I have written a review of this game already on Amazon.com, and to save my fingers from typing so I can play more Blood I'll just copy and paste it here. --------------- I started playing video games in 1998, starting with none other than Duke Nukem 3D. Thirteen years later, I finally get my hands on a copy of Blood. I'm blown away to say the least. Blood puts you in the shoes of Caleb, a man who worshipped the evil god Tchernobog, all for the love of a girl. Tchernobog kills you all, and you rise from your grave, pitchfork in hand and quoting "Army of Darkness" already (I live...Again!), you are out to massacre the entire cult of Tchernobog, and the leader himself. The game has a pretty hokey story, but what do you expect from a 1990's First Person Shooter? You're playing them for the gameplay, not to hear some epic story the caliber of Mass Effect or Metal Gear Solid. Now, the gameplay. It is once again, typical 90's FPS action, but with a few things that seperates it from games like Duke Nukem 3D or Shadow Warrior. First things first, the blood. Obviously it'll have blood with a name like Blood, but the levels are off the charts here. On the walls, on the ceiling, floors, it is EVERYWHERE. Now I've played Mortal Kombat, Soldier of Fortune, etc, but Blood has some of the most extreme over the top blood/gore/violence I have ever seen in a video game, if not the most. Onto the weapons, they have to be some of the most imaginative, funny, awesome weapons I've ever used in a video game. Heck, the game's flamethrower is a lighter and an aerosol can. Yeah, it's that awesome. Some others that really stand out is the Double Barreled Shotgun, Tommy Gun, Dynamite, Tesla Cannon, and the Voodoo Doll. Also, Blood may be the first video game to introduce secondary fire modes on all weapons. So for example, hit the fire button the the double barreled shotgun, you shoot one shell. Hit the alternative fire button, fire both barrels. It's some really cool stuff. Right now, I am going to dedicate a portion of this review to the level design. It is the best I have ever played. Sure, Doom was cool. Duke Nukem 3D had some great ideas and cool levels. Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight had memorable levels. But Blood, Blood blows all of them out of the water. I don't want to spoil them all for you, but I have to tell you a few. Camp Crystal Lake from Friday the 13th is in there. Freddy Krueger's Boiler Room from Nightmare on Elm Street can be found. You can blast your way through the Overlook Hotel from the Shining. There is a secret level from Dawn of the Dead, called "Mall of the Dead", and it's a mall filled with zombies, complete with locations from the 1978 Dawn of the Dead mall, and a store called "K-Marche"..Marche is French for Mart/Store..so K-Mart, is in the game. Awesome. Also, in one of the expansions, Boggy Creek, from the Bigfoot series of movies, is in the game. Movie designed levels don't tickle your fancy? That's alright, there's a complete carnival with working games and rides, (wanna ride the Happy-Go-Pukey?..Didn't think so), a moving train, a soccer field that pits you against zombies, and you kick their heads into goals for points, and this isn't even scratching the surface of the epic levels to be found in the game. The game is filled with references. Sometimes though, there's too many at once. I loved the references in Duke Nukem 3D, but here, sometimes it's too hard to take in all the references at once, and you can miss some pretty good jokes/references because too much is going on. Minor complaint, but it's happened to me already. The enemies in the game are alright, nothing to be really excited over, but still cool none-the-less. I found Duke 3D's enemies to be more memorable though. The sound is great, hearing shells/bullet casings hit the floor, ricocheting bullets, the music, but the enemies sometimes, the sounds they make are so annoying! Once again, a nit-picky complaint, but I feel it needs to be included. There is also a map editor, but I have not tried it yet. This game is for: Gore Hounds, FPS fans, Horror movie fans, anyone looking for a great game. This game is NOT for: Wimps :p, easily disgusted, non shooter fans If you are a fan of First Person Shooters, pick up this game. NOW. Warning- It doesn't run on anything other than Windows 95/98 without DOSBox. I am playing it on a Gateway computer from 1999 running Windows 98. Shooter fans, you owe it to yourself. Forget about Call of Duty, forget about Halo, forget about Battlefield, Blood is the best. I would even call it the best first person shooter of all time, but I'm bias to Duke Nukem 3D. Let's just say if I had never played Duke 3D, Blood would be my favorite. Happy Gaming Everyone, hope this review helps! :)
I find it hard to write an actual review for this game, cause of how sweet it is. To put it into perspective, think of the most over the top movie you've ever watched, and Rise of the Triad is essentially it's counterpart of the FPS genre of video games, if not all video games in general. For me, Robert Rodriguez's 'Planet Terror' comes to mind. Both are excessively violent, super over the top and tongue in cheek, feature guns galore, and did I mention the extreme gore? Basically, I'm just gonna list some of ROTT's insane features, and if that doesn't compel you to buy it, I'm not sure what will. -God Mode, where you turn 10 feet tall, become invulnerable, and shoot explosive projectiles from your hand. -Dog Mode, where you turn into a dog and chew your enemy to death, or emit a sonic bark that makes enemies explode. -Excalibat, a glowing Louisville Slugger that can either: A. Hit enemies and turn them into a pile of mush. B. Send projectiles back at enemies. C. Fire a barrage of explosive baseballs. -Drunk Rockets, I laughed for about 5 minutes when I got this weapon. It's just a rocket launcher that shoots a few rockets in every which direction, stumbling everywhere like a drunk. -Shrooms. Mario took shrooms to get bigger, in ROTT, shrooms make enemies flash colors, the sound begins to echo, the screen shakes, and other trippy effects begin to happen, so basically, the character just uses drugs. There's no benefit, other than lots of laughter. -Soundtrack. An absolute rockin' soundtrack composed by none other than Lee Jackson. Better yet, GOG gives you the soundtrack for free, so you can put it on your iPod or whatnot. I love these guys at GOG. -Humor. The game is just so funny, in so many ways. I'm not even going to take the time to list any, cause you'll be laughing about something within the first minute of play. There's so much more I could list, but I honestly want to get back to playing. The game will take you a long time to beat, since there are over 100 levels, not counting multiplayer, available to you. Count Multiplayer, at least 200. So what are you waiting for? If you're in the mood for a gory, funny, rockin romp through 90's FPS action, get this. I'd also recommend Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Redneck Rampage, and the Blake Stone series for other FPS's.
In 1992, Infogrames released a little Lovecraft inspired horror romp named "Alone in the Dark". While being a success at the time, no one truly released how much this game would affect the horror genre in video games. AITD started it all-opening the doors for games such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill. The first game is an absolute classic. The controls are for the most part pretty tight, except running can be a hassle. The game has some great puzzles, good traps, and is just fun to play. The sound effects excel-from the moans of a zombie to the creaking of a old door or floorboards. What I also found interesting was the ways you could avoid confrontations. For example, you could push a cabinet in front of a window to prevent a monster from bursting through, or lure a monster into a room, run past it and shut the door, and depending on the monster, it'll *usually* lock them in. While the game won't make you lose sleep at night, you'll giggle to yourself as your making your way through the mansion, wondering when a monster will ambush next. When it does happen, it's surprising, but never scary and always fun to laugh about to yourself. The combat is tight. If you don't have any weapons, you can always beat your adversary with your bare hands, which is always awesome. Let's see Leon Kennedy go mano-a-mano with a Resi Evil monster sometime eh? The puzzles are nice, not too hard and not too simple. Simply put, Alone in the Dark 1 is an absolute classic that should be played by any gamer, horror fan or not. Even better, GOG has been generous enough to give us AITD 2 and 3 to boot. To be honest with you, I have not played much of 2 and 3. From what I have played of 2, it felt more of an action game with supernatural elements as opposed to a full out horror game like the first. Which, in my opinion, is not bad at all, as the first was pretty light on the combat aspect, with only about two dozen enemies total, if even that. You immediately start the game with a revolver, with a zombie holding a Tommy Gun on the ground next to you. Upon trying to retrieve the Tommy Gun, the zombie wakes up and you two get into a fire fight. It's a really cool way to start the game, and there's a lot more fire fights in the game. Check this out if you're looking for more action. AITD 3 is set in the wild west, with Edward Carnby taking on a gang of ghost/zombie outlaws. I haven't really played more than 10 minutes of this game yet, which is a shame, cause I love everything to do with the Wild West. From what I did play though, it was quite awesome, and the ghost outlaws look very cool to boot. All in all, the original game is worth the price of $5.99 alone, but with the extra bonus of AITD 2 and 3 you're really getting a good deal here. I can guarantee you that you won't regret this purchase. If you do, well, maybe it's time to find a new hobby..
