Doomworld's Opinion On Blood?

Never played it, but looks pretty damn fun and ball busting. The only build engine game I have ever played was Shadow Warrior.

I like Blood, I think it has a solid foundation and top-tier level design, but I don't consider it on the same level as Doom or Quake. I don't quite get the whole "BEST FPS GAME EVER" mentality that a lot of people (mostly younger fans of Civvie 11 who never had to suffer through the pre-source port days) seem to have. There's too much "throw a stick of dynamite around a corner" and "stand still and wait for the ear-piercing ghost to become vulnerable to the shotgun 4 or 5 times" and "waste all your ammo against a bullet sponge spider" and "hold crouch for 5 minutes while you whittle away at 4 Stone Gargoyles at once" present for it to be considered the pinnacle of FPS design.

In fact, I think Blood is one of the rare old-school FPSes that plays better on the easier difficulties in spite of what the "git gud" crowd thinks. I used to like playing BloodGDX's custom difficulty with medium scaling and hardest enemy placement for a more Doom-like experience. My favorite level in the game is the haunted house one in E2 which just so happens to have no cultists whatsoever.

Blood is fucking fantastic, and this is coming from someone that really doesn't like Build engine games. The weapons are all satisfying and useful, the dark humour is ageless, the level design is engaging (although quite obtuse in some areas) and the enemies are charming.

I played it for the first time last year and enjoyed it so much I had bumped the difficulty to extra crispy by episode 4 (started the journey on lightly broiled). Even the memery that is the cultist hitscan was fun because CRUDUX CRUO!! And then you set them on fire. Sure there are some dumb bits, the bosses are largely poorly implemented bullet sponges (with the exception of the werewolves) and then spammed way too much later on but nothing outstays its welcome. So when I found 3 spider bosses in one tiny crypt, it was just funny.

The icing on the cake is the awesome jank of the engine. Whether it's yeeting enemies into the sun with dynamite or watching gargoyles cluster round the top of the skybox like moths to a flame, the 'quirks' add flavour and humour, rather than detract from the play and break things.

10/10 game would live again again

For the record I played the fresh blood steam version

Blood is probably the best build engine game (excluding Ion Fury, but then again IF is newer so I am not including it). The weapons in this game are probably one of the best weapon set ever made for an FPS game, especially the dynamites and the sawed-off. I also like the player movement in this more than the other build engine games. The enemies are kind of mixed bag in terms of their balance, but then again Duke and SW didn't have the best enemy lineup either.

Oddly enough, most people would find it strange to hear, but if there is anything of Blood I am not a fan of, its the aesthetics. I don't mind the game being horror themed, but the color palette of Blood never did it for me

I just started playing Blood the other day and I'm  not sure about it yet. I like the atmosphere and level design but not a big fan of the gameplay, the abundance of hitscanners and shortage of health pickups means you have to play pretty cautiously which kills it somewhat for me. Maybe its something I'll get used to, not sure. I've also been replaying Hexen II and despite that game's issues have been enjoying it more in comparison.

11 hours ago, Avoozl said:

Try running it with BuildGDX.

i don't have a recent-enough version of opengl to even open BuildGDX

I heard it had a cool sequel

^/s

On 5/27/2021 at 5:51 AM, I Drink Lava said:

I like Blood, I think it has a solid foundation and top-tier level design, but I don't consider it on the same level as Doom or Quake. I don't quite get the whole "BEST FPS GAME EVER" mentality that a lot of people (mostly younger fans of Civvie 11 who never had to suffer through the pre-source port days) seem to have. There's too much "throw a stick of dynamite around a corner" and "stand still and wait for the ear-piercing ghost to become vulnerable to the shotgun 4 or 5 times" and "waste all your ammo against a bullet sponge spider" and "hold crouch for 5 minutes while you whittle away at 4 Stone Gargoyles at once" present for it to be considered the pinnacle of FPS design. 

 

In fact, I think Blood is one of the rare old-school FPSes that plays better on the easier difficulties in spite of what the "git gud" crowd thinks. I used to like playing BloodGDX's custom difficulty with medium scaling and hardest enemy placement for a more Doom-like experience. My favorite level in the game is the haunted house one in E2 which just so happens to have no cultists whatsoever.

Those strats suck, that's how you make a good game boring. Civvie is a cancer to retro gaming. Think I'm exaggerating? Just look at this game play from another youtuber and tell me if you notice a difference.

I love Blood and was pretty happy when NDS was able to re-release it, it was one of my favorite games back in the day, the humor was great, the levels were fun, the weapons were satisfying.

I started playing it a few days ago and I like what I've played so far, I wish the map editor was better though 😂 ultimate doom builder it is not, it gets the job done of course but you can tell its straight from the 90s, you even have no option but to run it in dosbox which doesnt help :P

12 hours ago, markanini said:

Civvie is a cancer to retro gaming.

🙄

whatever you say, dude

On 5/27/2021 at 8:51 AM, I Drink Lava said:

I like Blood, I think it has a solid foundation and top-tier level design, but I don't consider it on the same level as Doom or Quake. I don't quite get the whole "BEST FPS GAME EVER" mentality that a lot of people (mostly younger fans of Civvie 11 who never had to suffer through the pre-source port days) seem to have. There's too much "throw a stick of dynamite around a corner" and "stand still and wait for the ear-piercing ghost to become vulnerable to the shotgun 4 or 5 times" and "waste all your ammo against a bullet sponge spider" and "hold crouch for 5 minutes while you whittle away at 4 Stone Gargoyles at once" present for it to be considered the pinnacle of FPS design.

 

In fact, I think Blood is one of the rare old-school FPSes that plays better on the easier difficulties in spite of what the "git gud" crowd thinks. I used to like playing BloodGDX's custom difficulty with medium scaling and hardest enemy placement for a more Doom-like experience. My favorite level in the game is the haunted house one in E2 which just so happens to have no cultists whatsoever.

Yeah. Blood is a great build engine game, but it is FAAAAR from being the best FPS. The enemies in Blood are a weak aspect. Cultists have ridiculously low reaction time at skills 4 and 5 which means that you need foreknowledge to be able to deal with them. While on the other hand, butchers, mother spiders and stone gargoyles are harmless when you crouch and are just there to soak damage.

So I completely agree that Blood is actually much more enjoyable at lower skill levels because cultists have more reaction time and there is less bullet sponge meat to kill.

On the other hand, both Doom and Quake have much better balanced enemies and thus much more balanced gameplay.

Even Shadow Warrior have better enemies balance for HIGH DIFFICULTY.

But Blood is the best of the trio of Build Engine. At least in level design, weapons and aesthetic, my only problem it's the high difficulty, but that's why there difficulty options on the first place. :P

1 hour ago, ReaperAA said:

 

Yeah. Blood is a great build engine game, but it is FAAAAR from being the best FPS. The enemies in Blood are a weak aspect. Cultists have ridiculously low reaction time at skills 4 and 5 which means that you need foreknowledge to be able to deal with them. While on the other hand, butchers, mother spiders and stone gargoyles are harmless when you crouch and are just there to soak damage.

 

So I completely agree that Blood is actually much more enjoyable at lower skill levels because cultists have more reaction time and there is less bullet sponge meat to kill.

 

On the other hand, both Doom and Quake have much better balanced enemies and thus much more balanced gameplay.

yeah, while i do love blood i have to agree that the difficulty settings are terribly balanced. that's why i always tend to use custom settings instead of the stock difficulty settings when i play

I don't like it much because it's requirements are very high. It's fun-per-ram score is very little.

I quite liked Blood back when I played it for the first time either last year or 2019. It's certainly among the harder FPS games I've played, and that puzzle in one of the E4 maps (I forget which one, M6 maybe?) I didn't like at all, but other than that, it was a pretty fun experience. I'd definitely have to agree with those who call it the best Build engine FPS (of its time).

Also, I loved the hedge maze solely for the fact that it took such a literal approach to the "maze-like" level design of the era, though probably not intentionally.

12 minutes ago, roboticmehdi2 said:

I don't like it much because it's requirements are very high. It's fun-per-ram score is very little.

What? The game requires literal megabytes on the RAM side, and even the Fresh Supply version advertises a minimum requirement of only 1GB of RAM. That's an eighth of what your standard AAA game in 2021 demands. Is your computer literally from the early '80s or some shit?

it's cool but the instant hitscanners make a lot of encounters become ducking and chucking dynamite around corners :P

1 hour ago, MFG38 said:

What? The game requires literal megabytes on the RAM side, and even the Fresh Supply version advertises a minimum requirement of only 1GB of RAM. That's an eighth of what your standard AAA game in 2021 demands. Is your computer literally from the early '80s or some shit?

For a pentium-100 pc with 8mb ram which runs tons of games at playable and enjoyable style, including doom, duke nukem 3d, quake, need for speed, etc

But can't run blood (which is on par with those games, considering technology/time period/etc), for me it's games fault, unoptimized. I tried many things to make it run with 8mb, none worked, at most I got a few minutes, then game crash.

Anyway it was very late to the market for a 2.5D game, had high requirements, didn't catch up with others popularity like duke3d, quake...

So, I don't like it.

On 5/27/2021 at 7:24 AM, ReaperAA said:

Blood is probably the best build engine game (excluding Ion Fury, but then again IF is newer so I am not including it). The weapons in this game are probably one of the best weapon set ever made for an FPS game, especially the dynamites and the sawed-off. I also like the player movement in this more than the other build engine games. The enemies are kind of mixed bag in terms of their balance, but then again Duke and SW didn't have the best enemy lineup either.

Oddly enough, most people would find it strange to hear, but if there is anything of Blood I am not a fan of, its the aesthetics. I don't mind the game being horror themed, but the color palette of Blood never did it for me

I completely agree. The palette is drab -- and not in that good, moody way. Also, the art style of much of the game seems a little low contrast or something to me. I find Doom much nicer to look at/

To get back to things I love about Blood though: it's that unforgiving even the doors can kill you. And will kill you. In one murderous swing. A little skinny wooden door.

Amazing aesthetics, fun gunplay, lovely atmosphere but yea, it can be unbalanced at some points. One thing that bothers me the most is how shotgun cultists shoot like they have an automatic weapon. Cop Pigs made sense with their shotgun. Or those Hilly Billy enemies in Redneck Rampage.

I don't even mind the hitscanning. Just for the love of Christ, shoot a sawed-off shotgun like a sawed-off shotgun.

I dig it's dripping atmosphere and awesome 90s horror movie aesthetics, and it's gameplay is really nice, the thing that bothers is me is that 60% of the game is fighting those cultists which they are fine on their own. It's just that I want to fight enemies other than cultists 60% of the time

On 6/1/2021 at 10:31 PM, markanini said:

Those strats suck, that's how you make a good game boring.Think I'm exaggerating? Just look at this game play from another youtuber and tell me if you notice a difference. 

I watched about 8 minutes of it. The way this youtuber plays is not unlike my own playstyle, just without the cautious quicksaving before every key door. He or she even throws dynamite around corners occasionally. All this proves is that Blood's quirks are just a natural part of the game, just like Doom's circlestrafing. The only reason this player is so good is because he or she has the level layouts memorized, which 99% of Blood players will not have the privilege.

Quote

Civvie is a cancer to retro gaming.

And comments like these are why Doomworld desperately needs reaction emotes that convey some sort of negativity. I guess Temporary Invisibility will have to suffice, since it's more of a hindrance than a powerup.

First of all, the playstyle I mentioned dates way back to when I bought the game on CD around 2012-2013, and even earlier counting the shareware version. Civvie 11 has nothing to do with my post, besides an excerpt mentioning that he brought in a wave of Gen Z fans who never had to suffer in the dark days of DOSBox. Secondly, what's wrong with trying to entice a young modern audience into playing classic games through snarky humor and namedropping useful source ports? Toxic gatekeeping benefits no one, especially not the companies who get royalties from these games on GOG and Steam.

9 hours ago, holaareola said:

I completely agree. The palette is drab -- and not in that good, moody way. Also, the art style of much of the game seems a little low contrast or something to me. I find Doom much nicer to look at/

Exactly. I feel that Blood could have still achieved the moody look without resorting to the drab palette. For example, Hexen is also very dark and moody, yet the game has nice palette and is thus much more pleasing to the eyes for me.

3 hours ago, I Drink Lava said:

Secondly, what's wrong with trying to entice a young modern audience into playing classic games through snarky humor and namedropping useful source ports? Toxic gatekeeping benefits no one, especially not the companies who get royalties from these games on GOG and Steam.

because it threatens the sanctity of his Niche Interest™ by bringing in young hooligans who aren't true fans, cuz they don't play in a certain playstyle that's obviously the only correct way to play the game ^/s

11 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

 

Exactly. I feel that Blood could have still achieved the moody look without resorting to the drab palette. For example, Hexen is also very dark and moody, yet the game has nice palette and is thus much more pleasing to the eyes for me.

Well i feel like Hexen is like moody-lite though, the bright colors i actually find making it unimmersive and kind of like a children's pc game with a dragon stapled on it and it just does not seem to have the same amount of atmosphere and impact on to me like Blood though so honestly i feel Hexen is visually insignificant to the game when you're in it, especially if you were to forget about the story while playing, it's visuals really hang by a string in my opinion and it seems well done layoutwise but still really unshakebly artificial and unatural palette and texture wise, and where do i start with doom, even in 1 it looks like an eyebleeding and retina searing cartoon, and also the reaction time and damage just adds to the realism, I mean those guys are difficult but it's mainly just like wolf3d where your making enemies come over to you but sometimes you also have the ability to eliminate them before they even see you too.

I don't think Blood is anywhere near as difficult as people make it out to be, but there's a big difficulty gap between most of the game's enemies, which can safely be disposed of with your pitchfork, and the cultists that appear on the very first level of the game. The game would've simultaneously benefited from having cultists with slower reaction times, and generally harder enemies overall. 

24 minutes ago, [McD]James said:

I don't think Blood is anywhere near as difficult as people make it out to be, but there's a big difficulty gap between most of the game's enemies, which can safely be disposed of with your pitchfork, and the cultists that appear on the very first level of the game. The game would've simultaneously benefited from having cultists with slower reaction times, and generally harder enemies overall. 

build engine games needing better enemies is a common theme it seems

On 6/1/2021 at 10:31 PM, markanini said:

Those strats suck, that's how you make a good game boring. Civvie is a cancer to retro gaming. Think I'm exaggerating? Just look at this game play from another youtuber and tell me if you notice a difference.

 

I too am not a fan of Civvie. Can't stand the guy.

What do I think of Blood? Well I haven't played it yet. I did play the original Shadow Warrior and think it's good. Shadow Warrior overshadowed Blood in the past, but now it's the other way around.

23 hours ago, Tony_Pepporoni said:

Well i feel like Hexen is like moody-lite though, the bright colors i actually find making it unimmersive and kind of like a children's pc game with a dragon stapled on it and it just does not seem to have the same amount of atmosphere and impact on to me like Blood though so honestly i feel Hexen is visually insignificant to the game when you're in it, especially if you were to forget about the story while playing, it's visuals really hang by a string in my opinion and it seems well done layoutwise but still really unshakebly artificial and unatural palette and texture wise

Differing opinions then. The texture work in Blood is really good, but I personally find Blood's over-use of terracotta, reds and greys make it look more unnatural to me compared to Hexen's visuals. Not to mention that the palette doesn't allow much visual variety.

On 6/3/2021 at 6:51 AM, I Drink Lava said:

And comments like these are why Doomworld desperately needs reaction emotes that convey some sort of negativity. I guess Temporary Invisibility will have to suffice, since it's more of a hindrance than a powerup.

 

First of all, the playstyle I mentioned dates way back to when I bought the game on CD around 2012-2013, and even earlier counting the shareware version. Civvie 11 has nothing to do with my post, besides an excerpt mentioning that he brought in a wave of Gen Z fans who never had to suffer in the dark days of DOSBox. Secondly, what's wrong with trying to entice a young modern audience into playing classic games through snarky humor and namedropping useful source ports? Toxic gatekeeping benefits no one, especially not the companies who get royalties from these games on GOG and Steam. 

So you're relying on the crutch of making assumptions and trying to generate unnecessary drama. This stuff shuts down any productive discussion. You are literally doing the gatekeeping. If that's really an issue you care about you might want to set your own house in order before criticizing others. I'm criticizing Civvie as a former fan that still enjoys his earlier videos. Now that retro game channels are more common it's clear that Civvie has gone too formulaic and his videos are too much about him. The strat of chucking dynamite blindly around every single corner is pretty rare, probably because it breaks the fun. Watch the algo video I shared again, he gets visual contact with enemies before chucking dynamite around corners almost every time. Look at Dwars and LightningBoltForver for further proof of what strats are commonly used.