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Spooner5020

Blood 2 does not deserve the hate.

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Before you say anything: Blood 2 is not a great game. I can definitely admit that. It definitely has its problems. 

 

When I was finally able to get it working after messing around with some settings on Steam, I played it for a little bit and realized something. It's a really good Sci Fi shooter. It's not a good Blood game. If you take out the Blood name take out anything related to Blood it's a really good game on it's own. I kinda wished in the end this had been it's own thing. It's basically the Doom 3 of Blood.

 

I remembered playing the demo as a kid and was surprised how much the horror element was toned down for the sequel. It wasn't very scary at all. The first game really messed me up as a kid when I played the demo (mind you I played Doom and Duke Nukem 3d before Blood). Seeing zombies rising from the graves really freaked me out to the point I had to turn the game off. They were really freaky looking as a kid. It didn't help that the demo order screen had a guy with a bloody head and I think a severed foot? I don't remember. Blood 2 I had no issues with. It was kind of hard to believe I was playing a sequel to Blood considering that the tone felt so different.

 

The game is still buggy as hell and the graphics are definitely a downgrade from the original if you ask me. I think some of the weapons are a bit too overpowered and I feel like you don't die as easily as you do in the first game.

 

The game definitely felt rushed and it probably was which could explain a lot of the issues. I wished this had kept the Horror elements of the first game and tried not to go in a different direction. I never played the expansion pack either so I don't know if that felt more like the original or not.

 

That's just my thoughts on Blood 2.

 

 

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Blood 2 feels and looks bland to me. I still enjoy it, it's an okay game, but it's not nearly as exciting as Blood. I like the concept of moving the setting a hundred years into the future, but as you say, the game lacks a truly scary atmophere. The concept of all the Drudge enemies being transformed humans is quite creepy, but that's about the only thing that really is. The places one visits are not scary at all, or lack scary touches. The gameplay is fine, but I don't recall any of the gunplay in Blood 2 matching the enjoyment of throwing a bundle of dynamite to a bunch of zombies in Blood. The bloodshed just isn't as good.

 

Also, as someone pointed out some time ago, Gideon says in the introduction that "we never expected to be betrayed by one of our own", but in fact, Caleb seeking revenge from Tchernobog and the Cabal was Tchernobog's plan all along, so they had to have expected it. And there appears to be no sarcasm in that line, or if there is, it doesn't work. Or maybe only Tchernobog knew the plan and nobody else in the Cabal ever found out, but if that's the case, it's never clarified through dialogue.

And apart from the Caleb, the Chosen are totally underused. Gabriel turning into Gabriella is an empty joke.

 

I get all of this has to do to a large extent with a development schedule that was cut short, but that's the game we finally got in the end. It does have a sense of dark humor going for it, though, but there might be too much "humor" and not enough "dark".

 

Speaking of the first game "messing us up", I hate choking hands. I have more or less memorized the locations of each of them, so that I can avoid them without them latching onto me. There is a particularly difficult situation in E3M2, The Siege, when one drops into a kitchen full of them. Same with the morgue in E3M4, The Sick Ward. It's one of the reasons why I really enjoy Cryptic Passage: no hands, except for one in Abysmal Mine (and maybe one in the second floor of Castle, I'm not sure).

 

The reason I hate them so much is that when I first played the shareware version of Blood, I saw a hand in a cell in E1M4, Dark Carnival, so I think I decided to noclip to get closer to it, just out of curiosity. Damned thing covered half my screen, and gave me a real shock. I might have been traumatized by them had I discovered them under normal circumstances, but somehow I feel the trauma was stronger because I didn't expect this thing in an inaccessible place to be an enemy.

 

I guess hands are like protozoid slimers from Duke Nukem 3D, but I never found those that scary; I guess it's because I met them in more "pleasant" circumstances. Also, they are easy to get rid of if they get in your face, unlike the hands. I must admit at first, judging from the image in the game manual, I thought the first slimer that appears in the game was a circular thing stuck to a wall in one of those green alien rooms in E2L2, Incubator. I did get scared by that, and it took me a while to get closer to it. Then, of course, I realized that was a switch, and I had already discovered (and killed) the slimers moments ago. Haha!

 

Going back to Blood, I also find Shial's lair, with the hanging cocooned corpses, very scary.

 

Sorry for going a offtopic there; I wanted to get this off my chest.

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48 minutes ago, mattjoes said:

Blood 2 feels and looks bland to me. I still enjoy it, it's an okay game, but it's not nearly as exciting as Blood. I like the concept of moving the setting a hundred years into the future, but as you say, the game lacks a truly scary atmophere. The concept of all the Drudge enemies being transformed humans is quite creepy, but that's about the only thing that really is. The places one visits are not scary at all, or lack scary touches. The gameplay is fine, but I don't recall any of the gunplay in Blood 2 matching the enjoyment of throwing a bundle of dynamite to a bunch of zombies in Blood. The bloodshed just isn't as good.

 

Also, as someone pointed out some time ago, Gideon says in the introduction that "we never expected to be betrayed by one of our own", but in fact, Caleb seeking revenge from Tchernobog and the Cabal was Tchernobog's plan all along, so they had to have expected it. And there appears to be no sarcasm in that line, or if there is, it doesn't work. Or maybe only Tchernobog knew the plan and nobody else in the Cabal ever found out, but if that's the case, it's never clarified through dialogue.

And apart from the Caleb, the Chosen are totally underused. Gabriel turning into Gabriella is an empty joke.

 

I get all of this has to do to a large extent with a development schedule that was cut short, but that's the game we finally got in the end. It does have a sense of dark humor going for it, though, but there might be too much "humor" and not enough "dark".

 

Speaking of the first game "messing us up", I hate choking hands. I have more or less memorized the locations of each of them, so that I can avoid them without them latching onto me. There is a particularly difficult situation in E3M2, The Siege, when one drops into a kitchen full of them. Same with the morgue in E3M4, The Sick Ward. It's one of the reasons why I really enjoy Cryptic Passage: no hands, except for one in Abysmal Mine (and maybe one in the second floor of Castle, I'm not sure).

 

The reason I hate them so much is that when I first played the shareware version of Blood, I saw a hand in a cell in E1M4, Dark Carnival, so I think I decided to noclip to get closer to it, just out of curiosity. Damned thing covered half my screen, and gave me a real shock. I might have been traumatized by them had I discovered them under normal circumstances, but somehow I feel the trauma was stronger because I didn't expect this thing in an inaccessible place to be an enemy.

 

I guess hands are like protozoid slimers from Duke Nukem 3D, but I never found those that scary; I guess it's because I met them in more "pleasant" circumstances. Also, they are easy to get rid of if they get in your face, unlike the hands. I must admit at first, judging from the image in the game manual, I thought the first slimer that appears in the game was a circular thing stuck to a wall in one of those green alien rooms in E2L2, Incubator. I did get scared by that, and it took me a while to get closer to it. Then, of course, I realized that was a switch, and I had already discovered (and killed) the slimers moments ago. Haha!

 

Going back to Blood, I also find Shial's lair, with the hanging cocooned corpses, very scary.

 

Sorry for going a offtopic there; I wanted to get this off my chest.

No problem with going off topic. I could definitely see how the severed hands could have been scary as a kid. Today I just found them annoying. I try to get away from it so it doesen't latch on. I wonder what the team today thinks of Blood 2 and admit it wasn't very good. I'd really like to know.

 

I do think also setting the sequel into the future Could have worked I just don't think what they did was the right way to go. It's like they forgot they were making a horror game.

 

Blood 2 in a sense kind of reminds me of the movie adaption of the manga PRIEST. Both took place in a universe that was far removed from the original material and both ended up being more of a Sci Fi. Funny enough the manga was inspired by BLOOD and the writer even admitted he was inspired by the game in the 3rd book.

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TL;DR: Blood 2 was fucked by executive meddling. Civvie 11's videos on it go into pretty nice detail.

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Speaking of which, anyone remember the controversial debits message? Way ahead of its time, predating a certain movement.

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I think Blood 2 suffers from the same judgement as Deus Ex: Invisible War. IW isn't really a terrible game but it's just not a good Deus Ex game. Take away the DE title and Invisible War would be a decent(ish) FPS with some RPG elements. The original Blood is amazing so naturally people think a sequel will be more of the same.

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I understand the hate and and bad rep Blood 2 gets, but to be honest, I enjoyed playing it when I did. I particularly enjoyed the interactions you could have with the environment, and also the comical parts about it. It felt like like a Action-Comedy movie, didn't give me the same vibes as the original Blood did.

 

It's not an entirely bad game, it's just different.

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"Blood 2 does not deserve the hate [and I will explain why by listing nothing positive and instead all the issues it has.]"

 

..............?

 

The game is rushed and unfinished. Unfortunately, a bad game brimming with potential is still a bad game at the end of the day.

Monolith proved Blood 2 was a fluke though with the NOLF, Fear, Condemned, and Shadow of series. Tron 2.0 was also good and Gotham City Impostors was better than it had any right to be, sadly its dead though. Its very clear the main issue with Blood 2 wasn't because of Monolith.

Edited by wheresthebeef

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The only positive thing to come out of that pile of unfinished slag that was utterly fucked by corporate meddling is Civvie11's old 3-part video on the subject. 

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Yeah, honestly having watched Civvie's vids, I really don't think Blood 2 was a good game overall, regardless of whether it was a sequel to Blood or something named differently. It's not an issue that it went for a different tone and atmosphere from the original either, because this is never an objective problem when it's done right, just something that gives people stuck in the past aneurysm. This is also a different case compared to, say, Daikatana.

 

In Civvie's videos, Jace Hall was also quoted saying that they could have fixed the game up - according to him, it also had many issues, but the game itself was by no means unfinished -, but thanks to corporate greed, they chose not to. In his words, to "fix the game and make them more money? No." Perfectly understandable.

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I really enjoyed the dark atmosphere and sound track. The killing animations were entertaining, some of the levels were interesting (I like the horror elements like in the motel map).

 

I can't comment on the gameplay as I only played it with cheats as a child and teen. I will take everyone's word that it's a mess. I know it was terribly buggy like the broken in-game cut scenes where sometimes characters wouldn't spawn, occasionally attack each other or run into walls etc.

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On 7/9/2020 at 6:39 AM, Spooner5020 said:

It's basically the Doom 3 of Blood.


I'm sorry, but Doom 3 was meticulously designed a very certain way and I feel id had mostly succeeded. You can fire up Doom 3 right now with very little if any problems and complete it without a single crash and everything functions in it as intended.

Blood II on the other hand is barely a prototype, it's alpha-quality software with tons of content removed due to rushing for a Halloween release thanks to their horrible publisher and a very new and buggy engine that hated every video card you threw at it, and that was after patching. Even with fan fixes and using a wrapper like dgvoodoo the game is still unstable, and it may very well no longer run ever again in just a few more years.
 

On 7/9/2020 at 6:39 AM, Spooner5020 said:

I think some of the weapons are a bit too overpowered and I feel like you don't die as easily as you do in the first game.


Sounds like you played on Genocide, you should play on Homicide or Suicide, that'll change things real fast with enemies that turn into damage sponges and weapons that feel grossly under-powered. A sawed-off shotgun does more damage than a howitzer for example, and the napalm launcher is a joke.

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I played through Blood 2 back in the day and largely enjoyed it. Some settings stuck with me, like that otherworldly ruins under an alien sky at the end of the game, the museum or the sewers. Around 2000 every FPS had an extensive sewer level, but the one in Blood 2 was the most convincing one.

 

I remember I was annoyed how on the lowest difficulty the Cultist enemies died from a single pistol shot, it felt underwhelming. So I started on medium difficulty and that felt right for the first levels. But then the mid-tier enemies with rocket-like attacks where totally devastating. So I started again and played the whole game on lowest diffculty.

I think things like the totally unbalanced difficulty and rocket splash damage going through walls were the main problems of Blood 2. Has anyone made a patch to fix those?

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No it is a shit game and I will not pretend it is not. Unfinished and drowning with bugs\crashes even if you mod it. And don't even get me started on them releasing an expansion for it that's even less finished. 

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I don't know if I'm just playing crappily, but the level "Cas Revenant" just feels too hard to me on homicide difficulty. No matter what the heck I do. 

On 7/11/2020 at 8:22 AM, Lila Feuer said:

 Sounds like you played on Genocide, you should play on Homicide or Suicide, that'll change things real fast with enemies that turn into damage sponges and weapons that feel grossly under-powered

Basically this. Bullet sponge enemies disallow me from progressing further. Or maybe I'm just a noob. I really enjoyed playing Center of Disease Management on the demo earlier in my childhood but the whole game is unbalanced.

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2 hours ago, Good-Old said:

I don't know if I'm just playing crappily, but the level "Cas Revenant" just feels too hard to me on homicide difficulty. No matter what the heck I do. 

Basically this. Bullet sponge enemies disallow me from progressing further. Or maybe I'm just a noob. I really enjoyed playing Center of Disease Management on the demo earlier in my childhood but the whole game is unbalanced.


I will always run out of most of my ammo late in chapter 2. But some tips for the brave:

Use your bullet weapons, preferably dual Ingrams against humans, ammo is plentiful due to the abundance of pistols, Ingrams and M16s dropped along with boxes of ammo. Don't bother with the M16's primary fire as its DPS isn't comparable to the Fanatic's and they will always damage you pretty badly, just spray with the Ingrams.

Shotgun shells for all creatures, flares for lesser creatures like soul drudges and a must against zealots, there is usually plenty of ammo for the sawed-off and flare pistol but not always, the primary fire of the akimbo sawed-offs and flare pistols also deliver better DPS than either one by itself via alt-fire.

Sniper rifle can be against creatures, and humans from a distance, ammo isn't too uncommon and it's one of the few decently powerful weapons so don't neglect it just because it's a sniper rifle.

M16's alt-fire, tesla cannon's alt-fire and the napalm launcher's primary fire are good against humans behind cover.

Drop the bug spray, voodoo doll, howitzer, orb and singularity generator weapons, the first is a waste of the M16's grenade ammo, the latter are either ridiculously under-powered or otherwise too cumbersome to reliably use in any real situation.

Find the death ray in the meat packing plant, it's hidden on a rooftop but it's the better energy weapon for its primary fire versus tesla cannon.

Life leech against the behemoths when they appear to get health back, don't waste your ammo on them as they're too strong, plus they usually get caught up on the map geometry anyway so you can usually run away.

Minigun should be saved for bosses.

Boss tips: Unload sawed offs or M16 grenades w/ anger power-up against Naga, try running around it to avoid its attacks the best you can. Use whatever you can refill in the arena against the mandatory behemoth and Gideon's first fight. Second Gideon form is broken in melee range, just get in his face and unload. Hit Undead Ishmael with flares and watch him die, dispose the rest of the Undead Chosen with whatever you got, beware Gabriella's minigun. Get the anger if you can in the Ancient One's arena and just unload your shotguns and minigun into his eye.

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On 7/14/2020 at 2:29 PM, Lila Feuer said:


I will always run out of most of my ammo late in chapter 2. But some tips for the brave:

Use your bullet weapons, preferably dual Ingrams against humans, ammo is plentiful due to the abundance of pistols, Ingrams and M16s dropped along with boxes of ammo. Don't bother with the M16's primary fire as its DPS isn't comparable to the Fanatic's and they will always damage you pretty badly, just spray with the Ingrams.

Shotgun shells for all creatures, flares for lesser creatures like soul drudges and a must against zealots, there is usually plenty of ammo for the sawed-off and flare pistol but not always, the primary fire of the akimbo sawed-offs and flare pistols also deliver better DPS than either one by itself via alt-fire.

Sniper rifle can be against creatures, and humans from a distance, ammo isn't too uncommon and it's one of the few decently powerful weapons so don't neglect it just because it's a sniper rifle.

M16's alt-fire, tesla cannon's alt-fire and the napalm launcher's primary fire are good against humans behind cover.

Drop the bug spray, voodoo doll, howitzer, orb and singularity generator weapons, the first is a waste of the M16's grenade ammo, the latter are either ridiculously under-powered or otherwise too cumbersome to reliably use in any real situation.

Find the death ray in the meat packing plant, it's hidden on a rooftop but it's the better energy weapon for its primary fire versus tesla cannon.

Life leech against the behemoths when they appear to get health back, don't waste your ammo on them as they're too strong, plus they usually get caught up on the map geometry anyway so you can usually run away.

Minigun should be saved for bosses.

Boss tips: Unload sawed offs or M16 grenades w/ anger power-up against Naga, try running around it to avoid its attacks the best you can. Use whatever you can refill in the arena against the mandatory behemoth and Gideon's first fight. Second Gideon form is broken in melee range, just get in his face and unload. Hit Undead Ishmael with flares and watch him die, dispose the rest of the Undead Chosen with whatever you got, beware Gabriella's minigun. Get the anger if you can in the Ancient One's arena and just unload your shotguns and minigun into his eye.

Thanks for the tips, I'll start over cause I overwrote the save lol. I started a new one on Genocide difficulty.

But imagine how unbalanced a game is when you have to explain what weapon to use. Imagine the ammo placement.

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Well, the demo i played back in the day was pretty good. Visually, it was also pretty good given its age and its contemporaries.

 

It does deviate quite a bit from Blood 1 though, but other than that, its definitely not a terrible game. Perhaps not a game worthy of the Blood nomenclature.

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5 hours ago, Good-Old said:

Thanks for the tips, I'll start over cause I overwrote the save lol. I started a new one on Genocide difficulty.

But imagine how unbalanced a game is when you have to explain what weapon to use. Imagine the ammo placement.


Lol most of those tips will not apply on Genocide, it becomes extremely run-and-gun on easy and Caleb is a powerhouse, but on the flip side everything is way less damage spongy. And honestly what did you expect? It's unfinished so the lack of polish and care to balance to things like HP values versus damage values are going to be neglected, I doubt the game received much playtesting, I'm positive someone went in, and jacked up all the values for enemy HP and damage output and called it a day. I have beaten B2 on Suicide once and while the foreknowledge does make it a lot less frustrating the later parts in chapter 2 and most of chapter 3 are still a pain in the ass. Don't bother with the Nightmare Levels on Suicide unless you plan on cheating, twice, due to Ishmael's level and the Nightmare boss fight.

To defend B2 a little, I still really like its overall aesthetic and the music is probably the best thing about it, and chapter 4 I suppose you could make an analogy to Doom 3's Hell level in that while you only visit Reality Beta once it's easily the best part of the game and is more in-line with what I'd expect from Blood.

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8 hours ago, Good-Old said:

And yes, Blood 2 can make people realise the importance of playtesting.

 

I don't think that's its issue though.

 

The game was extremely rushed at the end of the day, and when you're on a super tight schedule no amount of playtesting will save it, you won't have nearly enough time to patch it up and rebalance the thing.

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On 7/15/2020 at 8:30 PM, seed said:

 

I don't think that's its issue though.

 

The game was extremely rushed at the end of the day, and when you're on a super tight schedule no amount of playtesting will save it, you won't have nearly enough time to patch it up and rebalance the thing.

Well yes, very low time led to rushing and thus a lot of things were skipped, which includes playtesting and putting that output to work. That's why I said it.

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On 7/9/2020 at 8:24 PM, Boaby Kenobi said:

I think Blood 2 suffers from the same judgement as Deus Ex: Invisible War. IW isn't really a terrible game but it's just not a good Deus Ex game. Take away the DE title and Invisible War would be a decent(ish) FPS with some RPG elements. The original Blood is amazing so naturally people think a sequel will be more of the same.

Invisible War I keep forgetting exists. It's one of those games I know I played, but it suffers from being a Deus Ex sequel. It just didn't live up to the first one at all. You're right if the game had not had the Deus Ex title it might have been received better

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1 hour ago, Toilet_Wine_Connoisseur said:

GT Interactive deserves the hate for ripping Blood 2 from the womb prematurely and throwing it out on the sidewalk then leaving Monolith to clean up the mess.

 

Hell, they didn't even let Monolith clean up said mess after they offered to.

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All this talk about Blood 2 is making me want to try it, it does look kinda nice and the soundtrack sounds good, I wonder how bearable the game would be with the Extra Crispy mod.

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1 minute ago, sluggard said:

All this talk about Blood 2 is making me want to try it, it does look kinda nice and the soundtrack sounds good, I wonder how bearable the game would be with the Extra Crispy mod.

 

Not very bearable I think, since this game is notorious for its bugs and instability even with fan patches and mods.

 

I don't think it's worth playing this yourself. You're better off just watching a let's play.

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The Extra Crispy mod was decent, but I liked using the DarkAct mod because you could use the alt-fires of akimbo enabled weapons like the sawed-off and enemy limbs could be blown off, which was suppose to be an original feature of the game.

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