Blood

Looking Back At a game that you loved as a less decayed and pessimistic human, and for it to stand up to your newly sad eyes is always a pleasure. Blood just about pulls this off.

That's because it appeals not to the pipe-smoking appreciator of games, but more to the gentleman who enjoys the ripping apart of shit and tearing it up. And while we may now be intolerant of difficulty, and games that expect us to get better at them through sheer hard work and muscle memory, games that end a session of scalable sprite carnage with a man singing "I did it., my... way..." will never stop being brilliant.

You'll probably remember the action here: it's a classic old-school 3D FPS -hold alt for strafe, collect keys, and find secret areas - but do you remember the story? You'd be forgiven for missing it. Instead of unfolding through a series of elegant cutscenes and audio logs, it was tucked away in a readme.txt file.

Who Needs Story?

You play Caleb, a gunfighter and leader of the Cabal, a cult worshipping the god Tchernobog. But you and your fellows were betrayed and murdered by the said evil diety. Why, you don't know. How you were revived is also a mystery. All you know is that you've got a real urge to kill everything in the game that's capable of movement. Look, if you want a plot, go play Ultima.

Blood has are plenty of pop references which have ripened with age: Army of Darkness, Jaws, Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13tli all get little homages, making Blood feel even more like a valid part of our past.

This is one of the few retro games you'll play that brings back the feeling you had when you first played it: a ridiculous sense of bloodthirsty optimism about games, and the feeling that people had as much fun making it as you'll get playing it. So why aren't you playing it?