Blood: Fresh Supply

Tried to play the original Steam DOS port of this back in the day and couldn't stand it. When Fresh Supply dropped I decided to give it another go and I'm so glad I came back. This game beats even Doom for me, it's truly a landmark title for FPS games and doesn't get the credit it deserves. The unique weaponry in Blood is its biggest and greatest strength, propped up by a fluid and dynamic player movement macthed with some of what is hands down the best level design of the era. Most modern FPS games can't even come close to how frenetic and fun Blood's shooting is. Carefully lobbing sticks of dynamite into a horde of cultists - who you know are right around the corner - is just so satisfying. Especially since the AI is absolutely RUTHLESS. Once you clear a room of monsters though, it makes all the nailbiting and desk-banging worth it. Shout to Night Dive Studios, this was the first remaster I tried from them and was so impressed. They do amazing work, from their Turok remaster to the System Shock 1 remaster. Truly one of if not the most important developers working right now.

I don't think I need to explained what blood is: as the last one of the 'trinity' (together with Duke and Shadow) of the build engine (and perhaps the one considered the best - I personally prefer Shadow warrior) Blood has marked the end of the 2.5D era (which unusually ended with a blast, and not a whimper, let me tell you) with pristine graphics, cohesive design, perfected gameplay, interesting story (and a fantastical voice acting by Stephan Weytel). Basically, the game is born by combination of all the features developed throughout an entire generation, but not without introducing something new of its own. So.... yes. It's still a blast to play even to this day, and beyond. And this remastered version contains a lot of quality of life improvement (although, at the start of the release, things weren't so great) well worth the price. Yup. Blood lives... again! (sorry, couldn't resist)

So One Unit Whole Blood is amazing and a classic. That's kinda obvious (besides hit-scanning enemies, ew. But you can save scum, so it's fine). Blood Fresh Supply is a remaster of that game, and it mostly does everything right. - Updated to support high framerates, FOV settings, and modern resolutions (among some other new features, but those are all i really care about). - It's got some flaws though. Specifically, there's no enemy kill counter or secret tracker for each level. So you won't know how many secrets or kills you achieved during the current level until completing it. These features are usually available in retro shooters like Ion Fury, Amid Evil And DUSK. - You also can't select the "fire" or "use" button to reload your last save upon dying. Which is really necessary in a difficult shooter like Blood, because you'll be dying a lot. You can sort of circumvent this issue by binding quickload to an easily accessible keybind (like R or F3 or whatever you want). - It's also kind of difficult to remove keybindings from actions. Or rather, it's easy but never told to the player. What you need to do if you want to unbind a hotkey is select the action in the customize inputs menu, then re-enter the already active keybind and the game should remove that specific hotkey from that action. Sorry if i explained it weird, but hopefully that helps. Anyways, that's all the complaints i have about this remaster. Since the game is so good and the asking price is a great value, it's hard to give this any less than 4 stars. So go ahead and pick this up if you're itching to replay one of the classic Build Engine games from the 90s. The game itself is a masterpiece, so Blood Fresh Supply will get an easy recommendation from me.

If you collect 70s and 80s horror movies you will LOVE this game, its pure blood and gore with true horror elements that you will not find in any other game, but on the same hand it does not take itself too seriously and has many references to popular horror movies as well as cool oneliners and funny eastereggs. The new remaster (Fresh Supply) is far superior to the original DOS release in every way, it feels and plays like the first quake, has very fast shooting and very good sound, the different enemies also are very well made (especially the cultists will make you smile). I recommend you to play all the episodes without mods first and then install the legendary "Extra Crispy" mod (can be found on moddb) which gives you many more weapons and enemy types.

Legend has it this has been handed over to Monolith as a nearly finished product from 3D Realms. This is one of the classic build engine games featuring a very interesting arsenal and a great level design. The effort that went into this game is amazing. This is the very definition of 90s technological boundaries being pushed to its limits as well as dark graphical design that may appear to be gray at times, then again setting up a very unique horror theme. The revised version can be iffy at times but a lot f hard work has gone into making this happen on modern systems. This is something thats considered a role model for many retro styled FPS being created today, but not many can actually reproduce the eerie atmosphere. The difficulty level can be tedious, then again mouselook and strafing gives you a bit of an edge compared to 1997 control schemes. I played this back in the early 2000s and will come back to it every once in a while. A great port worth its price.