on sale for $1 each (Note: I ended up buying Blake Stone, Duke Nukem II, and Alien Carnage). The music for the game was ok, although it lacked a punch that so many other Apogee games seem to have in them. Although I do understand that they didn't design the game, they still put their name on it. The controls are on par with Wolfenstein 3D, making the game easy to learn how to play.
The Bad
The graphics in Blake Stone were most decidedly sub-par. The textures were boring, the animation was choppy, and the pixelization made me want to squint and cry all at the same time. And then there are the laughable character models. Never before have I seen such creatures that made me want to shoot them just to put them out of their misery. The sound in the game made me want to shut it off. The "sounds" produced by this game are not much of an improvement over the use of the PC Speaker. Moving from worse to god awful, we have the computer AI. Very simply put, there is no computer AI. The monsters will consistently be stopped by shutting a door in their face. Will they dodge your shots? I don't think so, they will stand there and take the five shots it takes to bring them down.
The Bottom Line
Unless you happen to find this game on sale for a dollar, I wouldn't get it.
DOS · by Derrick 'Knight' Steele (2344) · 2000
The Good
I liked the gameplay! It is Wolfenstein 3D with a science fiction theme and makeover, and when I was a kid I sometimes got bored of Wolf3D - so therefore Blake Stone was a good option as if you know how to play one, you can play the other!
I liked the features such as Food Units and Informants (bad guys who actually help you) and also found the music really catchy. The HUD was also easy to use and understand and contained many advanced features such as attacking information and a dialogue box for communication. None of this was in Wolf 3D, which is why this was a breath of lovely new air!
The Bad
The AI was pretty poor, in my opinion, with enemies just pointing and firing instead of engaging any tactics. The graphics were also extremely pixelated and horrible! What the title is referring to as 'tragic' is in fact the timing of Blake Stone's release - a mere five days before Doom! Of course, this game was crushed by Doom and that was that - it is extremely frustrating though, because this game had potential and due to the daft timing of it's release, fell down into the pit of gaming blackness and never returned.
The Bottom Line
This game is fun to play, the last real milestone of the pre-Doom FPS era - after this, everything changed. So, like Wolfenstein 3D, regardless of the awful release time, Blake Stone is truly part of history.
DOS · by Quackbal (45) · 2007
Discussion
Subject | By | Date |
---|---|---|
Before it's time ? | GAMEBOY COLOR! (1990) | Mar 16, 2008 |
Trivia
Comic
The original documentation for the game included an 11 page comic book which introduced Blake and his arch-enemy, Doctor Goldstern.
Dr. Goldstern's name
The main antagonist of the game was originally named Dr. Goldstern, however, this had to be changed to Goldfire after Apogee received a complaint from a watchful customer, as Mike Maynard recounts:
Dr. Pyrus Goldfire was originally called Dr. Goldstern. One person sent an email to Apogee complaining about how the name "Goldstern" portrayed Jewish people as evil. So we had to change the name.
Were the name kept as it was, it would have served as a bilingual bonus of sorts, as Stern means 'star' in German, and Goldfire's research centre where the first episode of the game takes place is called The S.T.A.R. Institute.
This change had not prevented the developers from playing with words though: the new -fire part of the name is echoed by Goldfire's first name, Pyrus, which is obviously derived from Greek pyros, meaning 'fire'.
Screen shots from the beta of the game that show the original name of Dr. Goldfire can be found here.
Engine
While Blake Stone uses an updated version of the Wolfenstein 3D engine, it is not the significantly upgraded engine that appeared in Shadowcaster.
German index
On January 1, 1995, Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold was put on the infamous German index by the BPjS for being extreme violent. The game group offers more information about this topic.
Release
The programmers that developed Blake Stone (JAM Productions) were friends of id Software from when both teams worked at Softdisk Publishing as employees. JAM Productions was aware DOOM was going to be released and that it would kill all sales of Blake Stone, so the game was released early, 1 month before DOOM to hopefully see some sales. The first 30 days of sales brought in a good $100,000 for the development team. Once DOOM was released all income dropped to below $10,000 a month. The company struggled to release Blake Stone: Planet Strike then later the company broke up.
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Omniscia.
Windows added by Cantillon. Linux added by Sciere. Macintosh added by lights out party.
Additional contributors: Trixter, Apogee IV, vedder, Patrick Bregger, MrFlibble, Kayburt.
Game added January 24, 2000. Last modified February 14, 2024.