Commander Blood

Moby ID: 1046
DOS Specs

Description official descriptions

Bob Morlock is an interstellar businessman who also happens to be the oldest living being in the world. Feeling that his time to depart has finally come, Morlock wishes to go back in time to the very beginning, in order to witness the Big Bang and the creation of the universe. His company Kanary has a clone-constructing department, which promptly produces the fearless Clone Consortium Commander Blood, who must navigate his ultra-modern ship, the Ark, in order to fulfill the wishes of the eccentric boss.

Commander Blood is a follow-up to Captain Blood. Like its predecessor, it is an open-ended, space- (and time-) travelling adventure game that relies on complex communication system with the various creatures inhabiting the universe. The game utilizes pre-rendered scenes and animated sequences, as well as animation technique involving live action puppeteering in front of a chroma key screen.

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38 People (33 developers, 5 thanks) · View all

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Critics

Average score: 62% (based on 13 ratings)

Players

Average score: 2.8 out of 5 (based on 21 ratings with 2 reviews)

Not nearly as good as its prequel, but still a truly amazing experience

The Good
First things first. Commander Blood is the long-awaited sequel to Captain Blood, one of my favourite games ever. So as soon as I heard the merest hint of a sequel being in development, I was in a state of unnatural anticipation. Did the final game live up to my expectations? Well, no. It's not really a worthy follow-up to Captain Blood (see below) but it is quite a unique and amazing game in its own right. As it is so different from Captain Blood, it's best to view it on its own merits. Commander Blood has fantastic graphics and music and a berserk storyline to play through. It never slips or thins out once; It's a feast of full-on audio-visual spectacle all the way. When I finished the game (didn't take too long - see below) I just thought "Wow". It really got me wrapped me up in itself. It's a screaming happy artful mass of wildly imaginative rendered graphics, cheesy video-captured puppets and one of the best soundtracks in any computer game (The title music alone is worth buying the game for...As usual, I have to heap praise on Stephane Picq). Much as I hate the old buzzword 'multimedia', I feel it's appropriate here. This is a multimedia artwork at its best.

The Bad
Commander Blood lacks nearly everything that made Captain Blood great. Sure, the same 2 guys who created the first game are at the head of the sequel's development team, but instead of using '90s technology and programming advances to expand on their original (groundbreaking) ideas, instead they have created a game that, while stunning as an experience, is only quite average as a game. First off, Captain Blood's revolutionary UPCOM (icon-based communication system) has been replaced with a dull multiple-choice conversation system, where you tediously click through reams of word-choices, making sure you've 'talked' about everything you can, so you don't miss anything. The illusion of communication with the game's characters is often lost as it becomes a mechanical process of click-clicking on every single choice until you've exhausted all topics. It doesn't help that each choice is a single word: It feels more like a database than a conversation. OK, so the communication system is a bit annoying, but usually the plot is engaging enough for you to overlook this. What else? Oh yeah, Captain Blood's freedom of movement and non-linear gameplay; Well, Commander Blood is totally linear. I've played through it 4 or 5 times, and tried everything possible, so I think I can definitely say, yep, it's totally linear. Whoopee. And what about Captain Blood's freedom to do what you want, kill anyone you want, work stuff out for yourself?; In Commander Blood, you can't do that. You're led by the hand right through the game. There are puzzles but you get told what to do. 'Honk' (your ship's onboard computer) will just butt in with some 'helpful advice' at the appropriate moment. e.g. "Oh Commander, I think I know just the item we need to resolve this situation!" Then you get a menu option 'teleport'. You sheep-fully click on the option and the puzzle is solved. OK, there are some things to work out, but it's all very easy. Which brings me to...length of play. Captain Blood was a difficult game. And that's putting it lightly. It took me something like 6 years (maybe more) to complete it. Commander Blood took 2 days. To be fair, I had a great time playing it (for reasons outlined above) - In fact, it was probably one of the most solidly fun times I ever had playing through a game - But then it was over. It's a decent length game, but it's too easy and, like I said, the gameplay lacks a bit. Also, there's the ending. I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't played the game, but it doesn't feel like an ending. It's a cool sequence, but it still kind of feels like the game ended halfway through.

The Bottom Line
Viewed as an experience, Commander Blood is fantastic and unique, great fun for the 2 or 3 days it will last you. Viewed as an adventure game, it has an involving scenario and plenty of variety but it's too easy, totally linear and quite simplistic. Viewed as the sequel to Captain Blood, it's not as good, and is actually a more basic game in many ways. Cryo could've expanded on what they created in 1988 and made something truly remarkable. Instead they opted for the 'lite' approach. Don't get me wrong - I really like Commander Blood; It's a beautiful piece of computer art. But Captain Blood was art which had the gameplay, technology and (dare I say it) sheer genius to match. Ahh :) (Can you tell that I might be a little 'obsessed' with Captain Blood?)

DOS · by xroox (3895) · 2007

I liked Commander Blood, and think it's far better than Captain Blood

The Good
This game is a sequel to Captain Blood - an old sci-fi adventure game where you where a captain of a space ship, going from planet to planet talking to aliens, who gave you clues on where to fly next.

Commander Blood is exactly the same thing. But with graphics and music which captain blood really lacked. It's more an update than a sequel really even though the story has changed. It's real nice to play. The whole movie is like animation sequences you unfold as you find new clues. The play is written with great humor, it's fun to play.

In other reviews I've read it's criticized for not allowing the commander to go to all possible planets in the universe just as you could in its prequel. Well it's understandable, the planets aren't randomized graphic balls anymore, they are detailed animations, frankly I didn't ever like that about capt. blood to begin with, meaningless planets with nothing in them. Actually Commander blood has one or two of them too =)

Another thing that is unique about the captain blood series is that it has created its own language. In captain blood it was really tricky top communicate, you had lots of icons, each representing a word, and combining the words you tried to communicate with the aliens in some broken language. Well, you don't need that anymore, Commander blood gives you choices on what topics you should ask an alien. Even that is far better than the prequel in my opinion.

The Bad
Well, depends how you see it. If you want an adventure game where you solve puzzles this game might not be one for you. It's pretty much spelled out for you what to do next. And if you ever get stuck you will know it's not a good experience, the repetitiveness is annoying, you don't want to see the same animations over and over again. You want the story move along. So its really not an adventure game, but an interactive movie kinda.

Yet this hasn't changed from the prequel, it's just made easier to follow the story. so you don't get stuck. Not many people has solved Captain blood on their own. They eventually get tired of a game with repetitive arcade sequences (the flying and landing) and that's what you do in the games jump from planet to planet.

Also the conversations are merely topics that you must go through. Its a click all alternatives conversations, not which to choose choices.

The Bottom Line
Well it's an experience. when the game starts you find yourself in a spaceship, and don't know the controls. the phone is ringing, and you will have to push everything you see, till you hit the right button. Its a ball next to a screen. Next you see some explanations and talk to the on-board computer honk and get the story, why you are there, what you are supposed to do. Story goes you are assigned to bring a guy to the beginning of the world, the big bang itself through black-holes and such.

The controls are basically a menu, where you have honk (the on-board computer with quite a personality), the cryobox (the inventory), load/save options, phone, a map and propulsion device, your orxxs (space delphins to send to planets) and a TV-set. You can watch music videos in the TV.

It's pretty much what the game is about, nice animations and music. It will last a day or two until you solve it all.

For people with windows. This is a dos game. If you have windows that no longer run on dos (like NT, 2K and XP) you need to run it on dosbox. Mount the CD-ROM to F, mount a small portion of your hard drive to C, and put the dosbox CPU cycle high =4000 so that the animations/movies go smoothly.

DOS · by StarsInTheSky (3) · 2004

Trivia

Character development

In the beta of Commander Blood, Blood's hand is more 'realistic' and has an attached arm. Just like in the original Captain Blood.

Cut content

Commander Blood's intro sequence is a showcase of ingame rendered clips and characters. But if you've completed the game, you might be puzzled to find that half the stuff shown in the intro never featured in the actual game.

That's because a lot of things got changed or cut out during development. There were a lot more planets and scenarios created that never made it to the final release. A lot of these sequences eventually found their way into its sequel, Big Bug Bang.

However, some deleted fragments were accidentally included on the CD. They're not accessible in the game, but the files are there... MobyGames contributor hydra9 wrote a program called ORX which lets you view these unused sequences. That is: nine extra planet sequences and 29 extra misc. rendered sequences, plus a few other bits and pieces. If you completed and enjoyed the game, and want to see a bit more, then download ORX.

Music

One of the music tracks in the game (Megadai Rap by Stephane Picq) contains two samples of Lance Boyle from Cryo's earlier Megarace.

Patches

Commander Blood was never updated in the UK or US (all UK/US versions are 1.0), but in France it went to at least v. 1.2. Later versions apparently removed the 'cyberspace' section of the game.

Races

The following alien races appear in both Captain and Commander Blood: Izwals, Croolis, Migrax, Tromps, Sinox, Tubular Brains and Ondoyantes. Some changes have occurred. For instance, the Izwals' long tongue (in Captain Blood) becomes a long trunk (in Commander Blood). Other races are very similar in both games (Tromps) or very different (Migrax).

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Cochonou.

Windows added by Plok.

Additional contributors: xroox, Jeanne, Patrick Bregger.

Game added March 14, 2000. Last modified January 25, 2024.