The Altar of Stone Dumpster Fire - Season 1

[Lizzieborden]

This is what Natalie looks like when on a yacht , as she converses with clients.
She is one sophisticated woman.
Looks (and acts) like Catherine Deneuve in The Hunger. She is French and has the sexiest accent!
Drives me nuts! Better not fall in love. I am straight now, dammit !
But what Ifind most intriguing is that is also a bit scary (not as a real person, but the persona she uses on gigs) . Reminds me of that tall woman aristocrat (forget the name) in resident Evil: The village (gtreat game btw))
Oh, and its official: she is really getting onto Blood! Hours sunk in, she is at episode 4 now (i think...). The Dreaming God is pleased.

[Daedalus]

Hi Lizzie. It took a little bit of digging around, but shortly after getting angry at the Farcical Simulacrum reviews on GOG, I was able to locate my old review. As per your request, here's something I wrote up for GOG twelve years ago. For context, this is to be the first thing read when one stumbles onto the Blood page and sees the game title:

Spoiler!

Tired of your quest in search of the best? Look no further.

Stop. Put down whatever it is you're doing and take in this moment. You have before you the opportunity to embark on an experience unlike any other. Atmospheric, engaging, hilarious and enigmatic -- Blood does it all with a heavy dose of horror!
While most seem to write these reviews for those who have experienced titles before, I will write this with the fresh victim in mind. Join me on a brief journey into the darkest corners of the Blood mythos.

Ask any casual observer about Blood and you'll hear the same phrase repeated; "Oh, it's a Duke Nukem/Doom clone." Nothing could be further from the truth. While it is true that Blood assumes a similar template from a past age of first-person gaming, that of running and gunning, there is a side of Blood which no screenshot can hope to capture and no short, poorly rendered video can possibly expose. It is in playing that Blood's unique, manic energy is injected into the player and through this Blood's majesty is understood. Those who see a screenshot of Blood will shortly move on, but those who give Blood even a brief playthrough will remember the experience forever.

The premise, which most would know from any cursory description of the title, is, interestingly, the game's least important factor. You, taking on the role of Caleb, a western gunslinger in the 1800's, carved your soul to shreds in servitude of an ancient, Elder God, but betrayal was your only reward for your years of service. In the final, ominous meeting with Tchernobog, the Dark God, your wife is pulled away from you, your comrades are slain before your eyes and you are murdered before the game has even begun. Awakening several years later in a body that has refused to die, it is now your chance to seek out answers and carve a path back to Tchernobog and dish out swift vengeance.

However, all that this tale, which is told unobtrusively through a series of primitive videos at select mission completions and initiations, aims to accomplish is not bewilder the player with extensive dialogue or even set up an interesting course of events, but it simply serves as a backdrop for establishing Blood's ubiquitous, elemental theme -- revenge.

For you assume the role of an anti-hero, of course. There is no day to be saved in Blood. The path back to Tchernobog is infested with His servants, both demonic and undying, but in spite of the nightmarish terrors you will face on your unholy mission, the most terrifying and lethal of all the components of any given level -- is you.

Blood's graphics are a masterful, timeless creation from an era just before polygons dominated your monitor. The graphics of similar titles from the time have aged poorly, but Blood's visual excellence is, like its protagonist, eternal. Blood presents to us a world which is at once sombre, but also visually stimulating. The world exists permanently darkened, but is suddenly brought to life through frantic action sequences. It is Blood's humility in visuals that has allowed it to age so gracefully -- Blood doesn't aim to dazzle you with visuals, that was never its intent, but what it does do is create a masterful canvass on which to weave its magic and a player is guaranteed to be fully engulfed in Blood's shadowy world after a brief playthrough.

Blood is frequently promoted as a mindless shooter, but this does the title a disservice. While it's true that Blood's basic objective is that of older shooters; blast enemy, collect key, open door, hit end level switch, Blood's gameplay transcended beyond its contemporaries and indeed has yet to be matched by any "modern" shooter. Blood is actually notorious for being a very challenging game, but it's for all the right reasons! Where many games rely on crippling the player to present a degree of challenge rating, or downright cheating in order to equalise AI with a player, in Blood, you, as Caleb, are by far the most dangerous and mobile character at any given time and the only limit in any scenario is your knowledge and skill. A sufficiently skilled player can actually reach a point where he or she begins to control the action and the enemy becomes the victim! To take it a step further, given the lethality of the enemies you'll encounter in Blood, terrain and intelligence are critical factors -- some enemies are so deadly that the player will not dare enter an area and will have to approach the problem from a different angle. Depending on your current ammunition and arsenal, you may be ill-equipped to kill a certain opponent and need to seek out a more effective weapon before challenging it. The terrain could contain cover, elevation, decoys or even traps for your enemies. Through all these combined mechanisms, Blood's play takes on the form of a delightfully visceral art and attempting a 'mindless' approach at it on higher, or even moderate difficulties will result in little purchase at all.

Blood's level design is fiendishly clever and the player will pass through numerous different locations, including, but not limited to; ancient temples, train stations, snowy, abandoned mansions, war torn cities and much, much more. Blood's level design makes perfect sense and is masterful in its form. That most of these maps are in fact brilliant for multiplayer as well as being unforgettable single player experiences shows a level of expertise which no modern shooter title can live up to. It should also be noted that while a lot of Blood's maps have a freestyle, rapid, 'arcade' style to them, it also assumes the form of a devious adventure title at times, where a player will have to seek out various keys or objects in larger environments in order to advance, but these tasks are never taxing and the balance feels just right. Blood's level design is both quaint and engaging and you'll never feel cheated by the experience.

Blood's arsenal is remarkable and holds up to this day; there are sufficient standard, kinetic weapons to support the player who enjoys a more direct approach, but Blood also houses subtle, magical weapons and various forms of explosives, which may appeal to the more stealthy and nefarious player. These weapons are remarkably balanced and somehow Blood found a way to allow the player to use the weapons they find enjoyable and very rarely is a player forced to 'fall back' to a weapon that they don't appreciate as much, though that's not to say that a player won't feel the burn for being careless, sometimes literally.

To elaborate a little on the horror aspect, Blood draws a great deal of its referential content from horror and horror can be seen as its compass, but it is not limited to it. There are many environments, secrets, objects and phrases in the world of Blood which reference both popular and more obscure horror media across the board. Caleb, between occasional bouts of maniacal laughter, will sometimes directly quote a phrase from a horror film. Certain map titles will reference horror works and even the majority of the opponents found in-game are monsters and some are direct horror transfers, both through archetypal and specific examples. However, in light of all this, Blood is never pretentious and you'll never feel as if it is force-feeding you or overemphasising a point, which is a horrible trend of many modern games. Blood never underestimates your intelligence -- it plays by its own rules and laughs at itself, frequently giving a tiny wink or nudge to the player, subtle enough to be disregarded, but intriguing enough to make the player smile time and again and you may even eventually find yourself laughing along with Caleb as he introduces a new meaning of pain to his enemies.

However, all this would be for nought if Blood was one-dimensional, but it is not so. Blood, despite its gory and seemingly-simplistic exterior, has a level of depth which many games can only dream about. Blood, by its very nature, is not easily defined, as I have shown. On a fundamental level, Blood is about shooting badguys, yes, but it is also so much more. Blood's atmosphere is unbeatable, as it varies between a frantic 'Evil Dead' comedy feeling at times, as well as for pacing during a sudden battle and a deeper, more ponderous 'Lovecraftian' stroke during exploration or simply taking in the environment. Blood is action, adventure and problem solving all rolled into one, it is the white-knuckled, desperate fight for survival and the pilgrimage through a world that is both horrific and massively enjoyable. Blood's world is both real and unreal, it is reality distorted -- always natural enough to make the player believe that this could be, but containing such terrors that the player knows it cannot be, leaving the player in constant, exhilarating turmoil. Blood is morbid and hilarious, serious and jovial and it defies categorization with this trait. Now a few games can accomplish this transition between humour and fear, exploration and adventure. Carrying multiple themes is not in and of itself unique to Blood, but here is the final word in Blood's overall magnificence; a seamless transition between all of these things. Blood takes all of these disparate elements and coalesces them into a single, unforgettable game that needs to be experienced to be believed.

It has been discussed whether Blood's greatness is a stroke of luck or a revolutionary leap of genius. No matter its birth, when Blood's music is heard, its morbid landscapes seen, its references picked up on, its unequalled gameplay felt and its essence understood, it stands as a leviathan amongst games; an accomplishment in art, ingenuity, creativity and culture which has yet to be matched to this day.

This is it; the best gaming has to offer. What are you waiting for?

[Lizzieborden]

O Dreaming God,
I am so happy to come back from work with Nat, only to find your wonderfully written Blood review !!!
We have both read it just now (Nat needed me to help translate a few things)...and to sum our take on it:
It perfectly expresses what I and Nat feel about this game. To a "T". You really have a way of seizing the essence of how Blood affects those who take the time to try it and are sensitive to the atmosphere it creates.
My fave line from the review:

Blood's world is both real and unreal, it is reality distorted -- a

EXCACTLY. It is like a dream in which you are awake and sentient. The ambient sound, the traces of the everyday that you hope will land you back on Earth instead lead you deeper into an endless abyss where waking and dreaming fuse.
Nat's fave line is:

a player is guaranteed to be fully engulfed in Blood's shadowy world after a brief playthrough.

SHe says (I am quoting waht she jsut said, but trnaslating to engl.): I only played blood up to the end of episode 3 and I am addicted. It's like a drug!"
Nat is now undead, like the rest of us!
Cheers, Dreaming God !
L and N

[Lizzieborden]

Jeez, Dremaing God,
I jsut found outr that you did a SIN addon that continues the bloodlines story. On my "to do right now" list.
Sorry bout tuypos. Nat is corrupting me and encouraging me to get smashed with her. Gee I wonder what could POSSIBLY be on her mind

[Daedalus]

Thank you for the kind words, and I'm pleased to hear that Natalie has enjoyed her sojourn through the darkness.

Sin requires a little bit of exposition to be understood. From an artistic standpoint it's the kind of thing that one wishes could be erased from existence, but that is simply the artist's curse of hating one's older creations.

Many, many years ago I would generally make maps for friends. After giving them to friends, I would sometimes provide them to some people online. Sin is an example of a project or series of maps that escaped my grasp and made its way into the wider world.

Sin was made with a really peculiar (and flawed) approach whereby only the fourth level requires Bloodlines assets (art and sound) to be installed. Essentially, there is no way in which to play Sin whereby one can get the full experience without quitting Blood, since Bloodlines assets cannot be loaded between maps. For the fourth and final map, I wanted to surprise a friend with something a little different and took that approach. He would play the maps as they were completed, so there was never a case where he sat and played all four in a row, but obviously it is jarring and pretty terrible if one sits and plays all four maps in a row on account of having to quit the game and transfer files.

It is important to note that Sin has absolutely nothing to do with Bloodlines TC. I did not create it with permission from the Bloodlines crew. It was simply an "in-house" project that ran wild. Perhaps it is also worth noting that I never worked with the Bloodlines crew, and have communicated with them very little over the years, as most of the original team are no longer around, having disappeared in the chaotic early years of Blood's release.

As a final warning, conceptually there are some interesting bits in Sin, but the quality of it is only a few notches above the standard "classic" trash usermaps. The quality of the maps makes me groan, but it does serve as an interesting indication of my own journey in map creation. Beware if you should choose to continue, though: Sin doesn't accommodate difficulty levels, so its challenge rating is quite high on account of the amount of monsters not adjusting between difficulties. This, combined with the fact that I deliberately made the maps a little bit difficult, means that they might be uncomfortable to play depending on the player's skill level. Sin is not "fair" as such, but it should be perfectly doable for more adept players.

Should you proceed, hopefully you will get some enjoyment, but now you cannot say that I did not give you fair warning!

[Lizzieborden]

O Dreaming God,
Defender of the Faith
who ruleth over all manner of things, big and small,
those that creepeth
and those that flyeth,
Hail

K...thx for the warning. But...I still want to give it a shot. But if the difficulty leads to a broken nail (Yes,this has happened to me before), then I will be forced to quit SIN (managment hates imperfect nails).

Nat is not with me tonight. So I set up nblood on her laptop for extra add ons (deathwish, RATM, french meat, trauma therpay ep 1 and 2. )
Any recommended addons for a novice? Oh and I gave her latest voxels and smoothblood. No HD upscales.

[Daedalus]

Hail to you, faithful servant. Some additions to consider would of course be Cryptic Passage, and SPILL, who hasn't posted in some time's Eviction. It is not yet complete as he releases it on a per map basis, but the maps are very good. While Bloodlines TC seems to walk a peculiar line between wanting to be Blood and wanting to be its own thing, it has some sequences that might tickle both you and your friend, though beware that Bloodlines has quite a lot of file replacement required to install, and I'd basically recommend a standalone installation of Blood to support it, unless something more clever has cropped up in recent years.

[Lizzieborden]

Merci, mon Seigneur
Already played bloodlines (and with a dedicated separate install of blood with Nblood.)
I liked the dreamy atmosphere. But, true, it is not Blood anymore. Still great though.
I have the Cryptic passage big box and played it quite a while back (much better than the blood plasma extra e[pisode IMHO). Will definitley install it for Nat. Eviction..will try it as per your advice.

Hey what kind of Extreme Metal would you recommend for a steamy performance (if you know what I mean) ?
I think I'll ask this in the jukebox thread as well

[Lizzieborden]

I despise SNL since it went woke.
But this one with burr is funnay as F.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je1NIf8GeeY

[Lizzieborden]

My night off.
Musing over new songs for an upcoming gig with serious bondage 'n' S&M stuff (me as sub)
This means that I will soon be gone for a week or more.
I am told that all songs must be from the 1990s.
Any ideas?
Here is one I thought of: Cypress Hill (sound track to Kingpin !!!)


I already decided on some NIN (Closer, of course)

Love & Rockets, (I think I posted this earlier in another thread)


I was thinking of kinda making fun of em in a cheeky way by selecting from eyes wide shut...after all, what we do is quite similar (no murders though ,and masks are not required) It is a great song by pook..very satanic....It actually scares me , which should add to the intensity of the perfomance!

Pleeease let me know if you have suggestions (remember:L 1990s only. On the pervy side with whips hot wax and other fun things )

[Daedalus]

Hi Lizzie - please attempt to upload your avatar. I might have avatar resizing support in place again.

Edit - not quite there yet, but almost.

[Lizzieborden]

ok ill try now

[Lizzieborden]

Hey it works !!

[Daedalus]

Avatar uploading and scaling should work correctly now. As always, let me know if something looks peculiar or isn't working (preferably in the bug spray thread).

Liking the current avatar! It's sticking to the red and black tradition while being undeniably Lizzie-like.

Now I can finally move on to actual enhancements. Updating phpBB forum software always has a few stumbling blocks.

Spoiler!

... especially when one only does it a single time every handful of years.

[Lizzieborden]

I aim to please, always.