Blood is a first-person-shooter from what I like to call the "pixel era"
of FPS games from the 90s. Outside of the DOS games I played as a small
child, I didn't get really into PC games until college, and that was
around 2005, so I missed out on a lot of 90s PC titles such as Blood.
My
frame of reference for pixel era 90s shooters is of course Doom, as I
was able to get a hold of the Playstation port of the game as a teen in
High School and had a blast playing it. One of the things that
immediately impressed me with Blood was it's improvements over the feel
of Doom. Using an engine refereed to as "build" it featured the ability
to look up and down, the ability to jump, and destructible walls in
certain areas. Design-wise it also made much more use of ambient sound
than Doom, and the levels are detailed and varied enough that it was
very rare to get lost unlike Doom which suffered at times from samey
environments that the player could easily become disoriented in.
Technical
stuff out of the way, what is the game about? You play as a Cultist
named Caleb, who is betrayed by his cult leader and killed along with
his girlfriend/wife and friends. At the start of the game Caleb rises
from the dead and sets out to seek revenge. The cult is vaguely defined
but Caleb definitely leans more towards being an anti-hero, akin to God
of War's Kratos. You can encounter innocents in the game but killing
them is usually optional. 
As I mentioned earlier, one of the
great things about this game is its sheer detail and atmosphere. Unlike
Doomguy, Caleb is quite a vocal protagonist, and will comment on his
surroundings and occasionally taunt his enemies. There's a lot of
ambient sound and a great deal of detail to the environments. Blood's
levels, more often than not, feel more like real-life locations which is
part of what makes them easier to navigate and make sense of. There's
also a great gloomy gothic soundtrack to the game, and the game is
peppered with horror movie references and dark humor. The voice acting
for both Caleb and all of the humanoid foes you meet is very well done,
too.
One worry I have whenever I try to play an older computer
game is that I'll have trouble setting it up or controlling it, but
Blood needed very little modification to get it running well. I played
the steam version so it does come with built-in DOSbox that helps get
the game running promptly, all I needed to do was add a few patches. The
control system, I'm happy to report, feels quite modern. You can run
around with the WASD keys and aim with your mouse. Jumping feels good as
you have very tight air control, meaning that platforming sections in
the game aren't as frustrating as ones I've encountered in other FPS
games. One thing that can be a pain with the controls is that while you
can look up and down, you can't look *all* the way up or down. This can
be really annoying when dealing with flying enemies or wanting to pick
off an enemy is that below you. I get the impression that this is an
engine limitation, but it causes issues on combat nonetheless.
Camera
issues aside though, the combat is very well-done and satisfying.
There's a good assortment of weapons ranging from firearms to oddities
to magical items. I found most of them useful, though the proximity
bombs can be troublesome as you can't disarm them once placed and it can
be difficult to lure enemies over to them at times. The gore effects
are another improvement over Doom's, as blood will splatter all over
walls and floors when enemies are wounded, and there's a variety of cool
squishy gibbing effects when you take out your foes as well. Most foes
can be put down with the right weapons and strategy, though some can be a
real pain. Giant spiders have an extremely high amount of hit points,
and disembodied hands can effectively one-shot you once they get close
enough.
I greatly enjoyed playing through this title, but I do
have a few additional criticisms. There are some parts of the game where
Caleb can be killed simply by being in the way of a normal wooden door
opening and closing. This is both silly and annoying, there was one
level in particular where I had to retry getting into a door several
times simply because I didn't back up quickly enough when it opened
toward me. Another issue is that the screen goes dark is Caleb is
choking or drowning, which is a nice realistic detail, but unfortunately
it also makes the pause menu go dark too. This means if you're stuck
being choked by a disembodied hand and want to just load your last save,
you may have trouble seeing the menu while doing so. Another small
annoyance is that the game kept all my options saved except for my
preferred screen resolution, meaning I had to resize it every time I
loaded the game up.
Blood is definitely a game I recommend if you
aren't put off by the violent content and the fact that Caleb, while a
stylish and funny protagonist, is also a bastard who doesn't mind
shooting innocent bystanders. Being an older PC game, you can snag
yourself a physical copy of it, but you may have to get DOSBox or an
engine source port if you're running it on a modern computer. 
Comments
Post a Comment