is blood actually as good as people think it is?

[My Celium]

In my opinion, Blood deserves all the hype. The hitscanners in Blood are the reason I play Blood and removing them would be a terrible mistake. I can't play Duke Nukem or Shadow Warrior because while the realistic environments are cool, the build engine movement and shooting just feels very mediocre and the enemies are really boring. It feels like I could be playing Doom instead.

Everything in Blood is fine-tuned around the Cultists, and the rest of the enemies don't matter. The fact that cultists have very little wind-up time makes you play it completely differently from every other shooter which is what makes it fun. It's doing something different from the other shooters in that era. No other shooter can make me feel so frantic. The fact that you have a really high jump and can jump over enemies makes it very very fun.

The weapons in Blood are extremely reliable and useful against the enemies. In HL1, a game that is also notorious for very strong hitscanners, the HECU are bullet sponges. They take a couple shotgun blasts at medium range (If I recall, this may be just on Hard difficulty) and the MP5 takes forever to kill them. Your grenades are very unreliable if you aren't skilled at using them and they need a lot of setup time. Also, you can't stop enemies from shooting by making them flinch.

In Blood, your shotgun almost always can 1 shot cultists at close-medium range. If it doesn't, they'll almost always get stunned. Your tommy gun can stun an entire group of cultists if you spray around the room. Cultists in blood have AI that makes them stop shooting for a few seconds after flinching from damage. I think they also do this when bullets pass near them but I don't know. Your flare gun alt fire, dynamite, and napalm are also extremely dangerous, effective and consistent.

Most levels also give you a decent amount of health if you know the secrets.

I will say there are some bullshit rooms. The dining car in the train level is almost never consistent for me, you don't have the weapons and ammo for it most of the time. But once you get familiar with the levels, I think that even ep3 and 4 are really fun. After you start knowing the enemy placements a bit, you can start playing really aggressively. Jumping headfirst into a room full of cultists, explosions flying everywhere, everything is screaming. This fluidity is something that does not happen in Duke, Doom, or Half Life. Just watch this playthrough (E2M4 is a good example):

 

[ChopBlock223]

Yes, Blood is a wild and fun shooter with great style and lots of charm. It's harsh in difficulty, but hardly unmanageable.

[Koko Ricky]

I've personally noticed Blood goes from "I think I hate this game, holy shit," to "This is near-perfect" by lowering the difficulty a single notch. 

[hybridial]

1 hour ago, Koko Ricky said:

I've personally noticed Blood goes from "I think I hate this game, holy shit," to "This is near-perfect" by lowering the difficulty a single notch. 

 

Yeah but most people seem conditioned to expect a game to be the difficulty they expect to be on "hard" as opposed to accepting the very idea that maybe playing on a lower difficulty will give them the experience they want. 

 

I mean yes if they do that Satan will personally appear before them and rip their sex organs off, so I can understand the difficulty of doing that. :D

[BGreener]

17 minutes ago, hybridial said:

Yeah but most people seem conditioned to expect a game to be the difficulty they expect to be on "hard" as opposed to accepting the very idea that maybe playing on a lower difficulty will give them the experience they want. 

There’s still something up with Blood providing an initially polarizing experience compared to the other two old Build games. It would be better if the players had more of an idea on what’s affected by difficulty choice before going in shootin’: Someone intimidated by the enemy accuracy on Well Done might not be aware that they turn stormtrooper-tier on Lightly Broiled, and the beefier health pools can make weapons seem less satisfying when you’re trying them out for the first time.

[hybridial]

3 minutes ago, BGreener said:

There’s still something up with Blood providing an initially polarizing experience compared to the other two old Build games. It would be better if the players had more of an idea on what’s affected by difficulty choice before going in shootin’: Someone intimidated by the enemy accuracy on Well Done might not be aware that they turn stormtrooper-tier on Lightly Broiled, and the beefier health pools can make weapons seem less satisfying when you’re trying them out for the first time.

 

I mean that would be better but it's just not something that was typically done in games at the time. Fresh Supply or much more likely the source ports could add something like that and maybe that wouldn't be a bad idea.

[mrthejoshmon]

The main issue with Blood for the uninitiated is indeed down to what the difficulty does.

 

A lot of games from the period just had enemy and item counts swap out for varied difficulty, Blood modifies almost every aspect from enemies and items to health pools, accuracy, reaction times and even abilities.

 

Blood's Ultra-Violence is closer to our Hideous Destructor.

[Antroid]

I've been playing Blood a bit, using nblood. Seems like I'm slightly better now than I was whenever I tried it last, but it's still never actually fun fun to play for me, its more tolerable than I remembered, and its satisfying to survive a situation, but the process of surviving isn't engaging and does not feel reliable. Maybe this is because the engine is too jank to handle it, or I am not used to it. Many weapons spontaneously have really bad hit detection, including splash damage from TNT (and then you step over a sector threshold and everything works just as you'd expect it to). Enemy damage, awareness and behavior seem to have a random range so wide that will make a revenant missile feel tame. It takes a lot of learning to sidestep the engine's quirks to enjoy the challenge. But I guess the same can be said of Doom with the horizontal-only aiming that can feel similarly jank and unreliable to a newcomer, so I'll try to practice through playing and get better at it.

 

There is one thing though, which I have forgotten about and which I don't think anyone's brought up so far. How come a game with such good visual direction has such atrocious skies???? Why does nobody ever talk about what the heck blood's skies are? I guess it makes you focus more on the levels instead of stealing attention by being detailed, so it kinda works as a blurry backdrop, but they are straight up ugly as sin.

[ZeroTheEro]

Blood is great, even if I may not play it as often as I did with Doom. Heck I probably played the entire campaign when Fresh Supply was patched.

Kinda wish Nightdive can do more with the port, now that Atari ate them up last year.

[Koko Ricky]

I've been thinking about it, and I think literally the only issue I have is that cultists, as braindead as their AI often is, has 100% accuracy within a few milliseconds of spotting you. Not every time, but it's a bit ridiculous when you try to strategize how to get through an area and they all see you at once at shoot right where they need to, sometimes from a hundred feet away. I don't get why that was ever seen as an appropriate mechanic.

[Xouman]

I love Blood,i discovered it late,but when i finished it with the Expansions(don't remember which one i played)i was like :

 

"Damn,i love Doom too but this is better,best Doom-Like ever !"

 

Excellent level design,creepy-horrific-joyful and craziness-controversy-sadistic atmosphere + excellent gameplay with fun weapons + movies references + nice scripts + aggressive enemies + Caleb isn't here to be your friend

 

You mix all that with the Build Engine,who is visually and technically very charming,if it was perfected short-by-short over the years like the Id Tech,imagine just one second a Build Engine 7 o_O,and you got Blood,one of the best + underrated FPS ever & THE best retro-FPS ever at the same time IMO.

 

Blood isn't perfect,there are flaws,the engine is disorienting/confusing from where you are and/or looks sometimes,it can give that headache feels that is not great,so don't play too much of the game to avoid that,and the movements can be imprecise too(don't know if that's the right word)but apart from that,i think Blood perfected and finished the doom-like/retro/maze FPS era formula(it was one of the last right?)with a beautiful goodbye,i know that there are still modern-retro FPS released but you get what i'm saying.

 

Blood deserve more attention and more content created IMO,the same as Doom Community with the amazing creative people in terms of maps,mods,tools and others,when i look at my to do list,these catched my attention :

 

[ DOOM Ancient Aliens-Alien Vendetta + Back To Saturn X + Eviternity 1/2 // BLOOD Death Wish // QUAKE Arcane Dimensions + Dwell ]

 

So i'll be back on Blood...AGAIN,and it will be fun and exciting for sure !

 

And i heard about Ion Fury being made with the Build Engine,so i'll also play it,a long and interesting FPS path waiting for me isn't it?

 

 

 

 

[Devalaous]

On 1/23/2024 at 2:52 AM, mrthejoshmon said:

The main issue with Blood for the uninitiated is indeed down to what the difficulty does.

 

A lot of games from the period just had enemy and item counts swap out for varied difficulty, Blood modifies almost every aspect from enemies and items to health pools, accuracy, reaction times and even abilities.

 

Blood's Ultra-Violence is closer to our Hideous Destructor.

 

Thats actually really helpful, as like a lot of people, I too assumed skill 4 was the equivalent of UV

[Koko Ricky]

One mild gripe: Blood's 2-point perspective, much like Doom engine, lacks y-shearing, which didn't stop the devs from designing a number of platform sections. They are well-designed, to be fair, but are awkward to navigate. Blame it on it being 1997. 

[Spootu's Shack]

Don't play it higher than Lightly broiled, for your own sanity. But yes, it's phenomenal.

Brutal as Hell though. Be ready to quicksave and be ready to die frequently. But the level design, weapons, and enemies (for the most part) are top notch. The movement is actually pretty fun too, but nothing special. I prefer it to Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior, personally.

NBlood and Build GDX are recommended when playing. Fresh Supply is fine but kinda finicky. (To be fair, all of them a lil bit finicky, since Blood never had its source code released)

[Xouman]

9 hours ago, Spootu's Shack said:

Don't play it higher than Lightly broiled, for your own sanity. But yes, it's phenomenal.

Brutal as Hell though. Be ready to quicksave and be ready to die frequently. But the level design, weapons, and enemies (for the most part) are top notch. The movement is actually pretty fun too, but nothing special. I prefer it to Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior, personally.

NBlood and Build GDX are recommended when playing. Fresh Supply is fine but kinda finicky. (To be fair, all of them a lil bit finicky, since Blood never had its source code released)

 

This is sad because "Damn they don't release the source code !" is THE thing about Blood that we hear/read everywhere since years and years,really i don't understand that.

[Koko Ricky]

 

31 minutes ago, Xouman said:

 

This is sad because "Damn they don't release the source code !" is THE thing about Blood that we hear/read everywhere since years and years,really i don't understand that.

Comes down to who owns the rights and whether they can be bothered to make it public domain. 

[Vermil]

Or whether the source code actually still exists.

 

Not every company was like ID.

[Xouman]

8 hours ago, Koko Ricky said:

 

Comes down to who owns the rights and whether they can be bothered to make it public domain. 

 

Yeah the corporate/business mentality ruins everything,to me all successful games must release the source code to let their community doing their magic,but that "money before all" is disgusting,and not only in the video game field...but maybe there are things that we don't know about the non-release of the code?

[Murdoch]

4 hours ago, Vermil said:

Or whether the source code actually still exists.

 

Not every company was like ID.

 

I would say the odds of the code still existing are pretty remote, and even if it does the odds of it seeing the light of day are nil.

 

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

1 hour ago, Xouman said:

to me all successful games must release the source code to let their community doing their magic,but that "money before all" is disgusting

"To celebrate GTA VI's record-breaking launch day, we're going to share all of our secret technology with the whole world for free so some bored kids can replace the protagonists with Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends. We'd like to thank Kentucky Fried Chicken for inspiring us by making public their secret recipe in an effort to further develop the culinary skills of domesticated gorillas.

 

Sincerely,

Rockstar Games"

[Murdoch]

6 hours ago, Xouman said:

 

Yeah the corporate/business mentality ruins everything,to me all successful games must release the source code to let their community doing their magic,but that "money before all" is disgusting,and not only in the video game field...but maybe there are things that we don't know about the non-release of the code?

 

Sorry but this is ridiculous. Source code often contains proprietary code that they either want to protect so no one else can use it (for obvious reasons - why give your competitors your secrets?) but also because there's often parts of the code licensed from other sources which may not want to release. That's why the Doom source release was the Linux version with the audio code excised - it was licensed from someone else and id had no legal right to release it. If the game has any online features, particularly client/server play, releasing the code would create an avalanche of hacks, exploits, and customer service headaches. Source code usually comes out years later when the tech is no longer considered commercially useful - which is kind of funny given the last 5+ years have seen new releases powered by GZDoom, Quake and Build engines but that's the reasoning behind source releases for older games usually.

And also, getting mad at companies wanting to make money is like getting mad at water for being wet. If you don't like what a company does, vote with your wallet. Simple. But it's also debatable that your logic that they are not releasing source for older games for monetary reasons is sound. Once it's older tech like Blood, any monentary loss from a release would be none. Either the code is lost, as I previously said, or there's proprietary code in there that prevents it from being released.

[Rykzeon]

On 1/17/2024 at 8:34 AM, mrthejoshmon said:

The greatest failure in this thread was that none of you corrected me, it isn't Cheogh, it's the Stone Gargoyle, which funny enough has more HP than Cheogh.

Pro-tip: Duck and use pitchfork to kill stone gargoyles until your hair become white. Best used when you're running out of ammo when its a boss.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Just now, Rykzeon said:

Pro-tip: Duck and use pitchfork to kill stone gargoyles until your hair become white. Best used when you're running out of ammo when its a boss.

Or just run past them and find the tesla/voodoo doll that is almost always placed on same map (beside Cheogh, the first episode boss) and kills them in 1/1000th the time.

[Rykzeon]

On 1/17/2024 at 12:12 PM, Antroid said:

Does the "throw dynamite around every corner" strat work without memorizing where every ambush in every level is first? Do they give you enough dynamite? I've fully beaten the game once, a while back, but I dont even remember on which difficulty, or what my playstyle was, other than the fact that I was definitely save-scumming a lot.

Worse thing is that get choked by choking hand is basically instant death (unless you are near exit switch) for anyone who played the original executable in Windows XP, or V1.00, because:
 

Quote

Note: a common issue when playing Blood on modern hardware is being unable to counter the Hell Hand's choke attack (done by repeatedly pressing the USE button to dislodge it from Caleb's neck, default key being Space) - this is true on Blood (v1.00) through One Unit Whole Blood (v1.21). Something related to the faster processing of the game may be the cause of this issue when playing on lower resolutions. Increasing the game resolution somehow fixes this issue entirely. So when playing under XP's emulated DOS and/or DOSBox, simply change the resolution from 320x200 to 640x480 (or higher). If the player is okay running Blood outside DOS, this issue is also not present in source ports like NBlood or BuildGDX.

- Blood Wiki

My brother also said he also completed the whole game with save-scumming. Maybe it's by design, especially in higher levels :p

Anyway, I did remember played in a version where the player can't unchoke themselves, and no "Post Mortem" in Episode selection menu. I forget which version it is, because I lost the CD.

[Dylan Jarvis]

I tried playing it in 2015 and I really liked it but never finished episode 1. Then I tried again in 2022 with the Fresh Supply version and hated it because I thought it was blisteringly difficult. I finally gave it another try this year on Well Done difficulty instead of Extra Crispy and actually enjoyed it a lot. The game won me over with the Overlooked Hotel level, absolute masterpiece.