Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold

The Good
Based on an enhanced version of id software’s Wolfenstein 3D technology, Stone is the direct followup to that smash-hit, which, quite unfortunately, was cut down in its prime, namely by id’s not so secret weapon released shortly after that same year, I don’t think I have to name it.

At a mere glance, Stone appears simply to be nothing more than an austere reiteration of the formula set by Wolf 3D. Undeniably Stone shares many fundamental indiscernible traits with its older brother, as you would expect. That said, Jam Productions certainly impart some, (if only a few) fresh innovations, & touches to the game which contributes to a unique aura of its own.

The storyline for Stone is strictly inoffensive cliche’ science fiction schtick, here is the crux of the premise - The time is the future: You’re a trained soldier turned a secret intelligence agent out to stop a crazed scientist known as Dr. Pyrus Goldfire, who had butchered your family and now has a rather sinister plan for the entire galaxy involving his legions of genetically engineered mutants. You must stop him at all costs.

As for Wolf 3D, you negotiate labyrinths of corridors (the auto-map feature means you never get lost), searching rooms, building an arsenal of increasingly powerful weapons - the ‘plasma discharge unit’ (re a grenade launcher) is a very welcome new addition, as is a stealth pistol, more on these later. Of course there is the usual plethora of secret areas to discover, plenteous with spoils - hence the ‘aliens of gold’ subtitle. Not to mention the usual decree of skirmishes with countless guards, & other assorted nasties. The orthodox goal is to find the red keycard to unlock the next elevator floor. The hub-like elevator system allows you to return to previous floors if you want to scour for ammo, health etc., which incidentally, becomes imperative when tackling the ‘Veteran’ difficulty. The ultimate objective per episode is to reach the exit at the top floor of each of the six installations, which is always guarded by one of Goldfire’s exceptionally tough guardian nasties.

From the outset, I was genuinely impressed by one of the new aspects presented herein - Namely the friendly NPCs, which I believe is a first for a FPS. These are insider informants decked out as lab-coat scientists’ who will assist you with your cause. They wander around the corridors, going in & out of rooms, inspecting computer panels and so on, blending in seamlessly with the actual dirty scientists’ working for Goldfire. You can interrogate these good fellows (you read the dialogue spoken on the HUD), and they will give you some useful advice, on things like using your stealth pistol effectively, or even identifying which areas are safe and which dangerous, among other useful tips. Sometimes they will give you items like weapon charge-packs or credit tokens - the latter of which I’ll talk more about in some length later. This was the first instance of a FPS where you don’t shoot everything that moves.

There is a good assortment of enemies - big green mutant experiments on the loose, experimental cyborgs, electro-spheres, floating-drones which explode on close proximity, and more. This is good. That is, there is a solid contrast in variety of enemies. I was often surprised by how just when you though you had seen it all, something new creeps up on you. The AI presented in Stone is reasonably solid. As for Wolf 3d, the enemies can literally ‘hear’ gunfire, and not only respond on sight. One time I was slugging it out with a couple of mutants, completely absorbed by the task at hand.“Arrgh!”. Dead. I was flanked by a sneaky guard from a nearby room who had honed in on my position from all the noise I was making. This can give rise to a stealth aspect for this game. Your most basic weapon, though infinitely useful - is a stealth pistol. It makes absolutely no sound when fired, and if you can catch the opposition unaware, like say if a patrol guard was standing facing a vending machine, you could take him down with one shot with the stealth pistol, and no enemies would be alerted to your presence.

I feel the challenge herein is more or less as demanding, if not a little more than that of its predecessor Wolf 3D, particularly on the harder difficulty levels. The enemies are suitably cunning & some are particularly resilient to your assaults. The sentinel guards who wield automatic rifles are powerful enough to make short work of you if caught out off-guard. These guys can even play possum - they will lay there as if dead, and then after a time gets back up again guns blazing. So this calls for even more frequent defensive style play - hanging around corners, popping out to shoot, waiting patiently to the sides of doorways to get the drop on enemies, conserving ammo - if you run out of ammo amidst a firefight, it means having to slug it out with the pistol, which can be quite labourious. You also have to be wary of sentry turrets, which cannot be destroyed without a rapid assault laser rifle. So you have to cunningly sneak by these defences, which presents some tense moments, particularly initially, in the first level.

The grenade launcher I mentioned earlier brings forward some interesting dynamics. There are often mutants which are safely stored in status containers, some you can even see floating in liquid, which looks rather cool by the way. If you shoot the container, the nasty will be rudely awakened. What’s interesting is, if you carelessly doused a room with grenade explosions, it would effectively open up any containers that were about, as the grenade launcher has a splash damage which affects a larger radius, thus creating more pesky hostiles to deal with. As well as this, a stray grenade explosion could inadvertently kill innocent informants. So this also causes you to think a bit more before shooting.

Some of the action sequences are really cleverly constructed. One time I went through this door into a rather narrow corridor. I pursued forward, and then I was confronted by this huge menacing monstrosity, which was imposing enough to obstruct the way ahead! As I was only armed with my charge-pistol rapidly running out of ammo, I turned tail and ran back for the entrance I came through. “This door can’t be opened from this side!” “Oh, @$#*!” Then as the nasty advanced on me, I frantically strafed from side to side, shooting, shooting & shooting some more, before it finally drew its last swollen gasp, and dramatically collapsed to the ground. This was one of those truly classic moments in gaming you never forget. Also, Goldfire himself pops up now and again, something akin to the G-MAN on half-life, except here Goldfire doesn’t waddle around behind unbreakable glass windows, instead he freely wanders around, and even attacks you! “Ha, ha, ha. You’ll never defeat me!”

Now I want to talk a bit about the credits system I mentioned earlier. Sometimes when you ice the guards they will drop a coin which you can collect. Alternatively you can receive coins from some informants, as previously mentioned. There are vending machines that can be found about the place, which you can interact with. Dispense a coin, and you might receive something which resembles food, or a cold beverage to replenish some health points. You can also find things like discarded candy bars or sandwiches to eat (which leave behind a wrapper), or even chow down on chunks of raw meat which has been thrown in to the hostile mutant areas. There are still the standard med-kits which just happen to be conveniently lying around, but the realistic means of health restoration - like using the food dispensers, I think is quite nifty in implementation. Also interesting is you can shoot supply crates open to reveal ammunition, food etc.

The audio visuals herein I thought were suitably atmospheric. The pallette is full of rich bold vibrant colours, and the overall presentation has a nice subtle cartoon-like flavour. The environment textures are varied well enough throughout the course of the game, with much for interesting interconnecting futuristic impelled metallic-tapestry. For the first time ceilings and floors were also textured, making for generally more detailed scenes. The NPCs are suitably well animated, and the enemies’ death’s are particularly gruesome, e.g. when you dispatch a star sentinel guard, his right shoulder is literally torn off, and separated from the thorax in a gory animation sequence. There is a good assortment of speech samples, such as how the threatening mutant genetic guards’ say “You’re Dead!” in a charismatic deep & gravelly tone. Or if you by accident shot an innocent informant, he will cry out “Not Me!”. I liked how your health is indicated on the HUD by a heartbeat monitor, which the ‘thud-thud’ sounds become increasingly fast as you take damage. The music compositions by Bobby 'Doom' Prince are suitably energetic, and carry along the action with great style. All of these elements contribute to the distinctive ambience.

The Bad
Well the thing is . .

The Bottom Line
. . In short, Blake Stone is simply a fantastic shooter. All the right ingredients are there - Pleasingly colourful aesthetics, great fast-paced action and a fittingly emotive soundtrack. It may not have the technical clout of Doom, and even if the fundamental game-lay is firmly that of the Wolf 3D canon, I think the added aspects like more interactivity, including the friendly NPCs, and also the stealth element, even if somewhat minor, adds some welcome extra spice to the proceedings. With six episodes to prowl your way through, it will keep you blasting away for absolutely ages. It’s definitely an awesome challenge, especially if you play it on Veteran. I really enjoyed it, and I suspect you will as well.

The Good
Don't know how I got to know about this game in the first place. I think my dad, who used to be huge fan of Duke Nukem, downloaded it from 3D Realms site and showed it to me one day back in the mid 90's. What I saw was awesome, and I still find it quite cool even to this day. Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold delievers everything you want from a game like this. Cool soundtrack, huge and many levels, badass weaponry and a score system. I dare even say that the graphics are cool too, being runned by an overhauled Wolfenstein 3D engine. Planet Strike!, the second instalment in the series even implemented bobbing for the weapons.

The Bad
Sadly however, me and other fans of the game were a few bunch. The others had already gotten into Hell, known as Doom, that recently came out shortly after Blake Stone, nearly killing it. Every level has a theme that reminds of a labyrinth, exactly like Wolf3D. And just with that game, some levels are really easy to get lost into and may take quite alot of time to navigate out of. There are many weapons in the game, but none really feel better than the other despite how awesome they look. You can easily "snipe" a guy across the map with one bullet with your starter gun, which also is silent. The keybindings in Blake Stone can't be bound the way you want, and there's no Y-axis for looking up and down with the mouse. (Luckily though, since DOSBox lets us rebind however we darn please, that problem now becomes a memory of the past, and there's a tool that disables the Y-axis, so you can play almost exactly with WASD keys like today).

The Bottom Line
I'd describe this game as a cool FPS from the past, that's sadly is hugely underrated. "Thanks" to Doom.

The Good
A corrupt scientist named Dr. Pyrus Goldfire is planning to build his entire army of mutants using gold to fund the experiments, and plans to use these mutants to help him take over the galaxy. British Intelligence has sent Blake Stone, one of their best agents, to put an end to Goldfire's plans once and for all. There are six buildings that Blake must infiltrate, and each building has 10 floors each. As Stone, your object is to search each floor for the red access key, destroying Goldfire's experiments in the process. Once you get the access key, you can proceed to the next floor where more enemies are waiting for you. There are other access keys which are used to open locked doors. You start off with the Auto-Charge Pistol, but you kill more enemies, you'll be able to gain the Dual Neutron Disruptor, and eventually, the Plasma Discharge Unit.

The colorful interface at the bottom of the screen is laid out nicely. You will get incoming messages. The messages that you get are about the enemies who are attacking you, whether or not you are opening a door, and dialog from the actors. Beside this are an EKG-like monitor and a heartbeat to go along with that. Next is your current weapon and how much ammunition you have. Finally, you have your score and the keycards that you have collected on the floor. Although these are minor, the only things that I like about the interface are hearing the heartbeat (which can be turned off) and watching my score increase.

Pressing the [Tab] key show you your statistics and the proximity map that shows key cards, exposed passages, and doors - locked or unlocked. By using a cheat in the game, I was able to make the map reveal where pushwalls are located, revealing hidden areas. This saves me from going along each wall in the game and finding them with the [Space] bar. I always enjoy discovering secret passages, because usually there are nested passages full of gold bullion. I guess I was interested in filling up the proximity map, to see how far it would go.

There are tons of new features that are not already introduced in Wolfenstein 3D, including cut-scenes, teleports, and electronically-linked doors. The cut-scenes usually are shown at the end of each episode. They look well done and detailed. As you know, teleports take you to different parts of the floor, but if you happen to discover one in a secret passage, it may well lead to a hidden floor not accessible via the elevator. The linked doors save you from pressing [Space] to open it, like what you did in Wolf3D. I like most of these new features, but there are only two that annoyed me.

There are a wide variety of enemies, including mutants, pods, and three types of soldiers. Some of them shoot you with their pistol, while others throw projectiles. I enjoyed dealing with the soldiers, especially the STAR Troopers. More often than not, these soldiers will try to trick you by saying "I'm down!" and falling to the ground after you load a few bullets into them, only to get up again a few minutes later. i like the sound some enemies make when they greet you or when they die. They make a big deal out of it.

Since Aliens of Gold is set in the distant future, everything in the game looks futuristic, including the walls, weapons, and the food units. The food units are there in case health packs aren't nearby, and they can be put to good use if you are carrying tokens. Putting tokens into food units is reasonable. After all, you put money into vending machines to get food or drink, don't you? The weapons and doors sound futuristic as well, and you never grow tired of hearing these sounds.

Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold comes with a full-color comic book, in which I haven't read yet. I got a pirated copy off one of my high school friends, so I didn't receive it. I did not worry about having the comic handy, since the game already includes a fantastic story that covers Stone's origins and his family, as well as how Goldfire killed off some of his family members. The story (in the game) have animated images rather than just static ones, which I think is cool.

The Bad
There are two more features that annoyed me. Aliens of Gold brings informants into its world, offering you hints, food tokens, and ammunition. They also pose a problem. They walk slowly around the room, get in your way, and have a death wish by getting in the line of fire all the time. When an informant was behind something that I am shooting at, not only did I destroy whatever it was that I intended to destroy, but I accidentally shot the informant as well. And even though you are encouraged not to kill informants, sometimes I was fed up with them, that I killed them on purpose. The consequence of killing them is that you don't get any bonus points for saving each and every informant there is on the floor.

On most floors, there are a lot of one-way doors, meaning that once you go in, you must find another way out. This feature annoyed me the most since it means that instead of just passing through the same doors, you are forced to take the long way around, navigating between a lot of rooms just to get to where you want to go. If you encounter one of these doors, you'd better pray that you haven't forgotten a much needed ammo or health pack in the room you just left. Because of my hate toward one-way doors, I am glad that such doors did not have a chance to reinvent themselves in future first-person shooters.

The Bottom Line
Anyone who enjoyed playing Wolf3D will probably enjoy playing Aliens of Gold. It uses an enhanced Wolf3D engine; and has good graphics, sound, and a ton of new features that were not in other first-person shooters before its time. The game is set in the future, so it has a few elements that look like they came from the future, and I'm not only talking about the new features. Although some features can be put to good use, others can be annoying. The one-way doors, for instance, make navigation between a lot of rooms unnecessary; and the informants, although helpful in some way, are nothing but an annoyance.

Aliens of Gold was released a year after Wolf3D, and had its short and sweet success. Then, one day DOOM came along, and in an instant, Aliens of Gold didn't seem to do well. To me, DOOM provided gamers with so much more, such as more ambient effects and an advanced engine, for example.

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.

The Good
What I like...no...what I love about this game is that it transcends its FPS roots to give you an experience that you cannot find anywhere else! Gone is the level-grinding, bone-smashing tedium that is Doom! Return to a simpler time and enjoy the Wolfenstein 3D-like search for Dr. Goldfire to seek revenge for your family's untimely death! Yeah, it's kinda cheesy, but in a good way this time.

The Bad
What's there not to like about this game. Sure...it LOOKS cartoony compared to games like Wolf-3D and Doom, but in reality it's just as serious. It's a pity that it came out in the same year as Doom, since Doom naturally and completely overshadowed it in nearly every way.

The Bottom Line
This may look like nothing but a Wolfenstein 3D clone, but looks can be deceiving. Much more vibrant than its predecessor of sorts, the overall presentation and backgrounds are much more appealing to the general audience despite its somewhat gory overall content. Taking features like saving scientists (or in other words, the ones you don't want to shoot), playing "cat and mouse" with Dr. Goldfire, and throbbing music by Bobby Prince of Doom and Wolfenstein fame and combining that with a good overall story (you have to read it to believe it), you may find here what you couldn't find in Wolf-3D or Doom - charm! It's just that plain and simple. And if you're lucky enough to find a copy of the game that still comes packed with the comic, you're in for a special treat!

The Good
As I said, this was the first FPS I ever played. I borrowed the floppy off my friend, and thought it was the best game ever! I loved the graphics,sounds, and especially the MUSIC!

The Bad
Now its sorta out of date. But I still play it every once in a while. Also, I bought this game because I thought you actually kill the boss, Dr Goldfire, in the last mission.

The Bottom Line
If you see it for less than $10, buy it. It will give you a few hours play.

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.

The Good
This was my first shooter I have ever played. And I was addicted to it for weeks. Now I am say that it isn't much when you compare it to Quake, but for those ages it was a good game, the graphics were colorfull and it gots funny music. In the game you can't shoot every body, there are some professors that will help you. They can give you ammo, food tokens or hints. But be aware some of them will shoot you.

The Bad
The AI is worse, the creature are too stupid. And after awhile you get bored by the levels, it's to much of the same.

The Bottom Line
It almost hte same as Wolfenstein, but it is not better. It is just in space and you can shoot creatures instead of nazi's. And this is the perfect game for older computers, if your's to bad for games as Quake, Unreal.

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.

The Good
Poor Blake Stone. How he tried. Although the game features a decent engine (an enhanced Wolf3D engine), with cool effects like light sourcing, texture mapped ceilings and floors, and switches you can actually flip, there was just a punch that it lacked...don't get me wrong! The game isn't all THAT bad! It is fun for a while to grab a few weapons and blow a few hundred alien beings to Kingdom Come, but...something's just....WRONG.

The Bad
Maybe this is what's wrong with this game: for the most part, it just tried TOO hard to be the so-called "DOOM killer", and ended up flat on its face. It tried creeping us out with eerie alien and mutant designs, but most of these "mutants" and "aliens" look more like they belong in the "Captain Action" or "Zapf Brannigan" crowds. They tried giving us ambient music with a low, slightly mysterious feel, but most of the music is rather dull and uninspired. They tried creating a cool futuristic environment with metallic walls, blood splattered organic tiles, and other touches like alien holding tubes and such, but the graphics look (at times) even worse than those of Wolf3D. They tried making smart enemies that would chase you, steal ammo, and maybe go jibaku (suicidal) on you, but most of these enemies just do one thing: stand there and let you kill them. If not that, they'll just fall into a predictable pattern of move, fire, move, fire...you get the idea. They tried making everything that would kill DOOM, but what this all did in the end was kill the game itself.

The Bottom Line
It's so sad...Blake Stone is the tragic tale of engineering a DOOM killer gone terribly wrong. The creation went mad and tried having itself sold for love and attention. But no one cared. Being stuck between Wolf3D and DOOM didn't help, either. If you wish to adopt this little freakish creation, be warned: it may one day snap. Get the cattle prod ready...