Blood 2: The Blood Group

A game from my childhood that I always remembered as awesome but obviously I was wrong... The first half of the game isn’t so bad I don’t know if it’s because of nostalgia but I really enjoy the first chapter, rushing trough enemies with your dual berettas is a lot of fun. But the more you progress the more the game feels generic and uninspired sometimes even lazy, it’s like they were having a lot of ideas when they start the project and then they start filling the void with what came first in their mind in order to make the game longer. The game has so may flaws it would take too long listing everything here but in short the IA is broken and the explosives are doing full damage even if you are behind a wall and because of that you’re going to die a lot which can be really frustrating sometimes. The game really feels unpolished or should I say unfinished and that’s a shame because otherwise it could have been a pretty good title. I would say it’s average, if you like the style of 90’s mindless shooter you may enjoy it. It was far from perfect but I had some fun finishing it.

I played this game quite a bit back in the day and never finished it. After finding it again on GOG, I ran through the hoops to get this old title working again. Unfortunately, those old tricks don't appear to work any longer. Game crashes immediately on start no matter what solution I try.

Не запускается на компьютере с Windows 10 x64. Ни патчи, ни шаманство не помогают. Жаль.

I previously tried running this game in Windows 8.1, but it was a lost cause. Recently I played through the whole game on Linux with Bottles using the Wine GE runner. It worked as well as it could, though this game is a bit unstable. So, Blood II: The Chosen. I beat this game back when it came out and remember enjoying it. I decided to replay it out of nostalgia. Has it aged well? By all measures, it's a pretty awful game. I made the mistake of playing on Homicide (normal) difficulty and it was frustratingly hard in all the wrong ways. The first boss was probably the worst point in the game and is borderline unbeatable. I feel I just got lucky when I finally beat him. The rest of the game is not much better, since the enemies take plenty of punishment and dish out immense amounts of damage. Enemy AI is really poor. Eventually my gameplay more or less degenerated in to a lot (a lot) of saving/loading and abusing enemy AI and line of sight. The game is extremely unbalanced. Weapon damage is all over the place and generally makes little sense. Damage is also randomized, where an enemy can take multiple headshots or die from a single shot to a kneecap. It's a crapshoot. What I did like was the level design. It's nothing complicated, but I have always had a soft spot for urban environments. I'd say this is the best part of the game - for me. The game does a decent job of setting an atmosphere. In the end, once I accepted some of the more unsavory design of the game, I did end up enjoying it. I did almost quit after the first boss, but that was a definite low point in the game which, frankly, already wades pretty deep in muck. The nightmare levels are a definite improvement over the base game, but I also played those on Genocide (easy). Against my better judgement, I like this game and recommend it to anyone who likes older FPS games. Just do yourself a favor and play on Genocide (easy). There's nothing to be gained from playing on the higher difficulties.

The game runs like shit out of the box (Windows 10). So after spending a few hours reading about fixes on different forums and the usual fruitless attempts, I actually got it to work. Quick copy-paste of the download package at the bottom of https://github.com/elishacloud/dxwrapper/wiki/Blood-II-The-Chosen into the game folder and suddenly it worked. Next problem is which game mode is which in the menu. Not clearly explained. Well, "Nightmare" is the expansion package, "Caleb" is the regular single player campaign and "Chosen" is the same single player campaign, but played with any of the companions without cutscenes. The difficulty names are poorly chosen as well. You can select between "Genocide", "Homicide" and "Suicide". Crystal clear which one is easy and which one is hard? If you can't guess (like me), just remember to avoid "Suicide" (hard). I played on "Homicide" and that felt plentiful for the first (and last) playthrough. The enemies are horribly balanced. Sometimes they get stuck on corners or similar and become sitting ducks. Most of the time, they are vicious though... The hit-scan enemies are ridiculous and act as if they were equipped with x-ray glasses and lightning reflexes. Unless you know exactly where they're standing and do a bunch of save-reload, expect to get tagged. The projectile-enemies either shoot stuff you can barely make out or exploding projectiles with an absurd explosion radius. Considering many enemy types can take a lot of beating and are placed in inconvenient places, health and ammo drain quickly. And they're not always plentiful to replenish. Had I not been more careful along the way, I would definltely have ended up in an unwinnable situation with no ammo/health and tough enemies ahead. This is a game I can't recommend to anyone. I played it because I really wanted to see what came after Blood I, but it was not an enjoyable playthrough (the Nightmare levels were more Blood I ish and I liked them a bit better though).