Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold

I remember having a demo-version of this game back in the day. What can I say? The game is fun and can be challenging. Pros: 1) Your standard 90's FPS with explosions, blood, and secrets. 2) You can collect gold bars and money bags that add to your overall score (don't remember if anything else could be done with them though), and food that acts as health pick-ups (actual medkits are also available). 3) Enemies range from loyalist employees and security guards to mutants and aliens. And boy, what some of those mutants and aliens look like! There are mutated soldiers, goo monsters, electric creatures, beasts, robots, and then some! 4) There are dispensers that give you food in exchange for tokens. You need to actually find the tokens, either by exploring and looking for secrets, or by killing human enemies. These sometimes come in handy when all free health items have already been picked up. 5) There are informants among the human population that can give you hints and ammo or tokens, so be careful who you shoot! 6) Some of the weapons available include: silent pistol (you starting weapon), blaster pistol, automatic rifle, some kind of rocket launcher. 7) There are secrets in each level. Cons: 1) The graphics will definitely be a turn-off for many modern gamers. 2) There is no jumping or crouching, then again, you don't even need them. 3) Objects are not destructible, so no breaking flower pots or computer screens. 4) Gore is very simplistic, there are no gibs and blood is only found on corpses, so no pools either. Might not be a problem for some players, of course. Overall, the game is fairly solid for its time and a genuine classic. It's biggest flaw is that it came out right before Doom and was overshadowed. Still, it did have a sequel, which means it was popular enough. Would be nice if someone were to remake it.

I was quite skeptical about this game, considering I didn't enjoy Rise of the Triad and its primitive game engine. However, I finally got both Blake Stone games during a Apogee sales week on GOG. Needless to say, I was quite surprised to find myself enjoying the first Blake Stone, despite looking quite dated and having simple level designs. What made it fun were the satisfying weapons and enemy death animations and voice samples. It felt very satisfying shooting these alien goons. Also, unlike Rise of the Triad, the levels never confusing and frustrating. The auto map feature is far more user friendly as well. If you like old Dos FPS games, than definitely try this one.

Aliens of Gold had a rough start; DOOM was released just a week after it, sealing Blake Stone's fate as a forgotten shooter. While id Software's masterpiece is completely deserving of the praise it has and continues to receive, Aliens of Gold is a game that should have had its day in the sun. With its colorful environments, wide range of enemies and innovative mechanics, Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold would have made its mark if it had not been released so closely to one of the greatest shooters of all time. The game is not without its faults, however. Sporting a poorly implemented and arguably unnecessary stealth system alongside significant issues regarding difficulty, the game is definitely flawed. Agent Stone is outfitted with a silenced pistol as his default weapon. Unlike the other four guns, the silenced pistol is infinitely rechargeable, and therefore does not require the players supply of plasma units, and as it is silenced, shooting it will not attract nearby enemies; but here's the problem: the pistol does so little damage it's only capable of killing a few types of enemies in a single shot, and on the higher difficulties where foes are hardier it's practically useless. As for whether or not one even needs to bother playing stealthily? It's rare for an enemy soldier or mutant to follow the sounds of gunfire from another room, and during the occasions where they actually do so they have a hard time making it through the doorway. While I consider stealth mechanics in first-person shooters to be entirely welcome, JAM Productions didn't manage to implement a system that was worthwhile this time around. A defining feature of first-person shooters from this era was their difficulty. A player had to ration the supplies they found around a level carefully, as enemies tended to use hitscan weapons. One was going to take damage; they generally couldn't avoid it. If one found a healing item that restored 30% health and their character was only down 15% health, they would leave it alone and save it for when they really needed it. That's not the case in Aliens of Gold. Health and Plasma pickups are all over the place, and a great deal of enemies have projectile attacks. These projectiles are easily dodged and often get caught on the geometry. To add to that, on the default and 'Easy' difficulty settings, guards and monsters have such low amounts of life that they are killed with just a couple of well placed shots or less. While the stealth system may have been a wash, Aliens of Gold had more than one quirk that differentiated itself from its peers. As Agent Stone infiltrates one of Dr. Goldfire's installations, he will run across a multitude of scientists. Some of these are loyal to the nefarious villain, and others are informants that will assist the player when confronted. To find out where their loyalties lie, one need only ask them. Informants give whatever supplies they have available and occasionally offer useful information, like the location of nearby secrets. Scientists loyal to Goldfire will cry for help and begin shooting the player. This gamble the player takes each time they question one of these men is a dangerous one; at point blank range any enemy is capable of dealing massive damage. On the higher difficulties, a shot from this range could very well lead to death, making each encounter with a scientist quite possibly the player's last. It's quite clear that the developers had some old-time science-fiction in mind when they created Aliens of Gold. Everything from the weapons, the uniforms, and the environments scream 'cheesy, low-budget science-fiction series from several decades ago'. Even the title of the game sounds like the name of a crummy movie from the 1960's. All of this is done exceptionally well. While this theme is mostly realized, the briefings before and after missions were lacking. The player was greeted with a wall of text that was entirely forgettable. I probably wouldn't have thought twice about this except for the comic in the games manual. In the comic, Stone and a few of his friends react to the deeds of Dr. Goldfire. He then gets into his absurdly sleek spaceship and flies to his first location; the comic ending as he blasts his way inside. That they went to the trouble of having something like this made, but not inserted into the game itself is perplexing and a little disappointing. The final aspect of the game that's worth mentioning is the antagonist: Dr. Pyrus Goldfire. More specifically, I'd like to talk about how he interacts with the player. The good doctor is not the type of villain to wait around for his machinations to unravel; he actively hunts the player as they attempt to foil his plans. Besides being a boss at the end of each mission, the doctor teleports in at random times and places to catch Stone off guard. The possibility of the doctor warping in during a firefight, or when the player is low on life adds a level of apprehension that was greatly appreciated throughout the course of the game. The randomness, however, is a strength and a weakness. At times he showed up far too often, each subsequent arrival diminishing the impact of his presence. Aliens of Gold has its ups and downs. Every so often a level devolves into a key hunt, and some enemies are not threatening in the slightest. However, the setting and some of the more interesting mechanics the game pulls off make up for most of its deficiencies. Standing in between titans like Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM, it's clear why it didn't achieve greater success, but in terms of quality the game holds its own pretty well; if anything for the heights of which it aspired, even if it didn't manage to reach them.

I will preface by saying that I played Wolfenstein as a kid and fell in love with FPS after that but I played this title for the first time in 2019. So I think my point of view will have a bit less nostalgia attached to it, but still a bit for old games, especially old fps games, in general. If the screenshots haven't made it apparent, it basically is a modded version of the Wolfenstein engine. That means that when it comes to FPS it's pretty simplistic and familiar. Start each of the six episodes at level 1 of 10 (10 being the secret level) with a boss fight at level 9. You get to the next level each time by finding the red card somewhere on the level, the security access to the next floor up, and returning to the elevator. Along the way you will collect 5 different weapons and enemies that are pretty varried, in difficulty and appearance. Some spots in the game have a wildly varried difficulty curve because of how they placed certain enemies in the game. I'm looking at you plasma alien! You shouldn't be in the first episode! While it is true that this game got quickly trounced by the technical superiority of DOOM I think there was a lot this game had done that no game had done at the time, not even DOOM. Here's what impressed me about the game. Friendly NPCs show up in this game as informants. This was a new idea in 1993. Things you DON'T shoot in a fps. If you talk to them, they'll give you ammo, coins, and tips. Love this. Also those mentioned coins can be use on vending machines! Interaction with the enviroment. Also a new concept that they implimented. Graphicly, it's pretty good if you understand that they took Wolfenstein and gave it some improvement. Textured floor and ceiling. More variaty in environment appearance. Not amazing but deffinite improvement. If you're curious about game history and would like to play a game that is pretty fun, albeit very simple, even today, I would recommed Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold!

Well, this game is a little hidden gem and a half. I had it back in the day, and I did enjoy the game, even though the story was a bit silly, but then again, the background stories in games in general made very little sense back then. It was just an excuse to shoot stuff. :D This game came out some time after Wolfenstein 3D, the predecessor to many later FPS-games. It was originally released by Apogee as a Shareware game, like many games did back then. Okay, time for me to stop rambling about its roots. Into the game already! The game starts up with you standing in a small hallway with your trusty pistol, with a mission to eliminate Dr. Pyrus Goldfire, who has obviously gone bonkers and is a threat to humanity. It doesn't take long for you to realise that the mission is not quite as simple as it initially sounded like. Hostile guards, robots and mutants are roaming the levels of the 10-story building and the architect must have been smoking something. Traps, hidden rooms and levers are scattered all over the maps, and your task is to get to Dr. Goldfire and put a bullet in his head. But it is certain he has taken that possibility into account so he may have a surprise to the unlucky agent who makes it to the top of the building... The controls are very simple and easy to learn, and the aiming of the gun is forgiving in the sense that you don't need to be exact with where you are pointing your gun to kill enemies, which is a good thing since keyboard control is sometimes a bit tricky to align to the target. The graphics of the game are dated, but functional and they don't have much of an issue to someone who loves retro games like I do. This game also need a little bit of strategic thinking, an agent who runs head-first into enemy will become a "retired" agent very quickly. You can open a door and fire your gun to attract attention of the enemies in the room next to you, or try to peek around the corner and get a silent kill. There are non-hostile scientists on the levels giving you information and sometimes they give you food tokens to spend at a dispenser and ammuniton, but they can also be angered, so sometimes you need to be careful in your approach. Even they will pull out a gun if they think something is wrong. Sometimes it is also better to leave some ammunition and supplies on the ground for later use and come back for them when you really need them. All in all, the gameplay is smooth and fun even today. It may not be deep in terms of story but it is still a fun game and deserves a place in the shelf of every FPS veteran. You can also put it on your netbook and play it on a lunch break or commuter train. The system requirements are very low and it can be played on low power setting. :) The one star was reduced because the game hasn't aged to well graphically but I still recommend it warmly.