Dragoon En Regalia
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WHERE'S JOJO
Wanna see Jojo?! Just remember: if you see these guys, run!
Blood, for those who don't know, is Shadow Warrior's sister FPS built on the Buld engine and released in 1997. It's a lot different from its competitor, with less emphasis on silly John Woo fantasy action and more on brooding, challenging comedy-horror shooting. Having played the main episodes for both (still got the expansions for these + Douk and other '90s FPSes), I can't say for certain which one's better, just that Blood is the more unique of the two. Check out the wiki for technical details and stuff, this thread's for discussing the game's quality.
Every weapon in this game has a use. I'm not kiddingeven the wimpy pitchfork you start with is fun to use, provided you like to conserve ammo in the first place. While it's true that the melee in Shadow Warrior is much better (the best of all the FPSes I've played aside from Jedi Outcast), the projectile arsenal in Blood is more diverse and has less overlap regarding utility. Like in Quake, certain enemies deserve certain solutions. Cultists and Fanatics (yellow and grey robes respectively) need the Tommy Gun's suppression fire for the most part, but can also be pitchfork'd in CQC or taken down with a shotgun alt-fire. A late-game mook, the Hellhound, really only dies with the aforementioned alt-fire or through a stream of the Tesla Cannon; otherwise, the damn dogs will throw fire at you without end. Since every enemy in Blood does a lot of damage either over time or very quickly, it's imperative that you clear them out in the correct order or you'll take too much damage in that situation. To this end, you'll have the standards plus three types of TNT, a Voodoo Doll, a Life Leech, an aerosol can/flamethrower, a Napalm Launcher, a Flare Gun...whew, I could go on! (Lotsa fire in this game).
Thankfully, your autorun speed's great, and the enemy AI itself is responsive enough that you can lead them around corners if the scenario demands it. This is also one of the earliest shooters to blend crouching behind cover and gung-ho circle-strafing very well, to the point that a new player's going to approach combat differently all the time. Early-game enemies, unfortunately, tend to rely on hitscan to kill you, which can be a big pain until you get used to it...assuming you even have the right items near the beginning of the game, which isn't the case. Here's an example I posted on /vr/:
Compared to Shadow Warrior, the level designs themselves can be less ambitious. There's so many secret compartments and effortless level progressions crammed into 3D Realms' game that Blood just cannot match as effectively. Even the combat stacks up well to what Monolith and Studio Q created. But there's no doubt Blood has more content and a more robust match of bestiary to player ability. Every episode starts out with a bang, either following that great first impression well or losing momentum. The shareware episode, I think, starts off great, dips for a bit, then returns with gusto; the fourth and final one expires just a couple maps before facing Tchernobog. I really love maps like The Great Temple, Lumber Mill, Monster Bait, and Fire and Brimstone all for their interconnections, supply of well-paced and difficult battles, and puzzles as well. On top of this, I've heard wondrous things about both Cryptic Passage and the Plasma Pak add-ons, the former of which was developed by Sunsoft (previously responsible for Douk's beach expansion) and the latter all new from Monolith; no doubt the lack of a firm deadline post-release meant these maps had more time to cook.
I'm surprised at how great this game still looks, too. It was built to run on DOS, just like Shadow Warrior, and games like Quake had already come out with stunning lighting and effective use of polygonal environments (I'm playing through it right now, for that matter). But just as Shadow Warrior has exceptional lighting and some really varied Asiatic art design, Blood is full of menacing, labyrinthine levels with oddly animated enemies and voxel objects just about everywhere. There's some very cool uses for explosions, moving sectors, and polyobjects all throughout; even more surprising, the music's the best I've yet heard from a Build engine game. Quake might have CD-quality textures that couldn't be matched, but Blood's MIDI music is more melodic and well-developed than I've heard from most other shooters, a quality that Monolith kept all the way through No One Lives Forever. I haven't listened to the CD soundtrack much, and I don't plan on ithonestly, the CD music sounds too much like it's trying to sink below the game itself, which Quake, Douk, and Shadow Warrior's soundtracks all suffer from doing. What a shame.
If you want a tough-as-nails, mostly fair classic FPS that doesn't compromise, then Blood is for you. I'm not kidding when I say that modern shooters trying to learn from older ones still haven't replicated the emotions of gaiety and joy this game's given me. You can buy One Unit Whole Blood (contains the original episodes + expansions) off of GOG for just $6, which is a steal given how many hours you'll be playing this. There's a fuckton of cool secrets (even Super Secrets, like the creepy one in Ghost Town), a fictional Cultist language full of cool lines (GERO SHAY CRUOOOOOOOOO!), and plenty of humor to offset the bleak story premise and general amorality of Caleb, the man with the gun. But before you play, remember: there's not yet a source port prepared for this game. Sad story, I know. Monolith founder Jason Hall's been trying hard to convince Atari that a source code release will print nothing but money, yet nothing's come of it (at least he still has the source code!). I'm not here to talk about how Warner Bros. owns the copyright while Atari has the IP, though, because that's boring stuff that doesn't detract from how awesome this game still is to play. At worst, many players will want to use BMOUSE, a script built to make the crappy Build engine mouselook better (something EDuke32 already does, lol).
The Blood wiki community's boring, but regular discussions for this game pop up on /vr/ quite regularly. Give it a shot! I know DocSeuss is interested. If you want a streamlined way to play the main game, its expansions, and the fan community's numerous mods and map packs, try using this launcher with a GOG copy of One Unit Whole Blood.
Wanna see Jojo?! Just remember: if you see these guys, run!
Blood, for those who don't know, is Shadow Warrior's sister FPS built on the Buld engine and released in 1997. It's a lot different from its competitor, with less emphasis on silly John Woo fantasy action and more on brooding, challenging comedy-horror shooting. Having played the main episodes for both (still got the expansions for these + Douk and other '90s FPSes), I can't say for certain which one's better, just that Blood is the more unique of the two. Check out the wiki for technical details and stuff, this thread's for discussing the game's quality.
Every weapon in this game has a use. I'm not kiddingeven the wimpy pitchfork you start with is fun to use, provided you like to conserve ammo in the first place. While it's true that the melee in Shadow Warrior is much better (the best of all the FPSes I've played aside from Jedi Outcast), the projectile arsenal in Blood is more diverse and has less overlap regarding utility. Like in Quake, certain enemies deserve certain solutions. Cultists and Fanatics (yellow and grey robes respectively) need the Tommy Gun's suppression fire for the most part, but can also be pitchfork'd in CQC or taken down with a shotgun alt-fire. A late-game mook, the Hellhound, really only dies with the aforementioned alt-fire or through a stream of the Tesla Cannon; otherwise, the damn dogs will throw fire at you without end. Since every enemy in Blood does a lot of damage either over time or very quickly, it's imperative that you clear them out in the correct order or you'll take too much damage in that situation. To this end, you'll have the standards plus three types of TNT, a Voodoo Doll, a Life Leech, an aerosol can/flamethrower, a Napalm Launcher, a Flare Gun...whew, I could go on! (Lotsa fire in this game).
Thankfully, your autorun speed's great, and the enemy AI itself is responsive enough that you can lead them around corners if the scenario demands it. This is also one of the earliest shooters to blend crouching behind cover and gung-ho circle-strafing very well, to the point that a new player's going to approach combat differently all the time. Early-game enemies, unfortunately, tend to rely on hitscan to kill you, which can be a big pain until you get used to it...assuming you even have the right items near the beginning of the game, which isn't the case. Here's an example I posted on /vr/:
So there's one example of how complex the enemy encounters and map designs can get in Blood.
Compared to Shadow Warrior, the level designs themselves can be less ambitious. There's so many secret compartments and effortless level progressions crammed into 3D Realms' game that Blood just cannot match as effectively. Even the combat stacks up well to what Monolith and Studio Q created. But there's no doubt Blood has more content and a more robust match of bestiary to player ability. Every episode starts out with a bang, either following that great first impression well or losing momentum. The shareware episode, I think, starts off great, dips for a bit, then returns with gusto; the fourth and final one expires just a couple maps before facing Tchernobog. I really love maps like The Great Temple, Lumber Mill, Monster Bait, and Fire and Brimstone all for their interconnections, supply of well-paced and difficult battles, and puzzles as well. On top of this, I've heard wondrous things about both Cryptic Passage and the Plasma Pak add-ons, the former of which was developed by Sunsoft (previously responsible for Douk's beach expansion) and the latter all new from Monolith; no doubt the lack of a firm deadline post-release meant these maps had more time to cook.
I'm surprised at how great this game still looks, too. It was built to run on DOS, just like Shadow Warrior, and games like Quake had already come out with stunning lighting and effective use of polygonal environments (I'm playing through it right now, for that matter). But just as Shadow Warrior has exceptional lighting and some really varied Asiatic art design, Blood is full of menacing, labyrinthine levels with oddly animated enemies and voxel objects just about everywhere. There's some very cool uses for explosions, moving sectors, and polyobjects all throughout; even more surprising, the music's the best I've yet heard from a Build engine game. Quake might have CD-quality textures that couldn't be matched, but Blood's MIDI music is more melodic and well-developed than I've heard from most other shooters, a quality that Monolith kept all the way through No One Lives Forever. I haven't listened to the CD soundtrack much, and I don't plan on ithonestly, the CD music sounds too much like it's trying to sink below the game itself, which Quake, Douk, and Shadow Warrior's soundtracks all suffer from doing. What a shame.
If you want a tough-as-nails, mostly fair classic FPS that doesn't compromise, then Blood is for you. I'm not kidding when I say that modern shooters trying to learn from older ones still haven't replicated the emotions of gaiety and joy this game's given me. You can buy One Unit Whole Blood (contains the original episodes + expansions) off of GOG for just $6, which is a steal given how many hours you'll be playing this. There's a fuckton of cool secrets (even Super Secrets, like the creepy one in Ghost Town), a fictional Cultist language full of cool lines (GERO SHAY CRUOOOOOOOOO!), and plenty of humor to offset the bleak story premise and general amorality of Caleb, the man with the gun. But before you play, remember: there's not yet a source port prepared for this game. Sad story, I know. Monolith founder Jason Hall's been trying hard to convince Atari that a source code release will print nothing but money, yet nothing's come of it (at least he still has the source code!). I'm not here to talk about how Warner Bros. owns the copyright while Atari has the IP, though, because that's boring stuff that doesn't detract from how awesome this game still is to play. At worst, many players will want to use BMOUSE, a script built to make the crappy Build engine mouselook better (something EDuke32 already does, lol).
The Blood wiki community's boring, but regular discussions for this game pop up on /vr/ quite regularly. Give it a shot! I know DocSeuss is interested. If you want a streamlined way to play the main game, its expansions, and the fan community's numerous mods and map packs, try using this launcher with a GOG copy of One Unit Whole Blood.
