Blake Stone was simply a victim of bad timing. Based on a modified version of Wolfenstein 3D engine, it had everything going for it save one: it was released only a week before the technically far-superior first-person shooter, DOOM. Almost two decades after the release of Blake Stone, it's much easier to look back and judge it on its own merits, comparing it to what came before instead of what came after. Technically, the game was a large improvement on Wolfenstein 3D, adding textured floors and ceilings, one-way doors, barriers that impeded movement but not bullets, and diminishing lighting effects. As well, Blake Stone had features rarely seen in shooters before or since: informants, who looked like enemy scientists but gave ammo and vending-machine tokens when interacted with, forcing you to think before you opened a door and killed everything that moved; vending machines that dispensed food and drink to increase health (or sometimes just broke); an elevator that not only allowed the player to travel to the next level, but to travel BACK to previous levels! All this, combined with satisfying weapons, beautiful 256-color graphics, diverse enemies, and a cool sci-fi setting (including a short comic-book in the manual!), creates a satisfying shooting experience for fans of earlier entries to the genre, and is a good history lesson for all Call of Duty and Halo fanboys, which becomes even more impressive when you realize that the game was created by a core team of only three people. All-in-all, Blake Stone is great shooter from the early days of the genre, and impossible not to recommend at its unbeatable price.
