"Good... bad... I'm the guy with the gun..."
It would be hard for you to know what a FPS is, but it is basically a game that you see in first person and start shooting everyone. A concept this simple would mean that there won't be a lot of difference between games. Well, that is not the case here.
The biggest appeal about BLOOD it was violent and gory for its. It showed interesting things like zombies blowing torn in pieces and burning priests screaming in a very scary way. That was the main reason of the name of the game. During battles and in the environment, blood is in the air.
You control Caleb, who is a great anithero. The story tells us that Caleb was something like a dark lone ranger. He was a deadly gunman who earned his life as a mercenary. She met Ophelia who will become the love of his life, and along with two other guys called Ishmail and Gabrielle they joined "The Cabal", a dark group ruled by Tchernobog, a semi-demon who wanted to be more powerful. When this guys summons them to a meeting, he betrays them, killing Gabrielle and Ishmail, abducting Ophelia and buring Caleb alive. Caleb, not dead at all, raises from the grave and vengeance unleashes...
The first thing that you notice is that the graphics are not mind blowing, probably because they didn't want to make the gore too realistic or probably because they couldn't do it better. Anyway, they are good enough to show a dark environement.
While playing, as in any decent FPS, you have a main melee weapon which in this case is a pitchfork and you can get more powerful weapons during your way. These weapons are really meant to harm your enemy the best way possible. You have a flare gun, a sawed off shotgun that is deadly on short rante, a Tommy Gun which blasted a wave of bullets gangster style as your main weapons; but the best part comes with the big guns like the Napalm launcher, The Tesla Cannon, The soul reaper and the voodoo doll. Those weapons are pretty much innovative and destructive. You have dynamite of all kind: Normal, Remote controlled and the funnniest: Radar dynamite. Just put it on the floor and watch the guy blowing away as soon as he gets close to them... Even spray cans are weapons here!!! All of them had a secondary attack which was more damaging but would use more ammo. Each one of the weapons have its own ammo, so you have to manage it pretty well.
YOu don't only have the help of the weapons and ammo. You have upgrades like health and armors. Three kinds of them: Body, Fire and Spirit. Basically, Body is to protect from Bullets and melee attacks, Fire is for fire attacks and Spirit is for magic attacks. You have night googles to see in the dark places (duh!), and other special stuff like boots for high jumping, a double weapon feature and my personal favorite: The seed. This beauty gives you 100 points of life up to 200. There are many more gadgets around there that you will be discovering.
Your enemies are as dark and evil as you, and they come in waves and in different kinds. There are Axe-welding zombies, fanatics with guns, some other scary things like fat guys that keep throwing you something out of their mouths... and the more annoying enemies: Those fire throwing dogs and the choking hands. Just wait until those two get at you and you will see what I mean. Nothing is more satisfying that using weapons with them... Using a flare and waiting them for burn and run screaming "IT BURNS!!!" or getting a zombie close enough to blast him off with a sawed off watching it fly. Those moments have no price.
During the game you play four episodes. Each episode with a final boss on each one: Cheogh, the stone gargoyle; Shial, the spider queen and Cerberus, the hell's guardian. The fourth episode holds the final battle against Tchernobog. The levels are ussually huge and very detailed. One of my favorite ones is an Amusement park where you can interact with some of the attractions for big prizes. One of the things I truly love about the game is the environment. It is truly a dark game but far from being scary, it could be fun. Dark Humor is all around. SOmetimes you have some innocents running around and you can shoot them with no cost. THERE ARE MIMES LAYING AROUND THE GAME!!! Isn't that something you would expect in a horror game? Of course not. Part of the fun. The game uses a lot of movie references, either on the design of the level or in movie quotes spoken by Caleb during the game. Horror films fans would love to see and hear references from movies like "Psycho", "Jaws", "Nightmare on Elm Street", "Friday the 13th", "The Shinning", "Seven", "Army of Darkness" and sometimes others that are not from scary movies like "Apocalypse Now" and "Ghost" among them. Most of these details are shown as secrets. That makes the game even more special, at least for me.
The online gaming was another big factor. It was fun as hell. Probably the best online experience I ever had. There were basically three modes: Co-op Story, Capture the Flag and Bloodbath. All of them pretty good being the only issue that you have a lot of disadvantage against those with full arsenal.
A game this amazing should be good, but it has its flaws, being the main one that it is too damn hard! There are 5 difficulties which are based on meat cooking styles. You really need to play the easier one "Still Kicking" to get used to the game. If you decide to go "Extra Crispy" you will suffer. Sometimes you feel like your energy is being drained by a strange force... When you have the disgrace to fight again anything that throws fire, you are going to lose energy as fast as you can imagine... but the biggest bastards are the choking hand. The higher the difficulty, the harder to get them out of you, but not only they get your energy... they blind you! And it is impossible to take those out of you on the higher difficulty! The game is truly for hardcore players. Another flaw is that the maps are not clear at all. You cannot see what is a door or not. You have no idea what are you watching. It is almost impossible to watch it right and have a clear idea where you are and some levels can be very confusing.
To conclude, Blood was a great gift I had the chance to receive in that time. A red jewel from the big boom of FPS from the 90's. Probably it didn't bring innovation to the genre, but it surely brought a creative and gory adventure that everyone who loves old school FPS will enjoy.
"Good... bad... I'm the guy with the gun..."