I have been playing BLOOD

And I have been enjoying it.

BLOOD is a well-aged FPS from the DOS days, expertly crafted, thoroughly playable and full of atmosphere. I've only discovered it quite recently, and I find myself struck by it; I've played shooters, and I've played horror games, but never a combination quite like this. It is unique, effective and satisfying.

The game uses the Build engine, the same as Duke Nukem 3D, Lo Wang and any number of other clones made in the late 90s. This means the gameplay is smooth, active and eminently functional.

The setting is a mixture of the old west and the roaring twenties, with a heavy dollop of Satanic influence. Mercifully the game avoids the use pentagrams, inverted or non, preferring actual crosses, inverted or non, and other more obscure occult symbols. The plot is sparse at best, but what little there is informs to the main character's actions with simplicity. Caleb and his fellow cultists, including the woman he loves, have been disavowed by their dark god Tchernabog, many of them killed in the process. Caleb among them. By some means, Caleb comes back from the dead, searching for the corpses of his former companions to drain them of their power so that he can stand against Tchernabog on equal terms. While Caleb's intentions are generically vengeful and violent, the story is as much about finding out why Caleb and the rest of the cult were punished as seeking revenge, which to me seems unusual, and somewhat refreshing.

The weapons are earthy and evocative, well-suggestive of the periods it draws inspiration from. Your melee weapon is a pitchfork, which combines well with Caleb's aesthetic and alludes to his demonic nature. Instead of a pistol, you get a flare gun that sets enemies on fire. Following that is the trusty sawed-off shotgun, then a slick tommy gun, and bundles of TNT for grenades-- for which Caleb even has a lighter for igniting the fuse, which shows more attention to detail than most games would afford.
Some of the other weapons are more offbeat, like the napalm cannon that has red running lights (which make me think of range top burners) and fires balls of burning gasoline-- essentially a rocket launcher. The spray can combines Caleb's lighter with an aerosol can to make a flamethrower (and I'm still trying to understand the reasoning behind that one. My feeling is that it's an element of realism, a dangerous but powerful thing that a person could really do with easily obtainable materials; there's something more immediately forbidden about it than even the firearms or magic weapons.) The oddest one is the fairly nondescript Tesla Cannon, a kind of grey tube that rapidly fires a stream of extremely powerful blue electric blasts-- causing your victims' skeletons to glow through their bodies on impact. Compared to the others, it's conceptually sound but visually bland; adding some humming electrodes or at the very least some cabling would have gone a long way to making it look like the electric execution machine it purports to be.
Last are the two magical weapons. One is the Life Leech, a skull staff that spits explosive fireballs while rays of light spray from the eye sockets. Just watching it in action is fun. Finally, we have the voodoo doll. It does exactly what you might expect; face an enemy, then "fire" to jab it with pins until the enemy dies. The alt-fire completely expends the doll's ammo, but kills the target instantly, and Caleb's wizardly hand-wave as he activates this power just makes it that much more boss.

I really like what the game does with the alt-fire modes. It creates a lot of variety in combat, giving you choices about how to use your weapons beyond simply pointing and shooting. The shotgun can fire either one shell at a time, or let loose with both barrels. The tommy gun can shoot straight or go into a deadly lateral spray. Dynamite can be thrown or dropped, set to explode on impact or with a timer (the fuse visibly burning down to let you know how much time is left). The napalm cannon can fire a single blast or unleash a raging ammo-guzzling inferno that can set an entire room ablaze-- you included. While simple, these options add tangible flavor to combat.

The most common enemies are zombies and cultists. The zombies are stubborn and tend to get back up two or three times after being shot down, but are limited to axes for weapons. Cultists have shotguns and tommy guns, but are otherwise easy to kill. Other enemies include gargoyles, which are frightening in their speed of movement, howling and roaring loudly. They fly around overhead, swooping and circling at a dizzying rate, and their close-up attack is painful besides. They are genuinely scary in a way that very few game enemies have been in my experience.
One of the best things about the cultists is also one of the best things about the game-- sound design. The sound effects and voice clips are excellent; cultists shout phrases in their fictitious pseudo-Latin cult language, zombies howl when killed, all of the weapons have powerful, punchy effects, every kind of surface makes a unique noise when shot, doors creak and slam, machines whirr and hum, fire crackles and roars. The CD music, of which there is a decent amount, sets a richly creepy atmosphere with an undercurrent of ambient sound, using plenty of choral elements and rattly percussion. One piece even features a distorted recording of a group of children laughing and playing, as if things weren't eerie enough.
I should talk a bit more about the cultists. They speak a great deal in the game; according to what I've read, their strange language is a hodgepodge of Latin and Sanskrit, made up by one of the game designers just for the sound of it. The cultists have quite a few voice clips, and have a number of animations and actions besides simply shooting like ducking and throwing dynamite; one gets a sense that these are characters, not merely sprites you shoot at, and this too contributes to the atmosphere.

The thing that I keep coming back to is atmosphere. The tenor and aesthetic really sell the darkness without becoming bitter; while it's serious about the horror elements, it knows better than to take itself seriously. There are decomposing and disemboweled corpses hung on chains in meat lockers, cultists massacring civilians even as you come upon them, brains suspended in bloody jars, altars to evil powers accompanied by deep-throated chanting-- but there are also moments of levity and even jocularity, largely in the form of Caleb's quotes and references, to keep things from becoming truly miserable. It achieves, I think, a healthy balance between splatterpunk and humor, accomplishing darkness while avoiding grimdarkness.

There are some flaws, of course. My primary complaint-- and it's not much of one-- is that it lacks a sense of climax. Even after completing all of the campaigns, I never really felt as if the situation presented was truly resolved. It doesn't help that the ending is extremely short and not a little vague. Also not helping is that the cutscenes are all FMVs, and the limitations of 1990s 3D graphical technology show bitterly.

All told, this game is a rich, evocative and finely-made shooter that would do good service to any collection. I consider it to be the best such game I own. The One Unit Whole Blood package containing Blood and all its expansions is available on GOG.com for only $5.99, which given the quality is an incredible value. I recommend it highly.