Captain Blood (1988)
Genres:Adventure, Puzzle, Arcade, Simulator
Themes:Science fiction
Game modes:Single player
Story:Five clones scattered throughout the galaxy, draining your life force. You must find and assimilate them before the ship's auto-bionic functions take over completely... and render you inhuman.
Death-defying flights through hyperspace and dangerous terrain lead to strange worlds with alien inhabitants: Migrax, Croolis-Ulv, and the beautiful and beguiling Torka. They have the information you need to find and destroy your clones- if you're clever enough to get it.Show more
The title music on the ST version was my introduction to Jean-Michel Jarre; it was wild when I finally heard the full track which this game's tune was based upon.
Love flying over the fractal landscapes, and ideographic communication system was way ahead of its time. And how many games can you name which have a diagetic mouse cursor?
I will definitely pick this game up if it becomes available
Amazing game--the mechanics were very, very different, and still are, if I am being honest. You had to use pictograms with the alien specie to communicate, and not all species understood/accepted all pictos. They could also be liars, so all that time and work to get info from them lead you to a dead end (sometimes literally). They were all procedurally generated planets you had to navigate to land before you could even talk to the aliens. Good luck trying to find any to talk to randomly. IIRC, there were like tens of thousands of planets, one at each set of coordinates. Luckily they started you off on an inhabited planet but it could be a different one each playthrough. My brother and I played this extensively, but I don't think either one of us ever finished the whole thing, as there was definitely a time component--you were in the process of deteriorating and needed to find and absorb your clones. I want another stab at it after all these decades.
This is one of the most underrated and way ahead of its time Games ever released on the 8 bit and 16 bit Homecomputers of the 80s. It was so radically ahead of its time regarding the whole gameplay and visual presentation, you can still play it today and feel some of the vibe it must have had during its release. I personally only ever played it on the Commodore 64 (i still have my Cassette retail copy of it and it is an amazing port) but i saw the Amiga 500 and Atari ST versions and was blown away by how much better these versions were. ESPECIALLY the whole sound. The way you could talk to all the different alien creatures you encounter using the basic symbol language, after flying a probe down on the planets and flying through a vector graphics environment... this game really tried so much at once and you could even destroy planets if an alien race asked you to (or even if they didn'task you to ;) ).
The Music by Jean-Michel Jarre used parts of "Ethnicolor" from his 1984 Album "Zoolook" and it really only shines on the Atari ST and Amiga version due to the use of sampling. And it's insane what they pulled off this way.
The universe in this game is also HUGE and keeps you busy for many years. It's kinda like in No Man's Sky where you can jump from one system to another and explore what nobody else had explored yet. And i am pretty sure Hello Games got their inspiration from this game too one way or another. At least some parts of it.
SO yeah, Captain Blood definitely deserves to be preserved and being played. It aged amazingly well.
This game was and still is a masterpiece. It's a "Picasso" of the video games. An original and surreal sci-fi adventure, beyond of its time (1988). The playability was a headache, but challenging and enjoyable. The music, sounds and voices keep the player in a immersive strange ambient of the game. This game was "The Most Beautiful Game of 1988" with the shiny blueish alien aesthetics (imagine a less dark and glooming, and more lighter version of "Scorn"). The original concept and playability of this game, still unique till this days (remember, this game was from the same french minds that later created "Another World / Out Of This World" ). A modern remake or remaster would be very welcome and saving the original game (from Atari ST or Amiga) too.
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