Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold

I enjoyed playing this classic game when I was younger. It is a fun and interesting game.

Ok, that game is good, it has some good ideas that were not widespread at the time, like interaction with the NPC's and the environment. The graphics are not bad, but the main thing is the gameplay, the damage and the aiming. If you are to enjoy this game, you will have to cope with a LOT OF RANDOMNESS! And I mean A LOT. By that I mean that a lot of things seems to be highly unpredictable. Movement for one. But the most egregious is the variability in the number of shots needed to destroy opponents. Sometimes you will kill a guard with a single shot of the base pistol at a long range, other times you will be spraying the same guard with an automatic weapons at close range for 5-6 rounds before it's down. Highly annoying. Same thing goes for the turrets for example, sometimes you need a single rifle bullet, other times you spend 7-8 bullets before it's destroyed, at similar angles and ranges. Which brings us to the next topic, probably the most annoying to me. Medium difficulty is very easy, but at the higher difficulty levels, THAT FRIGGING GAME DOESN'T GIVE YOU ENOUGH AMMO!!!!!!! LIKE EVER! You will always be facing 4-5 tougher ennemies and you will have around 10 bullets in your machine gun before it's empty. Combined with the aforementioned variability in the ammo needed for a kill, and you can see the problem. That combination made me quit the game in frustration many times. I'm more than halfway through and I plan on finishing the game, but mostly so I can say I finished it, it is not that enjoyable. As I said, mostly for nostalgia and very tolerant players...

I'll be honest; I played this game simply because Doom would not run on my computer. A step above Wolfenstein 3D, Blake Stone was a solid FPS at the time but lacked the features it needed to meet the competition. It was great when I couldn't play Doom, but I still always felt like I was missing out. I have good memories of this game, but wouldn't play it again now.

The game is stable and runs well. All the problems are with the game design. The enemies are all hit-scan bullet sponges which means you're taking damage no matter how you play, and on the higher difficulty levels it's a game of chance as to whether enemies deal 1 or 100 percent damage before they finally go down. The inclusion of the Bio-tech informants is one of the most infuriating game design choices ever made. These guys will annoy the hell out of you by getting in your way and you'll regularly take damage from enemy Bio-techs who shoot instantly upon being revealed. It has the admittedly pretty common issue of FPSs at the time of being very maze like and claustrophobic and modern gamers will struggle with not being able to turn and strafe at the same time. Maybe worth a quick run through on lower difficulties for the sake of nostalgia but I certainly wouldn't recommend trying to 100% it (The guy who made the secret areas quite possibly hates humanity) or playing on higher difficulties.

One of the Games that does not have a Y-Axis. Based on a technology like the first Wolfenstein used too. The Source-Code has been released ! If you know how to handle with DosBox then don't buy it.