Blood

Blood

Game: Blood
Platform: PC 
Developer: 3D Realms, Monolith Productions.
Release Year: 1997

Setting

The setting is somewhat ambiguous but contains elements of post World War I Europe and America. The levels contain aesthetic choices from the 1920's - 1940's. This is strangely crossed with retro future-technology (reference to Tesla) as well as classic Western (including the background of the main character Caleb).

Basic Plot

You play a risen (undead) anti-hero from the Wild West era named Caleb. Originally Caleb was the commander of a cult called The Cabal who worshipped the god Tchernobog. He, along with four others, were the highest ranking members of The Cabal and were referred to as The Chosen. However, for an unspecified "failure" all four of The Chosen were betrayed and killed by Tchernobog. The game starts with Caleb rising from the grave. The original game is broken up into four episodes.

• Episode 1: The Way of All Flesh: Caleb awakes from his tomb and immediately begins hunting Tchernobog's minions. Caleb hunts down and defeats the gargoyle Cheogh (one of  Tchernobog's minions), and cremates the body of one of The Chosen "Ophelia".
• Episode 2: Even Death may Die: Caleb hunts down the spider demon Shial and defeats her. There he rips out the heart of the corpse of Gabriel (one of The Chosen) and absorbs his power.
• Episode 3: Farewell to Arms: Caleb takes on the two headed beast (and second in command to Tchernobog) Cerberus and defeats him.
• Episode 4: Dead Reckoning: Caleb fights his way to face Tchernobog himself. He ends up having to defeat his three lieutenants once again, before finally confronting the dark god. He finally learns why Tchernobog betrayed him; he knew Caleb would rise again and come back for him, absorbing power as he went, and Tchernobog wants the power for himself. Instead, Caleb states "It's time to put you down" and defeats the dark god - temporarily ending The Cabal.

The flair gun during the single player campaign.

Gameplay

Blood is a first person shooter based on the Build Engine. Although not true 3D (it used raycasting like technology seen in other games of the time such as DOOM or Wolfenstein 3D, it did include some voxel graphics for weapon pick-ups.

Blood was one of the last first person shooters I played purely with a keyboard (before the mouse + WSAD keys became the norm for PC games).

The single player campaign was interesting. It was littered with references to popular culture such as films, books, television, and various genres. It also featured a lot of blood and gore which makes the game fit into the "slasher" genre.

There were elements of puzzle solving as well.

Multiplayer LAN was one of the highlights of the game. The weapon options were spectacular and interesting, and some of the maps were pretty well designed too. The weapons included:

• Pitchfork; the player's starting weapon, melee only.
• Flare gun; a pistol which fired a flare which could "stick" to an opponent and continually burn them. An alternative fire could cause it to explode on impact.
• Sawed off shotgun; always good at close quarters.
• Thompson's machine-gun; standard automatic machinegun.
• Aerosol can; used with a lighter to become a flame thrower. Powerful but you had to get close to hit an opponent. Could set the enemy on fire.
• Napalm Launcher; fired a gooey projectile of death. When you get this weapon and fire it sometimes Caleb says "I love the smell of napalm in the morning".
• Dynamite bundle; Used like a grenade.
• Voodoo doll; Only in multiplayer, this weapon could either be used for a quick "stab" attack or a sweeping attack which could kill an opponent outright if they were close enough.
• Skull staff (don't know the real name); this weapon was a skull on a staff which fired "hellfire" attacks at the enemy and was easily the most powerful weapon in the game.
• Proximity mine; This mine had a sensor and if you stepped on it, it exploded. There was one multiplayer level called Click! which had a lot of these, was a small map, and often ended up with two players pretty much stuck until someone set off a chain reaction which almost eliminated everything on the level.

Voodoo doll.

Positives

The game was different, interesting. It had a really different feel to it even though it used a similar game engine to many others of the time. It had a lot of thought put into the back story and the connections with popular culture. The story was one of the better first person shooter stories out there, although still pretty linear in nature.

Multiplayer was amazing, it was something we played a lot of up until the age of real 3D games came along (particularly for is Half-Life Deathmatch). Going back from mouse+keyboard to just keyboard is PAINFUL.

Negatives

Having mouse + keyboard as an option would have extended the shelf life of this game for me.

Memorable Moments

Definitely the multiplayer level Click! was the most fun. I loved that... we knew where the spawn spots were and we'd lay mines down on them, so if you died you usually insta-died maybe 3-4 times before the mines were cleared.

I remember another level which had the skull staff, and there was a large spiral staircase up to it with a voodoo doll on the way. Lots of passages and positioning involved when we played that one.

I played this game a lot with DRTsorak (Rowan).