Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold

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...

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Now its sorta out of date.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
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.