blood... is good... (wait that doesnt rhyme like how i thought it would)

doom uses it's garish colours and primitive but expressive graphics to create a world that feels alien and martian in so many ways. it's stylish, but it never fully worked for me. blood - with its trimmed down colour palette and more familiar spaces - goes the opposite direction, creating this 19th century sci-fi horror setting that still looks incredible all these years later.

game still plays damn well too, and still feels so unique for how it eschews the archetypal fps arsenal in favour of its own set of weapons. sure there are some classics like shotgun, machine gun and rocket launcher, but then there's the handgun being replaced by a flare gun which can kill in a single shot but takes time and can damage you, the voodoo doll which can hitscan enemies but damages you if you miss your shot with it, and the delightful, wonderful dynamite sticks, which graciously remain viable - no, essential for almost the entire playthrough. their mere existence shifts the whole dynamic of the game from boomer shooter run and gun to a more tactical style of play, something which i feel suits it much better.

"I live.. again..."

the sourceports for this game are pretty nice (i tried one way back) but the fresh supply remaster by nightdive studios is the way to go. on top of being far more convenient for most players it adds new difficulty options that allow you to customize the way the game is played to better suit you. which is very handy because the basic cultists can be disproportionately difficult compared to other enemies on the vanilla difficulties, something that the remaster explicitly recognises and gives you the option to turn down their range and damage. this is how i played most of the game while cranking up other stuff like enemy density and i think it was a good decision overall

where the game does begin to stumble a bit is with the level design. mind you it started off great! episode 1 and 2 have many baller levels between them, and while some of the later levels in both episodes felt a bit meandering and languid, i felt like that vibe was always leveraged in a way that felt appropriate to the tone of those levels. episode 3 struggled a bit but had a great aesthetic and used the city theming with its levels very well. episode 4 was a disorganized mess all the way through, and was the hardest to slog through. the farting demon intestines level was a low, low point for the game. if one is to play this game i'd say there's no shame in stopping at episode 3.

despite that i thought that this shit very much ruled, and it's a game that still feels so modern, both graphically and gameplay wise. i would definitely be pointing anyone who wants to try out a boomer shooter in Blood: Fresh Supply's direction

I can see where there might be an audience for Blood, but even as a fan of boomer shooters, I just don't think I'm that audience.

Its greatest strength and weakness is that it's very different to other boomer shooters out there. Where other games like it want you to go in there guns blazing with a good understanding of your arsenal, Blood wants you to be very methodical in your movements. Dashing around corners will get you instantly killed, so you need to take every corner carefully and use every tool in your arsenal wisely.

This is good since it sets itself apart from other games, but to me, the trial and error nature of essentially needing to have knowledge of every combat encounter prior to entering it just isn't for me. I can deal with a little save scumming on occasion, but having to save scum several times a fight just makes the game feel grating at times.

I wasn't enjoying it even after getting through a good chunk of the first episode, so I dropped it. While I can praise its style and sense of humor, I can't enjoy a game that asks a lot out of me in each encounter, then feels more relieving than gratifying once I finally get through it.

Just a fantastic game. Might be one of my very favorite boomer shooters to date, if only for the atmosphere alone. It's not perfect, and some levels and episodes definitely dragged on. Some weapons felt useless and/or superfluous like the different types of dynamite and the lost soul thing (besides its secondary fire), but the weapons that do land, land oh-so-very well. As someone who hates using grenades in games, the dynamite has made me a convert, though I suppose it's partially because it almost feels more like a wind-up grenade launcher than it does a throwable. Save those earlier mentioned exceptions, every weapon was extremely fun to use, and felt like it had its place by the end of the game. Atmosphere and music was incredible. Enemy variety was enjoyable and mostly fair. I would still tone down the twitchiness of the cultists, especially the tommy-gun toting ones, because they were by far the reason I save-scummed the most. That said, the remake does have a custom difficulty option which allows you to adjust many aspects of the enemies, like their health pool and aggression levels. I'm sure enough tweaking would allow folks to enjoy the game however they want. I would love to see a DOOM 2016 treatment done to this franchise, and I'm excited to mess around more with any WADs / mods for it in the future.

My favorite shooter so far. I really liked the references to horror films, weapon damage feedback and level design.

It has 11 weapons, they're very creative and different enough to justify the inclusion. The shotgun is always remembered as THE shotgun, but the dynamite is perhaps my favorite weapon in any game. It has a learning curve, but very satisfying to use it.

Game has 6 chapters, 4 from the base game and 2 released later. Each one has a secret stage hidden somewhere, boss and credits.

To get all the trophies I played each one 3 times (it could have been less, but it wasn't my initial intention).

The key hunting isn't bad as in others of the genre, I got lost a few times the first time, but on the second playthrough, knowing more or less what to expect, I realized that it's almost linear, and very few times the door was far from the key. The chapter "Cryptic Passage" can be accessed through the option menu, I had to watch a video to know where to go, but otherwise it was fine.

By jumping and shooting yourself in the foot with dynamite or the Napalm Launcher, you're launched high into the air. You can skip entire sessions and make really cool sequence breaks. I loved every second of it.

CALLA Y SANGRA

Si Duke Nukem cogió la base de Doom llevándolo a un terreno desenfadado y propio de una película de Serie B de acción, Blood hace eso mismo pero con el terreno del terror y el gore de Serie B.

Tienes todo lo propio de un juego de este estilo; acción, dificultad y diseño de niveles.

Aquí cambia en el ambiente. Adiós a las estaciones espaciales y la temática de ciencia ficción, prepárate a recorrer cementerios, circos abandonados, hospitales y demás lugares tenebrosos.
Se acabó matar a aliens y demonios, aquí te toca machacar zombies, sectarios, fantasmas y demás criaturas típicas del inframundo.
¿Te gustaba el armamento actual o lo que sueles encontrar en Doom? Aquí te toca usar ametralladoras Thompson, cartuchos de dinamita y otras armas más macabras como muñecos vudú o bastones mágicos.

Tal vez Caleb no tenga tanto carisma como Duke, pero tiene su esencia propia y que, a mi gusto, lo hace mejor.

"Hey what if we made Doom with a pretty kickass horror aesthetic?"

"Oh thats a nice ide-"

"And lets add stupid awful hit-scan enemies and awful maps as well!"

Fast, difficult, and brutal retro FPS with an amazing horror atmosphere.

The game will absolutely kick your ass even on the difficulty equivalent to a medium difficulty in other retro FPS, and absolutely brutalize you on its high difficulties, be warned.

But beyond the difficulty awaits an extremely fun retro FPS rewarding quick movement, good tactical thinking outside of circlestrafing and shooting, and smart usage of the tools available to you.

The hellhounds can still piss off though.

Could not get into this one sadly. I never played the original game, but this remaster is great from Nightdive, as it does a great job bringing the game to modern systems. The sprite work of the enemies is fantastic and I love the unique weapon line up and art style. Playing it though didn't feel that good and you die so easily in this game. The first episode is just a massive turn off as you barely have any ammo and enemies hit like a freight train. Unforunately its just not for me, but if your a fan of the original, then this remaster will give you everything you could ask for!

This game is amazing if you are into boomer shooters you have to try this one out. The weapon selection is awesome, you have the usuals like the shotgun and machine gun, but they add some really fun unique ones like a voodoo doll, pitchfork, dynamite, aerosol can, and a bunch more. The level variety is really great, especially if you are a horror fan. Mixed in with the large variety of settings are some horror movie parody levels like the Shining and Friday the 13th. Enemies are also really unique and well done, I especially appreciated the little crawling hand enemies that would jump up and choke you. Really glad I played this one as I rediscover my love for this genre.

Those demonic bastards are gonna pay for turning my girl into a texture.

I haven't been having a good October. My tulpa has been out there opening new lines of credit in my name, and the spooky games I picked out have all ranged from middling to bad. I swear the plan wasn't to theme the whole month around mediocre horror. I actually thought I'd like Ghouls 'n Ghosts, and I didn't expect to fall off so hard with Fatal Frame's combat. At least I'm finishing the season strong with Blood, which was recommended to me several months ago, around when I was starting to post reviews for the classic Doom games.

I can definitely see why Blood was suggested to me, as it sticks pretty close to the boomer shooter script as laid out by Doom. You have a shotgun that acts as the centerpiece of your arsenal, levels are often maze-like and require the collection of keys to progress in, and you'll need to claw your way through hordes of demons in one perfect run to the exit button - unless you're a save scummer, like me. Some of the weapons aren't quite as good as what you'd find in Doom, but for my money, Blood has the best dynamite in any first person shooter I've played, and the inclusion of alt-fires for almost every weapon adds a lot of versatility. Your normal shotgun can fire off single bursts or you can empty both barrels at once, for example, and I'm not sure any other shooter at the time was playing around with ideas like this.

There's also a lot of Duke Nukem 3D in here, specifically with Blood's protagonist Caleb, who loves to mouth off and amuse himself with corny little one-liners. Caleb is great. He's such a weird little freak. Stephan Weyte's performance is on the same level for me as Jon St. John, and I love the way he holds on certain syllables when growling out his lines. The way he says "Llllocked!" or "I need a keyyy" is tattooed on my brain, and Caleb's "Ohhh myyy, what a WONderful smell I've discovered~" when entering an outhouse (and just before diving into the toilet) is going to stick with me. Caleb may be very Duke-like with his shamelessly sourced movie quotes ("DON'T play it again, Sam..."), but his sense of humor is more off-kilter and suited to his role as an amoral former cult member.

Holding Blood back from being as great as Doom, however, is the whole of Episode 3, "A Farewell to Arms," which drills into Sandy Petersen territory with how labyrinthine and confounding many of its levels are. I got stuck for an unreasonable amount of time in the level "Spare Parts" because a grey elevator door blended in with the rest of the scenery, looking indistinguishable from a non-interactive wall. "Raw Sewage" and "Monster Bait" are dull levels that overstay their welcome and contribute their fair share to Episode 3 being a drag, with the highest point probably being "The Sick Ward" which is mostly just fine. 

Episode 4 brings things back around with shorter, more focused levels, and though the Plasma Pak and Cryptic Passage expansions included in Fresh Supply do have some levels that are a bit too meandering, they are mostly solid, so Fresh Supply does recover from that mid-game slump. It is a shame that the expansions lack the same janky CG 3D cutscenes as the core game, though. There were better looking real-time graphics in 1997, I love it and can't imagine Blood any other way. The real-time shadows and lighting in the game itself do look great, though, so at least Blood looks good where it counts.

I have no idea how to tie all these thoughts together and wrap up this review, so I'm gonna hit this exit switch, listen to a bunch of dudes go "ohhhh owwwww!" and just reflect on how Blood saved my October.