The Retro Critic

Blood

As some of you may know, this month is Vampire Month on my blog. This means I will predominantly be focusing on vampire-related content. And yes, this also means that Vampire Month is going to “bleed” into my 1MoreCastle reviews.

In a good way.

This month, I will therefore be focusing on somewhat vampiric retro games and to kick things off, why not take a slightly different route and check out classic 1997 PC game Blood.

Now, I know that Blood isn’t so much a vampire game as it is a supernatural medley of monsters game but hell, it’s called “Blood” and vampires drink that stuff so it totally counts.

Blood is a post-Doom, post-Duke Nukem 3D first-person shooter in which you’re a resurrected vampire cowboy Van Helsing-type dude called Caleb who used to be part of some weird Satanist cult called The Cabal until he was betrayed and killed. Caleb wakes up in a grave ages later and wreaks vengeance over that cult in order to figure out what the hell happened to him and his beloved.

The game’s not so much about the story as it is about the ride, though.

Blood opens in a crypt and you soon find out the hard way that your main enemies throughout the game will be these axe-wielding zombies:

And those ghoulish Satanist monks:

I know they may seem stock but they’re much harder to beat than you might think.  It’s hard not to take damage from the zombies as they walk pretty fast and usually manage to get a hit or two over you before they die. Or… re-die, rather. There are different types of zombies further on into the game, some of them are much slower but stronger. As for the monks, they’re basically impossible to kill unless you’ve got a gun or a decent weapon because that stupid pitchfork (your default weapon) simply won’t do. Along the way, you also meet living gargoyles who seem to respond more to fire and explosions rather than guns and annoyingly tiny enemies like rats, bats, spiders and piranhas.

Oh and those Grim Reaper guys:

They’re scary-looking.

I don’t like them.

Luckily, each level rewards you with cooler and weirder weapons and there is a lot of ammo to be found throughout the game. Some of the weapons are ludicrous but kinda genius. One of them is a Voodoo doll you can poke with a needle over and over, thereby killing whatever enemy is in front of you quickly and without mess. This drains a little bit of your health, though.

As does the fire skull which consists of a skull on a stick which summons fireballs and basically annihilates whatever’s around. It’s super-effective but can be fatal if you lack the health to use it. In the end you’ll probably find that the good old sawed-off shotgun is your safest and easiest bet, though reload time is, as usual, relatively slow.

Also expect several different types of explosives which come in really handy when about to enter rooms packed to the brim with monsters waiting to feast on your flesh but which should NOT be used in tight spaces like corridors or when facing walls.

That’s dumb.

I should know, I do that all the time.

Weapons and health aside, you’ll also find the odd temporary upgrade here and there, usually hidden in secret rooms or passages. Boots that make you jump higher, shields, invisibility cloaks and “Guns Akimbo” which doubles whatever weapon you’re holding (pretty badass). Keep an eye out for walls to blow up, by the way. There’s a bunch of ’em and some can be easy to miss.

The game looks pretty darn great for its time and is actually really well designed. It’s a hard game and unless you’re a pro when it comes to first-person shooters, chances are it’ll take you a while to finish it. If however, you’re like me and have a lot of fun playing that type of game despite being not that great at them, you might want to initially use a couple of cheats (there’s loads of ’em) to help you along before eventually replaying it without them and finally beating the game on your own. Or save the game every 5 seconds in strategically danger-free places. Blood is certainly a challenge regardless but, even at its hardest, it never gets frustrating or irritating.

This is thanks to the fact that Blood does have a sense of humour. A dark and occasionally goofy sense of humour that helps make this a really enjoyable and, at times, really funny game to play.

One level takes place in some kind of ancient carnival where you get to kill poor, harmless, defenceless mimes:

Who are there… why?!

Doesn’t matter. Your character, with a Kevin Conroy-as-Batman-style deep voice announces that he hates mimes and you just blast them into chunks of bloody meat. That whole level is insane: you’ve got a demon carousel, silly posters everywhere, those creepy teeth that remind me of those gross doors in Weird Dreams…

My favourite joke in the entire game, though, has to be when you come out of a crashed train and find this:

Geddit? Richard Kimble? The Fugitive?

It’s silly, absurd and has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the game but… I love it.

Gotta love how confident the game is with its own goofiness. I mean, an entire level is basically The Shining and, as random as that is, the idea of playing a whole stage in The Overlook Hotel is kinda awesome so you buy it instantly. A lot of movies are referenced throughout: in one boat level, Caleb spouts out the iconic “we’re gonna need a bigger boat” line from Jaws, you’ve got a lot of Army Of Darkness in there, direct nods to Frankenstein, Friday The 13th, Dawn Of The Dead and many others. It’s one big horror movie homage so if you’re into that type of stuff at all, Blood is a must-play.

I won’t reveal too much more about the game because it’s a long one and I could rant on and on about it. Suffice it to say that playing it now, many years after first giving it a go, I’m impressed by how well Blood has held up and by how much I enjoyed it. Visually, it’s detailed, colourful, and inventive, the whole thing is cleverly put together, never gets too serious but still delivers a real challenge and levels which require you to not only blast zombies in the face with Tesla guns but figure some stuff out too. Blood is ridiculously violent and super gory, that’s a given. I mean, the thing’s literally called “Blood”! You get to battle what is essentially The Devil after a rollercoaster ride of dark, twisted, epic first-person madness and I personally loved every minute of it. It’s crazy to think that you could play the game online and that it’s got a multiplayer mode.

All in all: if you can find Blood, play it.

It’s quite simply…

Mime-pitchforkingly brilliant.