Blood
Description official descriptions
Caleb was once a feared gunslinger, until he met a woman who was involved with a mysterious cult known as Cabal. Caleb, too, is sucked in, and soon becomes one of the Chosen - the most favored worshippers of the evil god Tchernobog. But one day, Tchernobog inexplicably kills the four Chosen, including Caleb. Mysteriously resurrected years later, Caleb is out to get revenge, and learn why his lord cast him down so abruptly.
Blood is a first-person shooter with horror elements, which uses the Build engine. Similarly to Duke Nukem 3D, the environment is interactive: many objects can be physically moved or affected in other ways. Destruction of landscapes is possible (although only in specific spots), with bullet holes being left by misplaced shots. The Build engine version is 2.5D, so there are rooms above rooms and puzzles which are based on this.
The game consists of four episodes, each containing a set of maps that have to be traversed by the protagonist in a specific order. The levels are usually realistic-looking structures, e.g. a carnival complete with twisted attractions, a city district, a moving train, etc.
Throughout the levels, Caleb will have to find keys (up to six in a level) and hit switches in order to work his way to the exit. On the way, he will meet a variety of enemies, such as zombies that tend to come back to life after killed, cultists armed with shotguns and tommy guns that shout in pseudo-Latin language, crawling hands that attempt to choke him, hell-hounds that can set him on fire with their breath, and many more. Boss battles await Caleb at the end of each episode.
To defend himself against this menace, Caleb utilizes a variety of weapons: a pitchfork; a flare gun that can set enemies on fire; a sawed-off shotgun; a tommy gun; a napalm launcher; TNT bundles which come in three different varieties; a home-made flamethrower made of an aerosol can; a tesla cannon that electrocutes enemies; a magical staff dubbed "Life Leech"; and a voodoo doll.
There are items to pick up strewn around. Unlike most other 3D shooters, the protagonist's health is not replenished via medikits, but by "Life Essences", heart-like power-ups randomly dropped by enemies upon their death. It is also possible to find armor, which comes in three different varieties - Physical, Fire, and Spiritual, each one defending Caleb from different attacks. There are also other power-ups: some (such as Jumping Shoes or Doctor's Bag) can be picked up and activated at any time, while others (such as Partial Invisibility) activate immediately when taken.
As the title implies, violent and gory imagery plays a significant role in the game. Enemies might explode when taken out; it is possible to kick severed heads; impaled victims can be found lying around; enemies die in different ways depending on how they are attacked and in which part of their body, etc.
Groups +
- 2.5D Engine: Build
- Blood series
- BPjS / BPjM indexed games
- Gameplay feature: Drowning
- Gameplay feature: Recordable replays
- Inspiration: Author - Edgar Allan Poe
- Middleware: Smacker Video
- Online Service: Heat.net
- Theme: Zombies
- Total Entertainment Network (TEN) multiplay platform
- Visual technique / style: Digitized sprites
- Visual technique / style: Voxel graphics
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Credits (DOS version)
123 People (103 developers, 20 thanks) · View all
Game Designer | |
Project Manager | |
Build Engine, Editor, and Tools by | |
Additional Tools | |
Lead Programmer | |
Game Programming | |
Network Layer / Setup Program | |
Level Design | |
Additional Level Design |
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Lead Artist | |
Additional Artwork | |
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Sound Engine | |
[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 83% (based on 25 ratings)
Players
Average score: 4.1 out of 5 (based on 146 ratings with 12 reviews)
This bloody little game makes an excellent multiplayer game.
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.
DOS · by Tomer Gabel (4538) · 2000
I'm going to paint the town red!
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!
DOS · by Stijn Daneels (79) · 2014
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
DOS · by Katakis | カタキス (43091) · 2003
Discussion
Subject | By | Date |
---|---|---|
Blood Special Edition | Gazzoid | Sep 2, 2023 |
Cooperative Multiplayer | And Wan | Dec 20, 2015 |
Blood manual | Judicator | Aug 18, 2009 |
Blood ... for Mac? | Dae (7182) | Jun 2, 2008 |
Trivia
3dfx patch
Monolith released an alpha patch for Blood that provided 3DFX support. Unfortunately, being an alpha patch, it only works with version 1.0 of Blood, not One Unit Whole Blood. It is also incompatible with Voodoo Rush and Voodoo 2 chipsets.
Cultists
The strange language spoken by the cultists is supposed to be a combination of Latin and Sanskrit. Sanskrit is the ancient language of India, from which several modern languages of that region originated.
Cut features
One early feature that Q Studios was planning to add to Blood was the idea of "BloodLust". According to this feature, each time when the player killed a minion of the Dark God, his BloodLust meter climbed a notch. If his BloodLust climbed high enough, he metamorphosed into the Beast. As the Beast, he was supposed to be stronger and faster than a human, but he was also limited in his choice of weaponry. Of course, BloodLust waned with time--if the player did not kill frequently, he reverted to human form. This feature was not added to the final release of the game.
Death Mask
Death Mask, the power-up that makes you invincible for a short period of time, does not tint your view with color while active, so it's impossible to see when it runs out, which makes it somewhat less useful. The Monolith team admitted that they forgot to implement this.
Development
Apogee were the ones who started production on this game in 1994. The developers were Q Studios Corporation (an independent game development studio). In the short while they were working on it, they called it Horror 3D. After a while the rights for the game was sold to Monolith which completed the game and changed the name to Blood, which we're familiar with today.
Extras
Some versions of Blood came with a second CD that contained demos and the video for Love you to Death by the appropriately gloomy band Type O Negative.
German index
On June 28, 1997, Blood was put on the infamous German index by the BPjS. The game group contains more information about what this means.
Inactivity
When you stand still for a few seconds, Caleb starts to sing lounge classics. Some of the songs he knows are My Way, Puttin' on the Ritz, Somewhere Over the Rainbow. There's No Business Like Show Business and Strangers in the Night.
References
- The game contains easter eggs with references to Jack Nicholson, Duke Nukem and The Crow. The tips & tricks section contains information how to reach them.
- In the level after the train level, you will able to see in the rest of the train, the clothes of Harrison Ford's charachter in The Fugitive
- The cheat code for god mode in Blood is 'mpkfa', where 'mp' stands for Monolith productions and 'kfa' is taken from 'idkfa', the cheat code for all weapons in DOOM. It seems like Monolith was paying a tribute to DOOM.
- In the first level of the third episode, there's a secret room which is based on the infamous "Sloth" murder from the movie Se7en. There are those goody-smelly Wunderbaum trees hanging on the ceiling and the word "Sloth" is written in blood just above the bed.
- In the level "Crystal Lake" you can find several locations from the Friday The 13th horror movies. Indeed, the name of the level itself references Camp Crystal Lake, the setting of many films in the series.
- There is one gag available only in the Blood shareware that did not make it to the retail version of the game. During the first mission (E1M1) on the second floor of the Mausoleum there is an embalming room with a conveyor belt and a furnace. Among the items in this room are the "drips" that one would find in a hospital. Some a filled with what can only be blood. In the shareware version if one activates the blood drip one hears Caleb draw a big slurp, and exclaim "Aaah, tastes like Kool-Aid." This line was dropped from the Retail version, most likely due to copyright issues. Thus when Caleb takes a drink we only hear the slurping sound effect, and the subsequent "Aaah."
- Axe-wielding zombies say "Brains" or "More Brains" and there are dormant zombies found in metal drums. These are all references to the Return of the Living Dead films.
- A sign in E1M1 says "Welcome to Morningside Funeral Home" with the Morningside crossed out with spraypaint and replaced with "HELL." The name "Morningside" is likely a reference to the antagonist's name from the Phantasm movies.
- In E1M1, if you try to use the sink, Caleb says "out, out, damned spot!" It is a reference to Lady Macbeth washing her hands of blood in Shakespeare's play Macbeth.
- In E1M2 the train station is called Central Miskatonic, a reference to H. P. Lovecraft's works.
- The train in E1M3 has the name "Phantom 666" emblazoned on the side, a reference to the "Number of the Beast" 666 in Biblical prophecy.
- When you have the Incinerator equipped, Caleb will occasionally remark "I love the smell of napalm in the morning," a reference to Apocalypse Now.
- In E3M2, enter the wine cellar and Caleb will comment on a certain barrel "A cask of Amontillado!" Edgar Allen Poe wrote a short story with the same name. Destroy the barrel and you'll find several sawn off limbs and body parts inside.
- In the secret level "Butchery Loves Company" you can find a hidden area with a Duke Nukem arcade machine. Caleb will remark "I don't have time to play with you," a corruption of one of Duke's many one-liners.
- Caleb's opening line "I...live...AGAIN!" is lifted out of Army of Darkness.
- One of the lines spoken by Caleb while massacring enemies is "Da-da-da-dat's all, folks!", a reference to the famous closing line from Warner Bros. cartoons, as delivered by Porky Pig.
- And if you 'activate' Eric Draven's gravestone on the first level of Blood, Caleb will say 'Nevermore'. As in "Quoth the raven: 'nevermore' " of course, from Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven".
- In one further piece of homage in this densely referential work, on the second page of the "default keys" reference, characters from Blood will comically re-enact gameplay from Pac-Man, Asteroids and Donkey Kong.
Shareware
The shareware version of the game contains many things that are not present in the full version, such as mushrooms that cause you to become delirious. The shareware levels are also slightly different in the full version. For example: E1M2 has been updated to include civilians which are not present in the shareware.
Tchernobog
The name Tchernobog means black god (crno bog) in Slavic dialect. It is a pagan deity dated from ancient 12th century Slavic religion.
Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart required special editions of this game to be made before they would sell it. Identical to the original game in most aspects, they toned down the gore and removed any nudity.
Information also contributed by 88 49, B14ck W01f, bächtërmän, ClydeFrog, Corn Popper, Emepol, Goteki45, JudgeDeadd, Maw, MDMaster, Michael Palomino, Pseudo_Intellectual, Roger Wilco, Scott Monster, WildKard and Xoleras
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Related Sites +
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Blood - Coming from 3D Realms
game development page at the Apogee/3D Realms website, snapshot from 1996 preserved by the Wayback Machine -
Blood Cheats
from 3D Gamers -
Blood Pool
Ring of sites dedicated to Blood. Some may be down but there are many still working. -
Blood Wiki
The Blood Wiki, a wiki devoted to the first-person shooter game Blood, its sequel Blood II: The Chosen, and their respective expansion packs. Also available is information on the various mods, fan projects, development details, and the fictional world in which Caleb and the others live in. -
Control Z's Blood Site
A good Fan Site for Blood -
Crapshoot
A humorous review on PC Gamer -
Crudux Cruo
A fan site that contains custom level reviews, a "Blood Bank", and links to other sites. In the cultist language "Crudux Cruo" means "Fresh Blood." -
Deathmask.net
A personal fan-page that contains some downloads and other things relating to Blood. It also hosts the famous "Build on XP" tutorial. -
PlanetBlood
Featuring downloads, reviews, hosted sites, fan fiction/art... just about everything that has to do with Blood 1 and 2. The perfect site for any Bloodite. -
Purgatory
The site of a large, four-episode Total Conversion for Blood. -
The 13th Realm
A Blood total-conversion that aims to include more "traditional" horror elements in Blood's levels. -
The Official Blood Homepage
official website of the game from 1997, preserved by the Wayback Machine -
The Postmortem
Sort of a monument-like fansite built for Blood and Blood II: The Chosen to keep it's soul alive for the next generation of Bloodites. -
Zaphod's Blood Page
One of the oldest existing fansites for Blood, Zaphod's contains screenshots, custom maps, and some hints and tips.
Identifiers +
Contribute
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Accatone.
Additional contributors: Kate Jones, Xantheous, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, Frenkel, retinadesgastada, Dae, Maw, Havoc Crow, oct, Patrick Bregger, MrFlibble.
Game added March 6, 2000. Last modified March 5, 2024.