What could be more satisfying than shooting a zombie's head off.. and proceeding to kick it around like a soccer ball?
You are Caleb, a bloodthirsty, undead, ex-cultist out for revenge against your backstabbing cult. Rising from the grave with the infamous words, "I live.. again" you set out to rain hell upon anyone who gets in your way. Sounds terrible, eh? Well, it's actually even worse. A game like Blood wouldn't be complete without smartass one-liners from our anti-hero, and all kinds of sick, dark humor to accompany you along the way.
Speaking of the title, this game has a LOT of blood. The game revolves around the amount of blood it pours into its ever so creative levels, and the amount that sprays out of your helpless victims as your pour hot plasma, lead, and fire through their bodies. You start the game with a pitchfork at the ready, and do some stabbing, but in the first few seconds you pick up what is probably the most creative form of the pistol ever put into an FPS, the flare gun. In any normal FPS, the pistol shoots bullets that eventually kill your enemy. Ho hum.. eh? Well, the designers at Monolith wanted something different.. something bloodier. The flare gun fires a fiery bolt at the enemy which rests in its chest for a second or two, and eventually explodes and causes the enemy to run around screaming as they melt. Throughout the course of the game, you'll discover many improvised, and non-improvised weapons for Caleb to slaughter his enemies with. These include the sawed-off shotgun, dynamite, a plasma rifle, a napalm launcher, and a voodoo doll.
Blood came out in 1997, after the launch of the Quake franchise, meaning that even for the time the graphics were a bit behind state-of-the-art. Does this hurt the game at all? No. In fact, just because they aren't amazingly realistic doesn't mean they're cool. Everything is incredibly detailed, and mighty interactive. When you shoot an enemy, blood sprays everywhere, staining walls and floors and leaving trails. You can kick around the heads of zombies that you've recently killed. The levels are littered with human filth, demonic references, and strange satirical humor. There are even 3D weapon "models" floating around on the map. Speaking of level design, the game doesn't fail in this department either. The game will take you from a deranged carnival, to a pirate ship, to a haunted hotel, to inside a giant monster, and to the depths of Hell. Each level is designed with sheer genius, none are too easy and some will have you thinking for a bit before you find the keys to each room.
The game does have some flaws though. Ironically, the biggest flaw the game has is the build engine itself. Over and over again I found myself being crushed by a door when I opened it. And once in a while I found myself stuck between two brushes and unable to move. Also, even with the satisfying gun play and cool weapons, the gameplay can tend to get boring fast and I found myself just quitting and leaving the seat out of the blue on a number of occasions. Other than that though, Blood is a fun game that is worth checking out if you missed it the first time around back in 1997.
(And for those of you that have the game, but can't run it, there is a way to get it running again. If you follow this link, there is a step by step process that shows you how to get all of your build games up and running on Windows XP: http://buildxp.deathmask.net/)
Happy hunting folks.