is blood actually as good as people think it is?

okay, okay, put down the knives, torches, high heels, and ball stretchers. before you decide to shove your entire leg up my asshole, hear me out.

while blood's atmosphere, visual design, and music are all undeniably fantastic...i feel like the gameplay falls short of being anywhere near as good as those aspects. a lot of the enemies are tanky as fuck, the hitscanners are genuinely aggravating (and i say that as someone who uses the shit out of hitscanners in their doom maps), the amount of swinging doors compared to something like duke3d really brings out the worst aspects of the build engine, it has not one but TWO tiny hard to hit enemies, and the gargoyles are just...eugh.

i know that it's known as a hard game, but the difficulty feels much more along the lines of "irritating bullshit" than it does "challenge that you can overcome". also, before you tell me that i just need to "get good", keep in mind that i really don't feel the same way about a lot of the more challenging doom mapsets; even the ones like speed of doom's poison ivy, a map people love to bitch and moan about, i feel are nowhere near as annoying as blood can be. even though they're mean, the enemies themselves are still fun to fight against and feel fair. blood doesn't have that going for it unfortunately, and even when the level design is great it can get dragged down quite a bit by the fact that the fundamentals just aren't there.

now, i do still enjoy blood despite its flaws. it's just that i don't think that it stacks up against its contemporaries as well as a lot of people say it does, and i certainly wouldn't call it one of the best 90s fps games. it's a decent game, just very flawed. great atmosphere can only get you so far when your gameplay just isn't the best.

you can go ahead and brutalize me now

Haven't read the thread yet (was posted 8.5 seconds ago) but yes.

The bosses suck donkey balls and ass though.

the dynamite stick is an interesting weapon and it has cool music and a peculiar atmosphere but it is literally too annoying to play imo

13 minutes ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

Haven't read the thread yet (was posted 8.5 seconds ago) but yes.

 

The bosses suck donkey balls and ass though.

oh yeah, the bosses suck shit too, i completely forgot about those. tbf tho, that was the case with a lot of 90s fps games, heh

Sounds like you're playing on too high a difficulty. I feel a little hypocritical saying that because I already have a tendency to go for whatever's closest to UV in Doom-era shooters, and it never goes well for me, but Blood's one where I succeeded in breaking that habit and sticking to the second or third skill.

changing the difficulty only does so much; it helps alleviate some of the issues, but it doesn't really change fundamental flaws in the design of enemies. rats and hands are still annoying as hell, gargoyles are still unfun and make the AAAAAAAAAAAAA sound all the time, ghosts are...ghosts, and like @TheMagicMushroomMan said, the bosses are still awful.

also, if higher difficulties in your game make it frustrating to play no matter your skill level, then you suck at balancing difficulty :p

I will say this, while Blood is a pretty good game, it definitely is a tad "over-praised" in my opinion. Especially when nothing that game did was new and the level design, while solid can get really dragged and all the "realistic places" was something that Duke3D had done over a year ago. It's nowhere near "Top 3 90s FPS games" as Civvie once claimed lol.

I have seen many people put it even above Duke3D (seriously just make a Duke3D vs Blood poll here on DW and Blood would come on top) and yet, while it did some things better (levels being somewhat more detailed, better sound design, punchier weapons), most of what it did is because of lessons learned from Duke3D and yet it still falls short in some areas despite being over a year newer (much less memorable protagonist, less memorable music, half the enemies being stupidly easy to cheese by breaking them via crouching/jumping, Episode 1 being harder than the other episodes due to abundance of cultists, worse pistol/pitchfork start balancing than Duke's etc.)

Seriously, just look at the Blood alpha from Feb 1996 to see what the game looked like around the time when Duke3D released.

24 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

much less memorable protagonist, less memorable music

Hard... diamond hard disagree. 

And Stephan Weyte gave a superior vocal performance than Jon St. Jon. Caleb is easily one of the most memorable FPS protagonists ever and and the soundtrack is great. 

I play on the easier difficulties generally on these games mainly due to using a controller on them and I don't have any issues with Blood's gameplay in comparison to the others. I'm aware how bullshit the hitscans get on higher difficulties but I honestly don't care that much. I think for me it is hard to pick a favourite but Blood is every bit at least as good as all the others. If someone called it the best FPS of the 90s I'd get it, but that said I would get almost any one of the big names except Half Life because I find Half Life boring. 

Oh and on the Bosses issue you can't name an FPS with good bosses, one has never existed. 

I like the floaty movement, makes me feel like I'm in an action movie, and the arsenal feels very powerful. Could use a more varied bestiary, but fighting cultists never gets old.

Blood has some great map designs and interesting set pieces (like crashing a train, infiltrating a haunted ship, spooky hotels, demonic funhouses...) and I didn't struggle with the game too much...

Until the expansions, then that's the buttfucking you been waiting for. I swear to God I see Cheogh one more time I am going to lose it, I am sick and tired of fighting 400 tesla cultists just for my reward to be Cheogh again.

The feel of dynamiting cultists by itself is enough to make Blood one of my favorite FPS games. That it also has some great levels too, like The Overlooked Hotel (E2M4), is icing on the cake. I actually enjoy the cultists and clawing through cultist-infested levels like those in the first episode. No, it doesn't play fair, but I think that's part of its appeal, because when it throws BS at me it feels good to play dirty back, whether that be through lobbing dynamite around a corner or exploiting the janky vision enemies have in room over room setups.

I like the theme, too, and the sounds are great (especially the dynamite, the cultists, and Caleb himself). I haven't played DN3D (or any other Build Engine game, for that matter) so I can't really compare, but the theme of that and Shadow Warrior never appealed to me, and the sound effects in all the footage I've seen of Duke is alone enough to turn me off the game.

If there's something I would criticize about the game, it's that most of the enemies that aren't cultists are a game of Simon Says in picking the right weapon, or are unreasonably tanky, or are just nuisances. Most of them lack interesting attacks too, especially when compared to Doom II's bestiary. In most games "all except one type of enemy kinda suck" would be a death blow, but I think the strengths of Blood are able to carry it.

2 hours ago, roadworx said:

also, if higher difficulties in your game make it frustrating to play no matter your skill level, then you suck at balancing difficulty :p

It seems the higher settings may have been designed with coop in mind. I suppose it’s better than the middle finger that is Doom’s Nightmare but it also lead to me having a big feeling of “wow, this wasn’t as fun as when I was younger” when I tried getting back into it awhile ago.

That was me playing it on Extra Crispy though; I had just come off of a Shadow Warrior playthrough and had no idea I chose to double the enemy health, and my younger self loved playing on the easiest settings. After realizing that and starting again on Lightly Broiled it all started to click,  that “fun” started to come back.

So yeah, that would be my big criticism: It has the worst “harder difficulties” compared to Duke3D or Shadow Warrior. Something like BuildGDX will allow you to customize the difficulty so you can experience “Extra Crispy” spawns without “Extra Crispy” healthpools - a huge gamechanger for me. It may otherwise be my personal favorite of all the Build games, next door to Shadow Warrior for me.

1 hour ago, hybridial said:

Hard... diamond hard disagree. 

 

And Stephan Weyte gave a superior vocal performance than Jon St. Jon. Caleb is easily one of the most memorable FPS protagonists ever and and the soundtrack is great.

I guess we can agree to disagree here. I'll admit the thriller/horror genre was never for me, but even if it was, I don't think i would find Caleb more memorable than Duke. And I will especially disagree with the soundtrack. Blood's soundtrack is completely unmemorable for me. I don't remember a single song in the game except for the one that plays in E1M1

1 hour ago, hybridial said:

that said I would get almost any one of the big names except Half Life because I find Half Life boring. 

 

Oh and on the Bosses issue you can't name an FPS with good bosses, one has never existed. 

I understand you don't like HL, but it honestly is more deserving of the "top 90s FPS game" title than Blood. HL was an innovater while Blood was an imitator.

Also HL did bosses pretty well (blast pit tentacles, Power Up Gargantua) with exception of the final boss.

2 hours ago, hybridial said:

And Stephan Weyte gave a superior vocal performance than Jon St. Jon. Caleb is easily one of the most memorable FPS protagonists ever

I wholeheartedly agree, and this comes from someone who has yet to play more than a couple levels.

Even though Caleb can be quite rude and mean-spirited at times, there is a tragic, wistful quality to the character - perhaps due to Stephan Weyte's performance - that makes him more interesting and compelling than Duke Nukem and Lo Wang (old and new).

I think Blood's E1 and E2 are great, but E3, E4 and E5 don't feel as interesting. E1 and E2 have such a great setting and atmosphere. As for the difficulty, I played on easiest, so I didn't have problems. But I know on high skill levels enemies have extreme amount of health (stone gargoyles have almost 10000 HP each). One thing I disliked is how enemies always seem to shoot you the millisecond they see you.

The worst thing in Blood is undoubtedly doors. Instadeath if they close on you.

I agree. Blood has a nice atosphere and some nice aspects (neat tunes, looks nice, some enemies and weapons are nice enough to deal with) but I find it a bit of a chore to play overall. When it comes to build engine games, for me it's like this:

1. Ion Fury

2. DN3D

3. Blood

99. Shadow Warrior

2 minutes ago, Antroid said:

When it comes to build engine games, for me it's like this:

1. Ion Fury

2. DN3D

3. Blood

99. Shadow Warrior

Based :)

I am not sure if I'd rank Blood in the top 3 90s fps games but it easily beats the crap out of Quake 2, Shadow Warrior, and Half Life on gameplay alone.
Its highest difficulty levels are insanely difficult though. Like, I don't think anything else I played from that era comes close.

15 minutes ago, Firedust said:

I am not sure if I'd rank Blood in the top 3 90s fps games but it easily beats the crap out of Quake 2, Shadow Warrior, and Half Life on gameplay alone.

I am not so sure. Definitely agree with it beating SW. And also with it beating pre-remastered Quake 2.

But I would surely put gameplay of HL and Remastered Quake 2 above it. Blood has more fun weapons than both, but the enemy variety is lacking in terms of attack patterns or strategies to deal with them.

Fighting vortigaunts, HECUs and Hunters is much more fun than fighting most of Bloods enemies. Cultists (despite their B.S reaction times) are probably the most fun enemies in Blood and the only ones that come close to HL's enemies.

In relation to Doom: No, it's gameplay is not quite as solid and does come up a good chunk unfair at times

In relation to nearly every other hitscan-happy FPS of the 90's: It beats the pants out of damn near everything else, It's atleast the best out of the Build games prior to Ion Fury (altho I have not played that one yet, so maybe I'll still like Blood over that too)

I love the way Blood looks aesthetically. I love the crispy textures, muted rust palette and dithering.

But compared to Doom, it's gameplay certainly doesn’t have the same impact

Shit game for twats. Hotel level was alright.

1 hour ago, Antroid said:

I agree. Blood has a nice atosphere and some nice aspects (neat tunes, looks nice, some enemies and weapons are nice enough to deal with) but I find it a bit of a chore to play overall. When it comes to build engine games, for me it's like this:

1. Ion Fury

2. DN3D

3. Blood

99. Shadow Warrior

really? you're putting shadow warrior below redneck rampage and tekwar?

damn, you must really hate that game

Blood is less balanced than Duke 3D and SW. I’ve heard this could be because the designers play-tested with cheat codes for the harder difficulties.  Still, it’s not a bad game, but it went from being a game few knew about to being a game suddenly everyone is aware of. 
 

Duke 3D and SW went through a lot of design changes through their development, but Blood was mostly the same. Sure, there were some UI changes during development, Caleb went through different names and characterizations, there was another zombie enemy that was “cut” from the game (the sprites were just replaced by the ax zombie since it was basically the same enemy just didn’t come out of the ground), but the theme, art direction, enemies, weapons, etc. stayed the most consistent whereas Duke and SW looked like much different games from one build to the next. This is likely why Duke and SW feel just right, there was a lot of adjustment to get it where 3DR’s wanted it. Blood was originally being made by Q-Studios who were under Apogee/3DR’s, and they left for Monolith, and it seems it was somewhat polished and patched up quickly for release soon afterwards.

10 minutes ago, roadworx said:

really? you're putting shadow warrior below redneck rampage and tekwar?

 

damn, you must really hate that game

Never played those :p And I like some shit games, so it ain't out of the question until I play them to see.

The problem with choosing a lower difficulty is that damn inversion bug that happens when you reload a save. This is fixed with modern source ports but how the hell did they not fix that?

Surprised to see how many people don't like blood that much. I love blood, and for one fairly simple reason among a lot of smaller helpful ones. It is one of the most satisfying games I have ever played. Blowing a zombie's head off with a double barrel blast so hard it makes the headless body bounce around nearly as much as the decapitated head, watching a hellhound's corpse slide towards you limp and harmless after zapping it with the tesla cannon, and of course the unparalleled explosion physics, it's just so damn satisfying to play. It's funny to hear people complain about hitscanner hell and poorly designed bosses when we're also talking about doom and final doom, I think several decades of swimming through swarms of ultra refined limit removing doom mods might give some people a little bias. I think blood stands on its own even compared to incredible modern doom heavy hitters like eviternity or valiant or ancient aliens, but I think even then it's unfair to compare a base game made before the new millennium to the incredible masterpiece that is modern doom map design. Like sure, you could say blood compared to those games can be unbalanced or annoying, but comparing them to doom 2 won't do Sandy and them many favors either. I personally think it's one of the most satisfying and flavorful first person shooters ever made with only a few hinderances to mar it.

2 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

But I would surely put gameplay of HL and Remastered Quake 2 above it. Blood has more fun weapons than both, but the enemy variety is lacking in terms of attack patterns or strategies to deal with them.

I just want to add about remastered Quake 2 that

it's unfair to compare that to anything. Remastered Quake 2 is probably the best fucking FPS ever to me. It took a game I liked a lot anyway but really made it into the best game it could possibly be. And that genuinely is my favourite game in the entire genre now.

But Quake 2 in general is underrated and Civvie's completely wrong about it (to specify when he said the game was just a tech demo)like he's wrong about the N64 controller. (That's everything he said on the subject) 

10 minutes ago, hybridial said:

But Quake 2 in general is underrated and Civvie's completely wrong about it 

This we can agree on :)