Blood 2: The Blood Group

Blood 2 is such a tremendously bad game that you have to wonder how it managed to get made in the first place without hitting the breaks and actually PLAYING the clunky. Literally everything that could go wrong with a sequel to Blood can be found in this waste of hard drive space. -bland, blocky polygons -bland, ugly weapons -bland, hitscanning enemies that take your health from full to nothing in the blink of an eye -bland, uninspired level design -bland characters -bland, short story The only reason I could comprehend why anyone would want to play this buggy mess of a game today (when it was first released it was astoundingly bad to the point of being unplayable for many) is the same reason why people read history: morbid curiosity and a desire to learn from past mistakes. I highly recommend anyone interested in game design to play the infinitely superior original Blood and then as a lesson, trying its sequel on for size. Compare and contrast. You will learn a lot about how badly designers can miss the mark when they're given no direction and attempt to prioritise graphics and trends over actual gameplay. Blood 2 is an unfun disaster that's greatest crime is being so forgettably bad that no one has any hope of seeing a proper sequel any time soon (thanks Atari!) and robbed us fans of even more delicious fun as a murderous, sarcastic undead cowboy.

All we need now is Shadow Warrior! This game I played and beat so many times years ago.

This isn't a particularly bad game. But it isn't a particularly good one either. What makes it so disappointing is that the first in the Blood series was very dark and atmospheric, much like the horror movies it was parodying. This one however did not have much of a horror feel, and it did not even come close to being as good as the original. The original was humor mixed with horror, this was just humor, and not very good humor at that. Leviticus 17:11 "For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." (KJV)

After reading all the reviews, I thought to myself "Well, Blood was an awesome game, what's wrong with this one?", and I assure you, there is plenty wrong with this game! The humor is not appealing at all, and the game crashes or glitches extremely frequently, to the point where you give up, and forget about this game's existence. I tried really hard to like this game, but could not bring myself to. While I may actually like some of the level designs and great weapons with the extreme gore from the original game, I cannot excuse the constant crashing, and control lockups upon exiting the menu. When I exit the menu half the time, the character freezes up completely to the point where no amount of smashing the keyboard buttons brings it back to control the character. I just wanted to vent out frustration from a rough day, and the day has been made rougher with this poor excuse for a game. Not even Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall crashes that often, and it crashes quite a bit. I even tried using the batch file from the community forums, only to find it still crashing, even though it is not as often. There are so many games that are worth your six dollars, and this is NOT one of them. Get the original Blood, Rise of The Triad or Painkiller instead, and avoid this disaster at all costs!

Pff, actually it came out in the golden age of 3d. Oh yea, 3d technology is available, let's make games with it, even if it looks extreme terrible, and worked better in 2d. Actually Blood2 is not only ugly, but really without any of the original Blood's fkin good, 1900's, Lovecraftian atmosphere. This is just an example of that times' craze, the not-so-far future, with cyberpunk setting. Meh. Okay, that doesn't mean it must be bad from the start, but Blood2 has no originality, or has no anything what could raise the game from the ocean of these trash products. Like Lovecraft was a master, who were much higher than other horrorwriters that time, Blood1 was a masterpiece (okay, Build engine was old in '97, but who cares). While Blood2 is ... August Derleth. (Sry if my english is not that good, 3rd language for me :) )