Blood 2: The Blood Group

This package contains Blood 2: The Chosen and its expansion pack The Nightmare Levels. I've actually played this game the time when it was released and while I did not enjoy it as much as Blood I, I thought that it was an OK game. Now I've replayed both Blood I and its extensions and Blood 2 with its extension and I was surprised that it is much worse than I remembered - the original Blood aged much better. The science fiction setting coud work well, but the combination of bad level design, confusing story kills the atmosphere almost completely. Sometimes I were hopelessly stuck and I had no idea where to proceed - in this sense this game is the spiritual successor of Redneck Rampage, not Blood. The interesting thing is that the expansion pack has two levels which is very Blood like, which shows how good this game could have been - instead of the huge disappointment as it is. TLDR: - The Lithtech Engine is buggy - Enemy AI is terrible - Level design is bad

I bought Blood 2 the week it was released back in the day. I really loved the first Blood and was excited to play this game. However this game ran like complete crap on my old PC, and it also would crash pretty frequently, so I decided I would hold off starting this game until it was patched up and ran better. I've gone through several system upgrades since that time and while performance became a non issue this game always had problems or would frequently crash when changing settings or trying to play. This game remained on my backlog until about last year when I finally beat this game. I had several issues trying to get this game to run properly at my resolution and had to take certain steps to get it to work (can't remember exactly what at this time) but I finally managed to cross this one off my list. Having said all of that I don't think it is fair to blame GOG for issues this game may have. It is by far the buggiest game I have ever played. As far as the game itself it is very much average. I would give it 3 stars if it were not for all of the bugs. This game did bring me back to the days when FPS games were simple shooting games unlike nowadays where most games try to be cinematic and often have RPG elements and all kinds of extra mechanics and additonal gameplay elements beyond just shooting enemies. The shooting mechanics of this game really aren't great at all and shooting enemies doesnt even feel that great. I made it through this game mostly because it made me like a kid again as it reminded me of how old FPS games used to be.

I saw a cheap price for Blood II and thought I might as well buy, since it was one of those games from my teenage years that stuck in my head. I didn't manage to get through the replay however and I'm now wishing I had just watched a walkthrough on Youtube. There is just nothing to DO in Blood II. The first Blood, while still basically a shoot-em-up has a narrative and is simply structured - You have to rescue your three fellow cult members from three bosses and then proceed to kill the big boss and there are very minor switch based puzzles in each level (but mostly it's about the killing). Just off the top of my head though, I can vividly list the types of levels you play through in Blood 1, each distinct with fun identities; a moving train, a funfair, a snowy landscape with hotel, a spider's lair, a hellscape... Blood II has none of this. It is an exceptionally ugly game mostly set in a very basic, grey dystopian city and it just feels like no imagination went into elevating it from it's basic starting point. All you have to do is kill everything in your path and find a way out of the level, usually by blowing a whole in some wall. The monsters are also mindlessly repetitive and the AI (even for the time) is a little embarrassing. It just feels like it was all very rushed. Definitely not worth the revisit for me. It did however, work fine on my Windows 10. It is buggy in the sense that enemies spawn too late on occasion and their bodies remain floating in the air, but it did run ok with fine graphics.

Blood 1 was much better than 2nd part of game

I LOVED Blood 1. It was undoubtedly my favorite shooter of the Quake era 90's. I waited for Blood 2 for years. Every week I'd go to the local EB to see if there were updates on its release. Finally it came out and just dudded onto my PC. It is the equivalent of a macho cover band at a local bar covering one of your all-time favorite bands. The chords are right, but the vibe is just a mimicry, and a bad one at that. The motion in this game feels all off, the humor is flat, the enemies are either boring or function strangely, they try to add a story around 4 characters each with different (and shoddy) skillsets, and the difficulty spikes in absurd fashion. I tried on and off for 2 years to even like this game, but just can't recommend it. However... the Expansion Pack is worth checking out. It comes very close to the fun and absurdity of the first game, and is quite fun to play. Blood 2 = 1 star.. Nightmare Levels = 3 stars.