User:Tchernobog/reviews

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This page is an Opinion Article, and is not a part of the Official Blood Wiki.

Welcome to Tchernobog's Reviews, here I the dreaming god will write up my opinions of the various games in the Blood Series. Comments are appreciated in the Discussion page, but please dont flame me just because you have a different opinion. All reviews may be modified by Tchernobog at any time.

Blood

  • Performance with DosBox on Linux: Acceptable
  • Levels and Gameplay: Excellent
  • Sounds and Graphics: Excellent
  • Storyline: Excellent

Blood was the first game in the series, and the first I played. The Shareware Levels were very interesting, and when I read the Storyline of Wikipedia I was immediately enthralled. I spent many hours playing over the Shareware episode and enjoying the levels, which pushed the Build Engine to its limits. The enemies were memorable and interesting, even for people such as myself who do not watch horror movies or care for the horror genre. The game has a few problems running with DosBox on my Fedora Linux machine, but nothing to terrible or crippling. The full version of the game is not on par with the shareware levels, but is still a great game. Never play the full version levels with the Noclip cheat code, unlike the Shareware levels where you can admire the architecture with either regular or noclip, the full version levels really degrade unless you play them normally. Not saying that the full version levels are not creative, but there puzzles do not work unless you do them one room at a time, which you can not do with Noclip.That said they are still enjoyable levels, except for the ones that count to heavily on door/switch puzzles. The bosses where disappointing though, there is always one trick to beating them that cripples them to nothing. The only hard one is Cerberus in the Hall of Epiphany, which I got through with luck alone. This game is mainly interesting because of its creativity, there is nothing quite like it in the the First Person Shooter world. Creative design and implementation is this games greatest strength, and is what keeps it memorable today. Tchernobog 01:07, 11 July 2008 (EDT)

Cryptic Passage Blood Expansion

  • Performance with DosBox on Linux: Acceptable
  • Levels and Gameplay: Excellent
  • Sounds and Graphics: Excellent
  • Storyline: Mediocre

I am still playing through the expansion, but already it is one of the favourites in my Blood collection. Installation was simple enough, I ran the One Unit Whole Blood Windows installer with WINE and then loaded up Cryptic Passage through DosBox. At first glance of the boat docks you would think it will be similar to the later levels of Blood. However as you progress you see a level set which reminds you in many ways of The Way of All Flesh, which is my favourite episode of the original. Levels vary from a steamboat, to a opera House, and even a library. The music is well picked and is indeed the best tracks from Blood. Caleb also makes many comments throughout the game, a welcome addition.

There are a few problems for me though with this expansion, the storyline of Caleb finding a Scroll sounds more like a fantasy game than Blood. In some levels like the "Old Opera House" it can cause my computer to slow down and even freeze for a few seconds, but never permanently crashes the computer. The Lost Monastery level seems good until I have to go into the water, I have still not figured that level out. Though enough criticism, this is a great addition to Blood. Sunstorm Interactive did a good job in making Caleb have a new adventure. Thank you Sunstorm! Tchernobog 13:36, 17 May 2008 (EDT)

Plasma Pak Blood Expansion

  • Performance with DosBox on Linux: Acceptable
  • Levels and Gameplay: Excellent
  • Sounds and Graphics: Excellent
  • Storyline: Acceptable

The Plasma Pak adds various changes and a new episode to Blood. Most of the chagnes where for the better I think, except for the fact they butchered the Voodo Doll and replaced the First Levels music track (At least with my copy of One Unit Whole Blood). The Tesla Cannon can take the role of the Voodo Doll however, and it is great fun to fire it with Akimbo mode. The Postmortem continues the standard tradition of Blood levels in many ways, for instance it is another place where you should not use the noclip cheat. But in true Monolith style they also took some new creative approaches, such as one level you could swear was from Shadow Warrior (All those Shipping Boxes). Another level that seems very much like Blood II: The Chosen you have to restore power before proceeding through the rest of the level. In fact, the Plasma Pak seems to show a lot of inspiration for the sequel, with Caleb saying some of the lines he often used in Blood II: The Chosen such as "What are you going to do, Bleed on me?" and "Victims, aren't we all?". Caleb talks a lot through the Postmortem, which is always a great addition to any Blood game. Any Bloodite should have played this Episode at least once, and they will enjoy it. One thing that should have been better emphasized though was the Cabal's weakness and the new Chosen (They could have had a nice cut-scene). But other than those few flaws, this is a great Gem in my collection. Tchernobog 01:20, 11 July 2008 (EDT)

Blood TC Fan Game

  • Performance on Linux: Excellent
  • Levels and Gameplay: Excellent
  • Sounds and Graphics: Excellent
  • Storyline: Acceptable

As well as Blood I am quite a fan of the Doom series and its creator id Software, who have for a long time ported there games to Linux and released there engines source code to the Free Software community. My computer can easily be set up to run Doom, with two source ports available in the Fedora RPM Repository (PrBoom and Vavoom). I was quite happy to see I was not the only Doom player to also have a taste for Blood. The Blood Total Conversion for Doom II (Blood TC) offers five Blood themed levels for the Doom engine, adding Blood textures and Enemies to the game. The levels are varied and well selected, and masterfully created to avoid the Doom Engines limitations compared to Build. The enemies graphics were well picked, though they could have found something better than the wizard sprite from Heretic to use as filler. The game contains recreations of classic Blood scenes such as the Funeral Home and the Hospital, as well as new locals such as the Graveyard and Tchernobog's Pyramid. The only thing I could really ask for is Caleb's head to appear on the bottom bar, but since the authors have given up on Blood TC in favour of ZDoom it is unlikely that this will happen. But aside from a couple of graphics criticisms this is a well created WAD deserving of praise. And of course, being on the Doom engine means it can have all the advantages of the Doom Source ports (For Example, in PrBoom the player can control a squad of helper-dogs to bite Tchernobog's Unholy minions!). This was a great effort and a joy to play, a masterpiece of a Doom WAD which I am glad I have ever since I put it on my Computer a year ago. Good times... Tchernobog 13:44, 11 July 2008 (EDT)

Transfusion Fan Game

You can find a full and detailed review here: Transfusion: A Users Perspective Tchernobog 03:50, 7 April 2009 (IDT)