(Played on “Lightly Broiled” which is this games equivalent to normal difficulty.)
A Must play for a any fan of the genre.
Great level design with interactivity, engaging exploration, fun combat encounters and memorable locations. something i especially like about Blood's levels is there are a lot of alternate paths withing them. making them feel very open and elaborate, but without making them into labyrinths like so many other shooters of its age. I can’t really think of any level I disliked.
Enemies are all pretty fun to fight too. Not really any I would call annoying. Though, I think the shotgunners could do for a reaction time nerf.
Weapons are great. Not much overlap and they are all fun to use. There are obvious FPS mainstays including a shotgun, machine gun and a rocket launcher. But there are many other more unique weapons that make Blood’s arsenal as interesting as it is. Such as a flare gun that ignites enemies, a voodoo doll and a staff that can run off of your own health.
Though by far my favorite of the bunch is the dynamite. An explosive that (dependent on the type you use) can be detonated via remote, proximity, time or just on impact. You can also adjust how far you throw it and (for non-impact types) bounce it off walls which is great for taking enemies out from around corners. I don’t think I have ever used a grenade type of weapon this much in a boomer-shooter. Let alone had so much fun with one. Seriously one of the most satisfying weapons in a shooter. In the same realm as the DooM II SSG, Quake Rocket launcher, the Quake II railgun and the Marathon 2 Dual shotguns.
One criticism I do have is that the final boss was probably the easiest and most anti-climactic boss I have ever fought. It took only, what? Maybe seven rockets to kill? Just like that. Within literally ten seconds it was dead. I guess that’s better than a frustrating final boss but it being so easy made it feel like the game didn't really end, it just kinda stopped.
In my opinion this game deserves just as much if not more attention than Duke Nukem 3D gets.

Yeah it feels great to shoot stuff, yeah it has a sick aesthetic, but the real star of the show here is the level design. There's so many cool setpieces in here, and somehow they manage to make them all flow like coherent levels with clear progression. Really feels like they learned all the right lessons from other shooters at the time, and it comes off as feeling very modern in that regard.

Also the CG cutscenes are so bad that they loop back around to being kind of unsettling, love that shit.

Memorization-heavy peekaboo shooting is fun when the level design lends itself to that playstyle; otherwise it's a slog. When people talk about Blood, they talk about the cultists but never about the other enemies. There's a reason for that: they might as well not exist at all since strafing and/or crouching completely nullifies their (extremely slow and telegraphed) attacks. When the only credible threat in your roster is an overtuned one then you rely on the level design to do all the heavy lifting to try and shake things up in the long run.
For episode 1 and most of episode 2, it works. Mainly because the levels are very well-designed, pretty short as well as self-contained and thankfully the weapons in your arsenal encourage that kind of peekaboo shooting playstyle I mentioned earlier, Episode 3 onward is where things start to crumble. What once was the source of exhilaration becomes the source of frustration and eventually boredom. The levels become bigger so the crazy hitscanners more annoying to deal with, the other walking non-threats become tankier and come in greater numbers making them a slog to dispatch (Cheogh and Shial take the whole damn cake). Some levels are entirely devoid of cultists, those only serve to exacerbate Blood's main flaw as they are very much "nothing" levels as they lack any kind of challenge.

It's a shame because I love everything else about Blood but, due to an obvious lack of playtesting, the enemy balancing is so bad it ends up souring the whole dish. I played on Well Done because anything lower than that and the cultists become non-threatening too so not much point to it in my opinion.

is "boomer shooter" the only time boomer isn't used at least somewhat derogatorily? i mean, doom is bad, but this is very good and feels very differently than the somewhat boring combat of doom. Maybe its how manic the game can get with its unique encounters and bombastic weapons. but it does have its share of bull, with, yes, very fast hitscan cultists and moments every one will die to at least once at, but once you get through at most the first episode, you will be able to take care of stuff like that much better.
Pacing can be very fast with a lot of stuff and locations happening very quickly that makes it so i don't really remember a lot of it. It just jumps from horror trope to horror trope so fast that it's tone and artstyle loops back into more humor than stuff like doom which can take itself too seriously with the game it's trying to make. but the cutscenes are good, they make my eyes bleed, but the shots and imagery make them very impactful even when the gameplay relies more on camp.
Anyway, i played fresh supply, some episodes on lightly broiled, a couple on well done, very good and stands out despite its age, but it still got jank in its pockets.

love getting better and better at this game and replayin it
so much about it is soo good once you get the hang of it i do recommend first time players play on lightly broiled and work their way up to well done
theres so much neat tricks you can do with the movement and the guns feel soo good
its really up there for me either get fresh supply or us this http://nukeykt.retrohost.net/
whatever you do DO NOT play the dosbox version its fucked up

Very similar to Doom of course, but even within the realm of early shooters it's very similar, visually almost identical in a lot of ways. Similar gameplay wise too, so basically the thing separating it is the genre or plot, less demons from hell in futuristic space and more evil zombie cultists in a strange version of the world with 1000% cheesy 80s slasher influence and the best cutscenes ever. Seriously love the cutscenes, they're so crap in today's standards but I love them so much. I love this game generally, it's absolutely cheesy and silly-edgy but I love that and I love the setting and the atmosphere and the cultism. I heard it was a tough one, but I had an easier time with it than both Quake and Doom II, but then again perhaps I got good.

Blood is one of the games of all time.
The unique arsenal and it's uses for certain situations is one of the best of all time. The arsenal consists of a flare gun, dynamite, double shotgun, tommy gun, napalm, tesla gun, voodoo doll and a skull in a stick named life leech.
The enemies have a great variety with every single one with their methods of disposal. Zombies are the most common variety, cultists require you to DB Shotgun and crouch, butchers die with fire, the annoyance enemies can be dealt with dynamite, hellhounds are dealt with tesla, gargoyles can be dealt with napalm and dynamite, butchers are weak to fire, stone gargoyles are weak to voodoo dolls most of the time, the spider is just shoot. Etc.

Every voice line has personality, caleb quotes various songs, musics, cheats are cultural references. The ambience is one of the best, they are similar to real life locations but with a bit of horror. Each environment is destructible, full of secrets and more.

The music is not a masterpiece, but you don't need it that much. What is there is AMAZING. Unholy Voices and Mall of the Dead are my favorite.

Blood might be one of the games of all time. (Too bad Blood 2 sucks ass).

I had only ever played the shareware version of Blood until I finally decided to sort this massive hole in my classic FPS knowledge out. It is a game that sits on a pedestal among the best in the genre and for the most part, is fully deserving of that place.

The setting is fantastic, a strange, timeless mix of present day and the old West via a particularly grim Tales from the Crypt episode. The enemy types are mostly great, with clear weaknesses and strengths that require you to weapon switch, be aware of the environment and prioritise targets way more than many other games in the genre. The weapons are memorable and satisfying to use, from one of the best shotguns around to a bloody can of deodorant and a lighter.

The level design... fuck me, the LEVEL DESIGN in this one, lads. The BUILD engine tends to be at its best when it is delivering these approximations of a real life location and Blood features some of the very best. Some levels are rapid fire gauntlets of enemies, some are almost Doom-esque puzzles boxes to solve while some are quite happy for you to get lost in, searching for keys and switches in some memorable locations.

Towards the back end of the game, I found the level design to drop off a bit, as you find yourself in caverns and temples instead of say, haunted manors and fucked up hospitals. The sheer amount of hit-scanning Cultist enemies can cause a few frustratingly unfair deaths and the boss enemies at the end of each chapter are a bit underwhelming when compared to Duke 3D and Shadow Warrior but these are all small complaints in the grand scheme of things. Blood is a belter, probably the hardest of the trinity of classic BUILD shooters so tailor the difficulty to your tastes appropriately (I'd probably say knock it down two settings from where you can comfortably play Doom).

Also: BUILD engine explosions are one of gaming's greatest pleasures and the ones found in Blood are truly top tier. There's a tangible sense of weight and force to them, with enemies and even you being knocked backwards from the centre of the blast and perfectly charging the strength of a dynamite throw so one lands in-between a pack of zombies and sends entrails skyward is life-affirming shit.

Blood é muito divertido.
Infelizmente, não me apego muito aos temas e a abordagem, mas francamente, jogo jogos boomer shooter porque acho divertidos e não espero me conectar profundamente a nenhum.
Estou na espera deste que vai me conquistar intimamente, mas por enquanto, Blood é de longe um dos meus favoritos.
O cuidado com os temas de terror e referencias a obras clássicas definitivamente carregam o carisma e momentum do jogo. Muitas vezes, essa inércia será quebrada com um level design agoniante (no mundo 3) mas no geral, é um jogo altamente instintivo e de pouca cautela.
Armas criativas com uma diferenciação ortogonal de unidade bem prestativa, ainda mais em dificuldades maiores (um exemplo de que pouca variedade de inimigo não significa pouca variedade de combate) e armas muito criativas tornam toda curta gameplay muito p´razerosa.
Um jogo que me fez ter vontade de abrir o pc para jogar.
Competente em proposta e em execução. Nâo apenas criativamente, mas todo conjunto da obra exala domínio artístico e referencial, mas não se propõe a surpreender o jogador. O que você terá no inicio terá durante todo jogo em escala maior.
Ainda assim, jogo bem criativamente competente

As a kid, I played every classic FPS game that I could get my hands on, from forgotten gems like Heretic to bizarre relics like Redneck Rampage. Despite my love for the genre, however, I never got past the first level or two of Blood - for whatever reason, I found its gothic aesthetic to be off-putting, and its array of bizarre weapons confused me.

Now that I've finally played and beaten it, I can say for certain that I thoroughly misjudged Blood. Unlike the army of Doom clones that it was competing with, this is a legitimately unique game with a lot of interesting design choices that stand out even today. Protagonist Caleb isn't a badass soldier strapped to the gills with rocket launchers and flamethrowers - though the Thompson and your shotgun get a lot of use, they're often not the most effective weapons for the variety of situations that the game puts you in.

The most common enemies in Blood are prowling cultists with hitscan weapons that can tear you apart easily even on the default difficulty setting. Since ammo for your stronger weapons is relatively scarce, you have to think ahead and set traps to survive. My most used weapon after the Tommy Gun (its ability to stunlock the cultists is unmatched) was actually the default dynamite sticks - once you get the hang of their throwing arc, you can kill two or three bad guys at a time with it. The flare gun is also surprisingly useful, since its accuracy means you can use it to set targets on fire from afar, and its alternate fire can mess up a group of cultists in a hurry.

Though it does feel thoroughly modern in some aspects, Blood is still a retro game at its core. My biggest complaint with the game is that its difficulties feel a bit unbalanced and poorly-implemented - unlike other games of the era, higher difficulties boost enemy health and their response time, which means you can get torn to shreds by 2 or 3 cultists in a second or two if you aren't careful. I played through most of the first episode on Well Done (UV equivalent) before giving up due to frustration. I restarted on the default Lightly Broiled setting, which is a stout enough challenge, but was definitely a bit too easy in parts. It's worth noting that I played on the source port NBlood for the "authentic experience" but the Steam remaster of the game has a custom difficulty setting that allows you to fiddle with some of the options for a better experience, so I would recommend that if you're interested in the game.

Another minor complaint: the first boss of the game (the stone gargoyle) is by far the hardest, and I'm not sure the designers of the game realize that. I managed to beat the big bad final boss Tchernobog in about ten seconds, which was a bit underwhelming. As a whole, though, Blood is a thoroughly creative game with shockingly good level design and one of the best arsenals in a first-person shooter. If you're interested at all in the genre, I definitely recommend it. It does show its age in spots, but it's still a great experience.