1. Dusk (PC)(FPS)
2. Project: Snowblind (PC)(FPS)
3. Soldier of Fortune: Platinum Edition (PC)(FPS)
4. Ziggurat (PC)(FPS)
5. Wolfenstein 3D: Ultimate Challenge (PC)(FPS)
6. Destiny 2 (PC)(FPS/RPG)
7. Destiny 2: Curse of Osiris (PC)(FPS/RPG)
8. Destiny 2: Warmind (PC)(FPS/RPG)
9. Destiny 2: Forsaken (PC)(FPS/RPG)
10. Star Wars: Rebel Assault (PC)(Rail Shooter)
11. Castle Werewolf (PC)(FPS)
12. Project Warlock (PC)(FPS)
13. Castle Crashers (PC)(Hack and Slash)
14. This Strange Realm of Mine (PC)(FPS)
15. BioShock Remastered (PC)(FPS)
16. BioShock 2 (PC)(FPS)
17. BioShock 2: Minerva's Den (PC)(FPS)
18. Blood (PC)(FPS)
With Blood: Fresh Supply finally out on Steam and GOG, I decided I'd go back and revisit an old classic that I had sadly missed the first time around. Sure, I've played Blood II, but it's terrible. I didn't want to let that be my one experience here. With this release, I'm glad I didn't let the bad taste of the sequel get to me. Now the Fresh Supply does include the two expansion episodes, Cryptic Passage and Post Mortem, but I haven't gone through them yet. I figured though that since I've officially beaten the original four episodes, I should go ahead and record my thoughts, then revisit when I finally get around to beating the add-ons.
If you are big on FPS, this game doesn't need an introduction. I'm sure a couple of you are scratching your heads though and asking, "What's Blood?" It's that red fluid in your body. Human motor oil, you know? As for the game, it's a First Person Shooter built on the Build Engine by Monolith Productions and published by GT Interactive. It's one of the principle trilogy of Build Engine games, held up along with Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior despite there being other games designed using it, such as Witchaven, the PC release of PowerSlave, and even William Shatner's TekWar. We don't talk about TekWar.
In Blood, you play a demonic gunslinger named Caleb who starts the game being double crossed by his demon boss, Tchernobog. He returns to life centuries later with the sole purpose of killing his old boss and every freaking minion that happens to get in his way, which is a lot of them. Tchernobog's got a whole cult, an army of demon critters, and loads of traps at his disposal, as well as his boss mobs that took out Caleb's old crew of pals. Each of the four original episodes involves Caleb going after either one of the bosses or eventually Tchernobog himself, who reveals he had Caleb killed because he knew he'd be back and murder everyone in his wake, thus becoming a great font of souls that Tchernobog plans to feed off of...at least that is until Caleb pumps him full of dynamite and buckshot. Yeah, you probably shouldn't piss off your best killer and then act like everything's gonna be all nice-like when he shows back up to wipe the floor with your face.
But enough about plot, how does it play? Well, that depends a bit on your difficulty, but I'll get to that in a bit. First things first, Blood has fantastic level design. Each new level feels like a direct continuation of the last, so every episode builds on itself. This leads to fantastic results, such as a train station in E1M2 leading to a train level in E1M3, which you crash to arrive at a carnival in E1M4. I absolutely love how this is handled, and the levels are sometimes mazelike but structured in a way where you'll steadily unlock easy paths to backtrack as necessary. I never felt stuck in the base game, there was always something new to go check out and push on, and levels sometimes feel open enough that you don't have to go in a linear approach.
Yes, the levels are dark, and you'll probably get a little tired of looking at the same grey stonework over and over again, but this is alleviated partly through the use of humor. Yeah, Blood is a dark comedy, and Caleb is having a ton of fun murdering whatever gets in his way and making movie references. For example, E4M3 features a furnace room where Caleb mentions A Nightmare on Elm Street. E4M4 is a massive homage to the Friday the 13th film series, complete with a reminiscent soundtrack. The level is even called Crystal Lake. References to other horror media is found throughout, from choking hands that shout "I'll swallow your soul" out of the Evil Dead series to references to Edgar Allen Poe's poetry.
The weapons add to the mayhem and fun too. Caleb has a thing for fire, and multiple weapons can be used to ignite enemies. He also likes explosions, so you better get comfortable lobbing dynamite around, because it will likely save your ass more than once. The weapon I tend to favor is of course a double-barrel, sawed-off shotgun, because it pumps enough buckshot to launch most critters beyond oblivion, but there is also a Tommy gun for when you need to spray and pray, a Tesla cannon for frying some of the big nasties, and even a voodoo doll, because sometimes you just need to make someone feel pain. It's a bizarre mix of firepower that supports self-harm almost as much as it does harming everything else, and it totally works for the chaotic murder-fest that Caleb is unleashing. Also, there's a good chance he's gonna laugh if you blow up enough stuff. You'll probably be laughing with him.
Does it always work? Well, no. Blood has some serious issues with difficulty levels, with enemies going from near worthless to Terminator-esque aimbot snipers depending on what you pick. On the higher difficulties, the general advice is to memorize the location of every enemy in the level and learn what you can skip. Even on the medium difficulties, which is where I default to for a first run, one enemy can put a lot of hurt on you if you don't react quickly or appropriately. You may enter a room and watch yourself immediately drop halfway in health if you're not careful. The Fresh Supply has added in some difficulty tweaks, so you can modify things how you wish, though I haven't played with it enough to say how effective it is.
The Fresh Supply from Night Dive Studios has some other weird bugs right now. I have trouble using the Steam overlay and have to alt-tab out of the game if I want to do something like check my friends list. Certain sound effects are also used by Steam, so I keep thinking I've gotten a message whenever I grab certain items, and the amount of gore fluctuates in a way that Night Dive hasn't been able to fully track because of a lack of consistency. They're working on it, and it's still the easiest way to play Blood in Windows, though if you want a more accurate experience, there is always DOSBox.
Do I like Blood? Hell yeah. I am looking forward to going back for the expansions. I hear at least one of them will create evil mini Calebs if I shatter a mirror. Straight out of Army of Darkness.
Ack's Year of the FPS continues...