|
|
Wolfenstein 3D, the game that started it all, was violent. Then came Doom with even more violence and gore.
Blood takes us to the next level, with more, yes, blood. Where will this end?
For a long time you were a high ranking member of the Cabal, an ancient secret society, serving Tchernobog, a horrible dark God. However, all your loyalty bought you were false promises and betrayal. Now it's time for revenge.
You start out in a grave yard/church. Inside a chest to be exact. From here, you'll have to fight your way trough a train station, a running train, a carnival and more. Especially the running train impressed me. At the train station, you board the locomotive. From here you'll have to move on from railroad car to car. You'll clearly feel that the is train moving - take a look at the scenery around or listen to the sounds.
Blood uses the same Build 3D engine as Duke Nukem 3D, giving it a bit of the same feeling. There's lots of details (much can be destroyed). For example, if you break a window in the train, you'll hear the outside sounds better.
Most of the weapons, including a pitchfork, flare gun, sawed-off shotgun, machine gun, TNT and a incinerator are available in the shareware version. The registered version has a few more, such as hairspray (set fire to it, and you have a flame thrower), voodoo doll, remote and
proximity detonators. Blood is different from other games when it comes to weapons. You not only have to consider how powerful a weapon is, but also how efficient it is to use on the various monsters. For example, it's much easier to kill a zombie with a flare gun than with a shot gun. However, it won't make a big difference whether you use a flare gun or a shot gun when shooting fanatics (humans).
Some other of the monsters include rats, bats, spiders, cultists, gargoyles, bone eels and hell hounds. The monsters are very often hiding, waiting for you to come. In many other games, it almost seems like the nasties are placed around at random or are suicide candidates. This makes playing Blood much more challenging.
The audiovisuals in Blood are pretty good, but not noticeable better or worse than games like Duke Nukem 3D or Quake. Well, the monsters look much better in Quake. The graphics modes available range from 320x200 to 800x600.
Some parts of Blood seems a bit unfinished, especially the second level. It's much more difficult than the other levels. Also, the graphics could need some more fine tuning. E.g. the railroad cars does not look like real railroad cars. The use of colors at some places could also have been improved.
At first, Blood seems like just another Duke Nukem 3D clone. But playing Blood is different from playing Duke Nukem 3D or Quake. It's has a different atmosphere. It's spooky. Sometimes you almost forget it's just a game.
|
|
|
|
|
