[FistMarine]

What's this thing?
We play through a set of maps/mods during the month, and use this thread to discuss it as we're still all fresh with our comments/opinions/feelings about the maps.

What's the purpose?
Basically, there are 4 purposes:

• Showcasing some of the older mods/maps to wider public - they definitely deserve the attention!
• Getting more people to actually enjoy and appreciate the user content - because let's be honest, over the past 27 years this was really what kept Duke alive after all.
• ...and while we're at it - keeping Duke alive by still enjoying it, as there's no new games in the franchise on the horizon (and let's be honest, they wouldn't be as good as some of this stuff!).
• Having a more structured discussion on maps than what's going in "Last map you played" thread - which is great, but it's basically a monologue most of the time.

Can I join?
Sure, as long as you find some spare time during the month to play the stuff that's on the table!

Why a month?
Because people have lives, jobs or other stuff to do (like mapping). For smaller maps, this could be shorter time - it's all up to debate in the future!

What port should I use? Are mods allowed? Where to get the maps?
It's entirely up to you how you play the game, so you can use whatever port or mod allowed - it would be cool to state in your posts what you're using too, as there might be some slight differences between the ports! As for the maps, they should be always linked within the first post.

How should I play the maps or post about them?
Again, it's up to you. You can finish them all in one go or play them one by one whenever you feel like. On Doom forums, there's a rule that you should keep the pace by not posting about a map that has a higher number than the day of the month, so e.g. on 6th you shouldn't post about map 7 etc. I think that might be a good practice if there's a large interest in this, but first let's see how active the thread is for a start - so if there's nothing going on, feel free to post about whatever map you want to.

Previous 2023 Editions

Spoiler

June 2023 - The Gate
May 2023 - Maps by Maarten van Oostrum + Maps by Merlijn van Oostrum
April 2023 - Redneck Rampage
March 2023 - Metropolitan Mayhem
February 2023 - WGRealms + WGSpace Episode + Maps by William Gee
January 2023 - Future + Fight the Future + Duke Tournament + MSSP Episode + The Brave New World + Maps by Mikko Sandt

Previous 2022 Editions

Spoiler

December 2022 - Countdown to Christmas + Duke: Nuclear Winter + Duke's Snowy Adventure II: Stolen Weapons + The Christmas Project + Xmas 1997
November 2022 - JJ Duke Nukem 3D
October 2022 - Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition + Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour
September 2022 - Secrets of the Acropolis + Twin Dragon
August 2022 - The Lost Duke Episodes
July 2022 - Community Build Project Series
June 2022 - Maps by Billy Boy + Maps by Bob Masters
May 2022 - Duke It Out In D.C. + Duke Caribbean: Life's A Beach + Penthouse Paradise
April 2022 - Duke Nukem 3D
March 2022 - Last Reaction & Water Bases + Chimera
February 2022 - DaikariN + Operation Blitzkrieg
January 2022 - ADG Episode + Maps by Alejandro Glavic

Previous 2021 Editions

Spoiler

December 2021 - Lost Highway + Maps by Lukas Cerovsky + Maps by Peter Kucera
November 2021 - Maps by Various Authors
October 2021 - Maps by Taivo Maripuu
September 2021 - Duke Hard
August 2021 - Maps by Geoffrey van Dijk (FakirBaba) + Maps by Rob Wijkstra (Highwire)
July 2021 - Maps by Maarten Pinxten
June 2021 - Roch Series

For this month, the legendary 1997 video game, BLOOD, has been chosen!

Blood was created by Monolith Productions and was initially released as shareware in March 1997, while the full registered version was released later in April 1997. The game received positive reviews and the game's sales were acceptable enough that two expansions followed later that year: Cryptic Passage by Sunstorm Interactive and Plasma Pak by Monolith Productions. There have also been a sequel with its own expansion but most fans of Blood would rather not speak about the sequel.

Anyway, back to the expansions of the first game. Cryptic Passage is a level set created by the well known Sunstorm who made other expansions for Build Engine games. Plasma Pak is an officially sanctioned expansion by Monolith, that is basically the Blood's equivalent of the Plutonium Pak, upgrading the main game to the "latest" 1.11 version (well, rather a version in-between 1.10 and 1.11, not really the latest 1.11) and containing a new episode with a couple new additions, mostly new enemies.

On 15th July 1998, there was a compilation titled One Unit Whole Blood that bundled the main game, the expansions and even an interactive guide into one big package. Additionally, it also upgraded the game's version to 1.21. This is the latest and most complete version of Blood, containing everything.

Many years ago, One Unit Whole Blood was released digitally on GOG and Steam. Then on 9th May 2019, Blood was remastered by Nightdive Studios and the game was re-released as Blood: Fresh Supply, including the same content as One Unit Whole Blood (except the interactive guide).

Due to the game's length, this month focuses only on the first THREE episodes of the game: The Way Of All Flesh, Even Death May Die and Farewell to Arms. The maplist can be viewed on the main Blood page on the Blood Wiki: https://blood-wiki.o...php?title=Blood

If you don't have Blood, you can buy Blood: Fresh Supply at the following links:

Steam: https://store.steamp...d_Fresh_Supply/
GOG: https://www.gog.com/...od_fresh_supply

The game is currently on sale (50% off on Steam, 66% off on GOG).

If you still have your original BLOOD CD, please follow the instructions in order to install the game:

Insert your BLOOD CD in drive. Use DOSBox (recommended DOSBox X in order to preserve the original timestamps of the files), mount the hard drives and run INSTALL.EXE. Follow the instructions and the game will be installed after a couple minutes. By default, it installs into C:\BLOOD. Once the installation is done, run SETUP.EXE to configure the game. Once ready, run BLOOD.EXE and enjoy the game!

If you don't have Blood, you can download the shareware version for free at the following link:
https://www.classicd...game/Blood.html
The link above includes ALL shareware versions of the game (except 0.99b and 0.99c), as well as various patches for the older versions. Follow the same instructions above if you plan to install in DOSBox. I recommend using the latest version available, which is 1.11 for shareware version.

Besides the original DOS version and the Fresh Supply remaster, the following source ports are compatible with Blood: BloodGDX, NBlood and Raze. As far as I know, the source ports only support the data files of the latest v1.21 release of One Unit Whole Blood. The following data files are required by the source ports (instructions taken from the NBlood page at Github):

Quote

BLOOD.INI
BLOOD.RFF
BLOOD000.DEM, ..., BLOOD003.DEM (optional)
CP01.MAP, ..., CP09.MAP (optional, Cryptic Passage)
CPART07.AR_ (optional, Cryptic Passage)
CPART15.AR_ (optional, Cryptic Passage)
CPBB01.MAP, ..., CPBB04.MAP (optional, Cryptic Passage)
CPSL.MAP (optional, Cryptic Passage)
CRYPTIC.INI (optional, Cryptic Passage)
CRYPTIC.SMK (optional, Cryptic Passage)
CRYPTIC.WAV (optional, Cryptic Passage)
GUI.RFF
SOUNDS.RFF
SURFACE.DAT
TILES000.ART, ..., TILES017.ART
VOXEL.DAT

A couple tips about the game:
-The original DOS versions of the game are fairly buggy and have a couple nasty bugs that will be documented later.
-The game can be very difficult at times, especially early on. In fact, the game has an inverted difficulty curve, with the first episode being the hardest due to the ammo/weapon scarcity and the cultists being one of the most common enemies in the entire game.
-Try crouching as much as you can, especially when fighting cultists! Unlike most build engine games, crouching makes you a tiny target.
-Try finding as many secrets as you can, as it will make the difference between life and death.
-Unlike most build engine games, each difficulty setting affects various stats, such as the amount of damage you take, how much health enemies have, enemies' accuracy, etc. Unfortunately, in the original DOS versions, there is a bug where the difficulty settings are inverted when loading a saved game, meaning you will take tons of damage if playing on the easiest skill but at same time you will take much less damage if playing on the hardest skill. Therefore, if it is your first playthrough, it is recommended to play on the default/medium difficulty called LIGHTLY BROILED, as the amount of damage never changes after loading the save. This bug only happens in the DOS versions and is fixed in SOURCE PORTS and the FRESH SUPPLY remaster!
-Some levels don't have difficulty settings implemented, which means those particular levels contain the exact amount of enemies in them regardless of what difficulty you play. This wouldn't have been a bad thing if the difficulty bug didn't exist. Though take into account the source ports fix this and Fresh Supply even offers a new difficulty called MADE TO ORDER, which allows you to set your own rules. Otherwise, if you are playing the original DOS version on easier difficulties, you are screwed.
-Some levels cannot be 100% completed because of glitched/missing enemies or even glitched secrets. This will also be explained later when talking about those particular levels.

Difficulty bug example (taken from GOG forums):

Quote

The zombie will hit you for (the number in brackets is after the load game):
11 hp (36 hp) - Still Kicking
15 hp (27 hp) - Pink On The Inside
18 hp (18 hp) - Lightly Broiled
22 hp (22 hp) - Well Done
26 hp (12 hp) - Extra Crispy

Once again, the difficulty bug only affects the original DOS release. If you are playing in a source port or official remaster, then you don't have to worry, as the bug was fixed!

Have fun!

[Quacken]

Allow me to provide my own plethora of tips on how to master Blood's weapons and how to fool monsters, to make Well Done or perhaps Extra Crispy seem more feasible to play.

1. Blood has three different damage types: Body (or Basic), which are hitscan attacks like the Cultist and Fanatic guns and melee attacks. Fire refers to things such as Hellhound fire streams, Cerberus fireballs and all explosions in the game. Spirit attacks include the Phantasm's attacks as well as your Tesla Cannon and Voodoo Doll. There's three different armor types in the game too which protect an amount of damage against their damage types that I don't know about. I only know that armor is really good in this game and that's all I need to know.

2. Many monsters in Blood have weaknesses and resistances to damage types. Gargoyles have a slight resistance to Body damage, but they don't have a resistance to Fire or Spirit. Butchers have a debilitating weakness against Fire. Phantasms are immune to Fire and Spirit, and Hellhounds greatly resist Fire. So on and so forth... you'll see specifically what resistances and weaknesses I know as the maps go on.

3. Your Body weapons include the Pitchfork, Shotgun and Tommy Gun. Your Fire weapons are the Flare Gun, Napalm Launcher, Aerosol Can, the Life Leech's primary fire and all three flavours of Dynamite. Your Spirit weapons are the Tesla Cannon, the Voodoo Doll and the Life Leech's secondary fire. This should clue you in on what weapons are best for which monster when you know the resistances.

4. Monsters in Blood can suffer from fall damage and react to their surroundings. Non-flying monsters can take fall damage and even die from it if they fall from a great enough height, and they can similarly burn and die from lava (Lava is the most common hurt floor in the game). Lava is Fire damage though, so Hellhounds and Cerberus can walk over it and be okay. Hellhounds, Gargoyles and Green and Red Spiders will all be instantly killed if they enter deep water (Though for the latter two, there's one situation where they won't die. More on that much later). Bone Eels (or Fish) will die if they ever leave the water.

5. Crawling is really good, and it's not just the fact you become a much smaller target. Crawling can make it so Zombies, Gargoyles and Butchers can never touch you with their melee attacks as long as you're constantly moving, so you can crawl under literal hordes and take no damage. Crawling under things does slow you down though, so beware of that. Crawling also makes the Butcher's projectiles whiff you and it makes Cheogh and Phantasms unable to hurt you as well. Extended crawling sequences are a vital part of many Extra Crispy runs and are important in both conserving health and ammo, as you leave other monsters for later and use your resources for more important targets.

6. Infighting exists in Blood, but its usage is limited as it's much harder to trigger compared to Doom and it's also really buggy. There's only a handful of maps that even need it in the first place but it can be useful to help save ammo and distract other monsters. Zombies and hitscanners will target Innocents, so you can potentially use them as distractions in the right situations.

7. Your jump height is high enough that you can stand on top of most monster's heads. This is a technique that I've personally called Footstooling. By luring a Zombie, a Butcher, an Innocent or a Gargoyle over to a desired spot, you can get on their head and quickly jump off of them to reach unintended locations early. Gargoyles can be taken anywhere since they can fly, but Zombies are a little taller and more willing to cooperate. Use what you can.

8. Don't sleep on the Pitchfork, it's a valuable member of your arsenal. The Pitchfork does low damage but you can use it to kill Zombies with some movement practice, and even on Extra Crispy you can use the Pitchfork to fully stunlock a hitscanner as long as you keep your mouse on them. The Pitchfork also has a good amount of push force, so you can use it to push monsters off of cliffs or into hurt floors.

9. The Flare Gun is a good sniping tool. It sort of acts like a "set and forget" weapon. You can shoot it at a hitscanner from far away and it will slowly die, as on Well Done or below one flare can be used to kill a Cultist or Fanatic. On Extra Crispy however, hitscanners have enough health to survive one flare and will instead need two. This limits its usefulness. The first flare will wake up your target and then they will immediately retaliate and dome you for a lot of damage. You instead use Flares to kill Butchers or to use the secondary fire. Shoot two flares on a Butcher, then crouch down and start Pitchforking it. It usually takes three Flares on EC to drop a Butcher from full health (two or less on WD and below), but if you keep Pitchforking it you can save a flare. The secondary fire works as a budget Napalm Launcher. The diamond-cross shaped Flares are weaker than a single Napalm, but they have about the same radius. A Flare Gun is usually more common than a Napalm Launcher if you're Pitchfork starting.

10. The Shotgun will be your primary weapon. The primary fire fires one barrel. Using the primary fire against a group of three to four hitscanners can be a bit of an ammo sink, but if you have enough shells for it or you want to preserve health for an upcoming hard section, it can be useful. The secondary fire does quick and immediate damage against everything, has a high push force, and reloads quickly. Use it on the hitscanners, Zombies, Gargoyles, Gillbeasts, Hellhounds and Shials.

11. The Tommy Gun is arguably the most important weapon in the game. The primary fire is an excellent sniping tool, can stunlock hitscanners to death with its high rate of fire, and kills nuisance enemies such as Fish (if you've got auto aim on at least). The secondary fire isn't useful. You spray your fire out like Rambo, but it's generally better to hold the primary fire into something and you have much better crowd control tools available.

12. If the Tommy Gun is important because it's reliable and common, then the Napalm Launcher is the best weapon in the game because it's broken. The blast radius on the primary fire is as big as an atomic bomb, it's powerful enough to one-shot Gargoyles and Butchers on all difficulties with a direct hit and each ammo pickup gives you six Napalm to work with. Fire it at walls in the same way you'd throw Dynamite around corners to burn hitscanners to death. The secondary fire is less ammo efficient than the primary fire, but it's certainly useful in one or two spots.

13. Dynamite is highly versatile. It's powerful, common, can blow up cracked walls to find secrets and it has two great firing modes. The primary fire can blow up groups of Zombies and instantly kill Butchers and Gargoyles with direct hits, while the secondary fire can bounce off of walls and land in groups of hitscanners that are still asleep. In especially big piles of monsters, it's often worth it to throw two Dynamite in to further pre-damage the horde. Remote Detonators share roughly the same function and are honestly just more Dynamite. Proximity Detonators are more useful for dropping into pits of wandering nuisance enemies, waiting for it to explode as their walking around will eventually set off the explosive.

14. The Aerosol Can is the premier nuisance enemy killer. It's great for killing Hands, Green and Red Spiders and Rats, and in a pinch it's also good for killing hordes of Zombies. You can also kill Butchers while using only about 7 Aerosol. Tap the primary fire to spend your Aerosol, then start Pitchforking them. If they're not dead, throw a little more fire in. The secondary fire is really powerful too. You can kill bigger piles of spiders if you want to conserve health, and you can throw it at hitscanner hordes similar to Dynamite to heavily damage them. Using the secondary fire consumes 48 Aerosol, but you can use it even if you have less than 48, which is good to know.

15. The Tesla Cannon is a powerful stream of electricity which is great for killing Hellhounds, as well as all of the bosses. Cheogh has heavy resistances to Body and Fire damage, so Spirit attacks are your most reliable way to damage him. It cleans up Shial, Cerberus and Tchernobog well too. The secondary fire has limited uses, but can be slightly more ammo efficient against packs of three or more Hellhounds. Just be wary of the fact that you can damage yourself if you get too close to the tesla explosion.

16. The Life Leech's primary fire is useless, but the secondary fire is pretty good. If you're running while you're deploying it the turret will retain some of your momentum and slide forward, which makes it a little easier to use. It can also shoot at angles which you can't yourself, including straight up, which makes it a good counter to swimming Gillbeasts. Even when it runs out of ammo and starts firing at you if you're in its sight, it can still do damage to other monsters, so you can bait the Leech into shooting at other things while it's trying to aim for you. To pick up the Life Leech turret, press the 9 key to bring up the Leech's slot, then press the secondary fire on it.

17. The Voodoo Doll is another great sniping tool, but it can also be used as a counter to Gargoyles, Hellhounds and most importantly Cheogh. Cheogh can be killed with about 30 Voodoo. Each Voodoo Doll refills your ammo to 100 again, so try to pick one up when your current Doll is depleted. The secondary fire is broken and you shouldn't use it. Just don't.

18. Extra Crispy is the highest regular difficulty in Blood. It was originally designed for co-op, and as a result is really hard on single player. Monsters have more health and can survive things that they would have died to on Well Done, changing your math on a lot of interactions and ruining muscle memory. Hitscanners also have inhuman reaction times, and the Cultist specifically gets an auto shotgun. His attack speed has been greatly reduced, so he can wipe the floor with you at close range and flush you out of hiding spots with bundles of Dynamite. This difficulty isn't even remotely fair. You really shouldn't be playing it unless you've mastered your weapons and how to interact with all of the monsters, and even then you might still want to stick with Well Done. Play at your own risk, or be as insane as I am...

[William Gee]

I dont think I have ever played blood, I just got the fresh supply version from steam, I will give it a whirl.

[Quacken]

Hello again! Going to start my reviews proper. I'll do one map per day since there's only 25 maps to go through. Let's go!

Cradle to Grave
James Wilson

EC Pitchfork Walkthrough:

Spoiler

Get all of the secrets at the start and Pitchfork the two Zombies that come out of their graves. Try to get the first Cultist you see to kill himself with his own Dynamite, though beware as he can occasionally throw it over the gate and hurt you. If he gets close enough to open the gate, throw some of your own Dynamite to kill him. Get the Flare Gun and throw another Dynamite at the wall where the second Cultist is to kill them before they wake up. There's two entrances into the morgue, but you want to take the top one. Jump to the Guns Akimbo secret, walk along the fence and then use the Pitchfork to break the window. Head into the furnace room and hit the Cultist in there with a MOUSE2 Flare Gun. This is the only one you need to worry about in the map, so it's safer to use the secondary fire to conserve health. Stand at the window to wake up the Cultists on the other side. If you stay where you are, they'll eventually drop down and walk as far as they can to the bottom of the ledge. Break the window and use the rest of your Dynamite on the Cultists. Hopefully one of them drops a Shotgun. If none of them do, it doesn't matter. You've basically beaten the map now. Just get all the kills and secrets and use your last Dynamite on the Cultists near the exit. There, nice and simple!

Caleb may tell you he lives again, but he's actually lying - he's been put in stasis for... 25 years. 25 years. Cradle to Grave is a classic map that makes for a pretty good tutorial. There's only two types of monsters here and neither of them are particularly threatening. The Cultists in the morgue may pose a problem if you go through the building the intended way, but thankfully James Wilson made it so you can easily break a window to get inside up top. Dynamite is a great weapon when you're above your target. You can drop it directly in front of you (and by extension dropping it down ledges) by clicking MOUSE1 once to light it, then MOUSE1 immediately after to bunt it. I'm glad there's not 11 secrets in every map like this map has. I'm pretty sure it has the second highest secret count in the game behind E2M4's 17 secrets. Wilson puts you in friendly sparring matches with low stakes. The gate is designed in such a way that a Cultist can't shoot you through it if you don't act right away, and they're far enough away for them to try throwing their own dynamite. On Lightly Broiled, Cultists only throw weaker sticks at you, but on Well Done and higher they throw the bundles that you can throw. If you time it just right, you can actually shoot Cultist dynamite out of the air and kill its thrower! I've done it on accident and it always feels good to do, but it's never something you can intentionally do. It's like getting a critical hit. Axe Zombies run around and swing their axe down on you. Now would be a good time to learn the Zombie Pitchfork Dance because you'll need to do it a lot in the next map. Cradle to Grave is a good training grounds map with great music and some excellent lines from Stephan Weyte.

7.5/10.

[Merlijn]

I replayed the first episode a couple of years ago and this may not be a popular opinion - but the cultists are some of the most annoying hitscan enemies ever. Granted the enemy placement may be part of this, it gets really obnoxious in the later levels. But with Duke's hitscanners you at least get a decent window to react once you hear their recognition sound. The Cultists immediately start blasting at you when you enter their line of sight, and their shotguns deal a ton of damage. Combine that with some 'fuck you' placement in hidden corners and you're garuanteed to take damage unless you memorized every enemy in the level.

I'm bringing it up because this game somehow gets a pass on the hitscan BS while DN3D gets crap for it. It doesn't mean I hate the game btw, I love the overall feel and design. The enemies, weapons and maps are all very memorable. But I would still place it a tad below DN3D when it comes to build games.

[Quacken]

My opinion on the hitscanners is actually the opposite - I really like fighting Blood hitscanners while I've always disliked Duke 3D's ones. Pig Cops and Enforcers always felt like they were way too bulky, and that's because the Duke 3D weapons are really weak in damage compared to Blood. Having to fight hitscanners one after the other greatly drags out any map's momentum and pacing for me and it's why I always tend to rate maps lower than they probably should. It always takes two shells to kill one Pig Cop no matter how good your positioning is but in Blood (on Well Done at least) you can kill Cultists and Fanatics in one MOUSE2 Shotgun hit. You're using the same amount of ammo to kill a hitscanner but you're doing it in literal centiseconds. There's no waiting around to do Shotgun dances like you have to do in Duke 3D, it's just one hit and you bag someone. Their corpses even slide away so you can keep walking and fighting. But of course the hitscanners are still ludicrously overpowered, so close range fire-fights are still tense. They're overpowered and that's why I like them.

I personally think Blood is my favourite game of the "trinity" (This, Duke 3D and Shadow Warrior) because in spite of the fact it's the most unstable game of the three, it feels a lot more tactical and satisfying to play. Everything's just way faster and you have a lot more options for how to handle groups of monsters such as utilising the environmental hazards or doing tricky Dynamite bank shots.

[Quacken]

Hello again.

Wrong Side of the Tracks
Craig Hubbard

EC Pitchfork Walkthrough:

Spoiler

It's the second level. This should be easy, right? Wrong. Pitchfork the Zombies on the right and use two Dynamite to blow up the two areas you're required to. Jump into the boxcar and wake up the Cultists on the other side. Stay still and lure the Cultists over to the lip of the door below to try and kill all three of them with Dynamite. If you only kill one or two, use the Shotgun to kill the other. Pitchfork all of the other Zombies in this area until you get to the next Cultists. Use Dynamite to blow up one of them around the corner and Shotgun the other one to create a temporary safe space. Run at the hitscanners up ahead and stun the Cultist in front using a MOUSE1 Shotgun. Hopefully the others are distracted by the Innocents, but if they aren't, then you'll have to restart. Kill everything with the Shotgun (if you still have the ammo for it), and don't use your Dynamite just yet. Once you get past the hitscanners, welcome to the first roadblock of Extra Crispy. The train station lobby and the seats ahead are an extremely dangerous area. There's many hitscanners, including two Cultists behind bars and a Fanatic behind a railing. Lure the Cultists that fall on the ground back to a safer area and Pitchfork or Shotgun them as they peek around the corner. Then make a run for it to the hallway, hugging the left side of the wall so you don't get shot at as much. Use your Dynamite to blow up the door leading to the Moon Key, killing two hitscanners. Kill the Cultists in the ticket booth somehow and shut the door. Good, you've got some breathing room now!

If there's a Zombie or an Innocent still alive, use them to Footstool up to the area with the railing. You'll be very low on shells, but try to conserve at least two so you can kill the Cultist up here. Get the Dynamite, but don't get the Body Armor. There's Fanatics around the corner and they'll mow you down. At minimum you'll have 7 Dynamite, which will do. Jump down and go back to the hallway where the Moon Key is. Bank two Dynamite off of the wall in front of you to blow up the Cultists on both sides. Wake up the Cultists in the seating area one at a time and toss Dynamite near the door you're standing at, as that's where they'll walk to try and attack you. You'll need to eyeball it because there's really no way to tell if they're about to come around the corner or if they've gone back to sleep. You can also try peaking with Dynamite and tossing it into the seating bay. You could also try to run to the Life Seed secret. The Life Seed would give you a lot of wiggle room, but there's a Fanatic at the end of the hallway where you need to break the window who will essentially always kill you if you're low on health, and you'll wake up a Cultist from the seating bay so it's very hard to crouch down and build up enough charge to toss the Dynamite far enough. Do whatever works, as long as all of the Cultists in the seating bay are dead. For that Fanatic mentioned earlier, crouch at the stairs so he can't see you, then charge up a Dynamite and toss it at the end of the hallway. Get those juicy Life Seed and Basic Armor secrets. Before going through the Moon door, clear out the pub and the book store first as they have valuable goodies. If you're smart with your Dynamite conservation you'll have enough to at least clear the pub first. By now you'll also have enough Shells, so use that to kill all of the hitscanners and use one shell to blow up the fire extinguisher for more Dynamite. Use that Dynamite to clear out the Bookstore and get the Doctor's Bag. You're home free now! All you have to do is to watch out for the two Cultists behind the Moon Door. When you get the Fire Key, backtrack to the pub to get the secret Cloak. You'll have enough of that to beat the level from there, including the Cultists rolling in from the train.

So yeah, this map is extremely difficult. It's very luck-based, you don't get a Flare Gun or a guaranteed Tommy Gun and you don't have a lot of health. There's a ton of different things that can go wrong here and it is just an absolute nightmare. Gets a difficulty rating of 5/5. By the way, E1M1 gets a 1/5.

I like this map but I also hate it because it is unbelievably hard on Extra Crispy. Even on Well Done, this map is a pretty big difficulty spike if you're playing with Pitchfork starts. If you bring the Flare Gun or even the super secret Napalm Launcher from Cradle to Grave it makes a world of difference in this map. The Flare Gun can be used to snipe the Cultists outside of the train station and the Napalm Launcher can bomb the hitscanners behind the railing. I didn't go over the weapons last time, and although I did a tip for each of them I didn't quite talk about how I feel about them. I like the Flare Gun. I like setting things on fire in this game. The sound design and voice acting is frankly excellent in this game. I always get a kick out of using the MOUSE2 Flare Gun whenever I do use it because there's something about the choir screaming of four or five burning bodies that is so morbid but so satisfying. The Shotgun feels excellent to use, sounds excellent to use and is very reliable. It doesn't quite have the same kick as Doom II's Super Shotgun when you fire it but I think the reloading sound effect is much better. I touched on it briefly but I love clocking a hitscanner or a Zombie and watching them slide along the map in a shower of blood. It's not realistic at all, but I love it for that. It has just the right amount of goofyness on top of being a cool rustic gun. You have the chance to get the Tommy Gun here, and that's great. The firing animation and the sound effect gets stuck in my head all of the time. One thing I really like about the Shotgun and the Tommy Gun is that you can hear spent shell casings and bullets clattering on the ground after you fire it, which makes the guns feel a lot more life-like. Shadow Warrior does a similar thing but it's less noticeable.

The explosives in this game are a thing of beauty. Whether it's with Dynamite or the Napalm Launcher, even today there's nothing quite like tossing one explosive in a room or down a pit and watching it go absolutely nuclear. The corpses in this game move even more erratically than Source Engine ragdolls and it's always great seeing a flying corpse. Or a flying Shial that just disappears from existence. And hey, this map is great too! I like the MIDI. It's called "Fate of the Damned" in the CD soundtrack, and it's a pretty slow burner. I like to think you're in some kind of haunted mansion or a crime scene whenever it's playing. Fresh Supply adding voxels to most of the props in the game helps with the visuals. This is two separate maps packed into one map slot. If you're Pitchfork starting Well Done, it's a tight and challenging sting that challenges you to conserve your resources and think tactically, and if you're not, it's a fairly unassuming map that has good command of textures and also lets you try out the Napalm Launcher.

8/10.

[Quacken]

Here I am again. By the way: You can use my EC walkthroughs as essentially a walkthrough of the map on the combat scenes in Well Done (or lower skill levels). Well Done is basically just Extra Crispy with a hell of a lot more wiggle room and the ability for more imprecise play. If you're playing in single segment then you have even more leeway. As for a navigational guide, I'd recommend checking out the Baytor's Guide section for each map on the Blood wiki.

Phantom Express
James Wilson

EC Pitchfork:

Spoiler

Go in either direction and run at one of the Cultists to start Pitchforking them. If you're lucky, you'll only take 12 damage. When you get to the Cultists near the Shotgun, wake them up and lure them to the sides of the Train. You can either Pitchfork them one at a time, or they might fall onto the tracks. The train tracks are a hurt floor that will do massive amounts of damage even while you're spamming jump, so don't stay on there for too long. Go around to the other side of the start and kill the Cultist there using the Shotgun. You want to get them from behind because they'll spend a little time turning around to try and shoot you. Wake up all of the eight Zombies ahead and lure them onto the train tracks to kill them. For the first group of hitscanners, bank your first Dynamite to pre-damage them. Use some MOUSE1 Shotgun shots to finish them off. Kill the other Cultists in this carriage by using the MOUSE2 Shotgun. Go on through and wake up the Zombies in the next carriage to Pitchfork them. Don't wake up the Cultists off to the right, you want to use your second Dynamite on them. Clear out this carriage and go on to the storage room. Use the MOUSE2 Shotgun on the Cultist on the left and Dynamite the one in the far back. Try to Dynamite the Cultist on the crates in the back. In Fresh Supply, I like to position my crosshair so the bottom part is "touching" the stacks of crates that's four high. If you miss, that's okay. You should be able to at least damage them and wake them up. Use the Shotgun to kill them once they come down. The other hitscanners near the Beastvision secret and the Guns Akimbo are tricky. If you're good enough, you can Dynamite the Fanatic. Kill the Zombies that open up behind you once you approach the other Cultists, you don't want them distracting you. You can get up on a crate and either Pitchfork them, or you can Shotgun them. Get the Life Seed secret after everything's dead. You need all the health you can get.

Now it's time for the bar room Cultist fight! There's lots of Cultists here and it's very easy to die. You have a few options: You can throw out a MOUSE2 Flare Gun and sacrifice a lot of health. You can doorfight using the MOUSE1 Shotgun. You can lure the Cultists that aren't behind the desks two at a time to MOUSE2 Shotgun them. Or you could try getting a few of them to kill each other with Dynamite. If Dynamite gets into your safe spot, then get the hell out of there and go back to the storage room. I still can't really do this fight without making a save just before it. Using the MOUSE1 Shotgun a lot and crouching behind the seats once you fight your way into the room helps a lot, though. You shouldn't worry about wasting all of your shells because you'll get them all back after this. Get the Skull Key, the Super Armor and the secret Reflective Shots and run for the Fire door. Don't go through the elevator, that's suicide. Run through the kitchen first and up the ramp. Rush for the Fire Key and kill all of the monsters in this section. Don't forget about the Cultist in the bathroom! Watch out for the hitscanners that appear out of the rooms that open once you're backtracking to the start for the Fire door. Once you get the Super Secret in this map you're done with all of the hard parts. Go back the way you came instead of opening the door, because opening the door spawns monsters. Finish the map by turning the lever and turning the other levers on the furnace grill.

This map's very cool. For how synonymous vehicle maps are with Build, I'm pretty sure Phantom Express was actually the first commercial Build map to take place on a vehicle. This map has some great sound design. I like the rushing wind and how it becomes muffled once you're inside. But if you break the windows, the sound becomes clear again. This is like the only map where Beast Vision is actually a useful item. It's pretty good in the storage room, but on a Pitchfork start you get it just a little too late for it to actually be good. I do like the fights in this map a lot. The bar room is no doubt brutal, but it also feels really cool to be crouching behind the cues and returning fire at Cultists with the Shotgun. Getting to go on a rampage with the Reflective Shots and the Guns Akimbo from the storage room while you're getting the Fire key is also awesome. I've always felt like Guns Akimbo is a little too clunky for my liking. It's pretty good with the Tommy Gun but it's overkill with every other weapon and often wastes too much ammo. Makes for some cool theatrics though. It'd be much better on single segment where you can afford to burn ammo. I also like the way in which you can use the train tracks to conserve health and ammo. This is a good spot to learn how to manipulate the AI. If you leave a Zombie walking around next to a ledge they'll eventually walk off of it while running around in circles. Phantom Express is maybe a little too big of a difficulty spike, but its state of the art visuals and unique gameplay make it one of the hallmark maps of Episode 1.

8.5/10.

[Quacken]

Back again. I think I'll have to switch to daily posts if I want to get all of the maps done in time.

Dark Carnival
Kevin Kilstrom, James Wilson

EC Pitchfork:

Spoiler

Run over to the Basic Armor secret on the other side of the carriage you start in. You'll probably wake up the Cultists, but don't fight them just yet. Get all of the secrets in this area and then come back out. At least two of those Cultists will be up next to the platform you're on, so drop one Dynamite below them to kill them. Or two. You get another crate very shortly so it won't matter. Watch out for the Fanatic and the remaining Cultist that has a chance to not wake up. When you get to the next section, bank one Dynamite on each side of the hallway to damage the hitscanners on both sides. They'll walk to the ledge to try and hurt you, so when they come around use another Dynamite. You can wake up the remaining hitscanners by peeking out of the entryway for short moments. The bridge has a bunch of Fanatics that are hell to take out, unless you do some clever movement. Wake up the Fanatics and run back. Most of them will drop into the water. Use the Tommy Gun to kill the remaining ones that are staying on the bridge, as well as the Cultists on the other side near the dumpster who are also refusing to go into the water. When this area is clear, get on top of one of the posts and jump across to the dumpster. Inside the dumpster is a Reflective Shots powerup, so get that. Kill the hitscanners in front of you and then jump into the water to kill everyone that went in there. The secret in this section will give you a Flare Gun, which will be useful.

Head on through the main gate. Save a Dynamite for the Fanatics on top of the Rotten Candy stand, and Tommy Gun the Cultist on the ground. There's some carnival games here, and the prizes they give are all really busted. Use one bullet to shoot a smiley face at the shooting gallery to get a Life Seed. Use a Dynamite to bomb the door leading to the manager's bedroom, as there's a hitscanner. Then go up there and take control of the bedroom. There's a few Cultists here, but they won't notice you, and you can use two shots from the Flare Gun to kill each of them. The Fanatic selling rat burgers is easier to kill with the Shotgun. Now it's time for the Jojo arena. Go back to the Kick the Head minigame and complete it to get an Invincibility powerup which will decimate this section. On your way to the Dagger door, Pitchfork the bottles in the bottle shooting minigame ran by a Cultist to get the final powerup, a Cloak. Use the Cloak to clear out the final hitscanners in the main loop. You're basically done with the map. MOUSE2 Flare Gun the door that opens once you get the Eye key and get the Napalm Launcher. Just keep going through the map now and grab the final key. With the Napalm Launcher and 80 shells you're unstoppable. Remember to unlock the secret exit too!

This map's pretty easy if you know the best routing for it but can be really tricky if you do the map intentionally. The only real challenging section is the start, but even then it's really easy to do with practice. Gets a 2/5 for difficulty. E1M3 gets a 3/5 also.

Ah, Dark Carnival. A very iconic map in Blood and one of the highlights of the entire game. This is a map that actually feels like a real place, which I often don't really feel is the case with a lot of other Build maps considering most of them are quite abstract and have software rendering for their graphics. Not that I complain about this, but it does mean when a map like Dark Carnival comes around it feels extra special to me. The minigames in this map are quite a fun distraction. This is a map you can goof around in for a little while and take easy. It's a great break map. This map also properly introduces my beloved Napalm Launcher, which is available in a non-secret unlike in E1M1. This gun is way too fun to use. It has some great sounds and it blows apart anything you shoot it at in Episode 1, minus Cheogh. It gets a little inaccurate when you turn auto-aim on though, as the projectiles can target ambient enemies like Bats and Innocents, and if you're spraying down nuisance enemies you can accidentally switch to the Napalm Launcher if you run out of Aerosol and it was your last used weapon, and you'll take a ton of self damage. Whenever you've got the Napalm Launcher, the game is much easier. Episode 2 on a single segment playthrough becomes a cakewalk after E2M9 for that reason. I like this MIDI too. It's very mischievous-sounding but also curious, which I think fits the aesthetic of both this map and E1M8. The secret exit in this map is one of the reasons I prefer NBlood over Fresh Supply (besides actually being able to display a kill count on screen). Caleb's movement is just a little bit tighter on NBlood and it makes platforming over to the wall you need to explode which leads to the secret exit easier.

The visuals are on point too. There's a lot of textures and sound effects in this map that are only used in this map alone, not even E1M8. When the poster textures are used in other maps like E3M1 and E3M2 it looks out of place to me. I also like the Gargoyle merry-go-round, but the illusion of having the seats come alive and attacking you could have been executed better. The Gargoyles wake up immediately and start coming towards you. If they worked like the Gargoyle statues that only come alive once you get close to them, it would have been a good scare. Dark Carnival is a quintessential map of Blood. It's fun, looks and sounds great and properly introduces the best weapon in the game. This is an instant classic.

9.5/10.

[Quacken]

Secret level time! Oh god, this one is a horror show.

House of Horrors
James Wilson

EC Pitchfork:

Spoiler

Wake up the Cultists at the start and get them to drop down to the ground. Then, open the gate and MOUSE2 Shotgun them one at a time. Grab the Dynamite next. It's important that you kill the two Gargoyles here with one Dynamite each. On Well Done, a single Dynamite can kill a Gargoyle. You do this by standing far enough way to bait it into using its range attack, and as its doing its ranged attack you throw your Dynamite directly at its body, which will be a kill if your positioning and timing is good enough. On Extra Crispy you can still kill a Gargoyle with one Dynamite, but the window for which you can do it is much tighter as a Gargoyle has more health. In this case, if you fail to kill both Gargoyles with only two Dynamite, just restart. You need all the help you can get in this map and don't want to waste ammo. Get the Tommy Gun secret and gun down the Cultist behind the front door with it. Then bank a Dynamite around the corner to the next group of hitscanners. You might want to throw two here to pre-damage them more. Use another Dynamite in the ticket booth where the other Cultist is. Beware that there's yet another Cultist in the Zombie horde behind the Super Armor secret. When everything's dead here, get the Doctor's Bag and the Super Armor and travel along the river ride. Get all the items along the way too. This section isn't too bad. The closet near the Zombie cage will need another Dynamite, or most of your Tommy Gun ammo. When you get to the drop, take the lift down and use the Tommy Gun on the Fanatics. This next section is where things can go terribly wrong...

Instead of dropping into the next section, you should wake up the Fanatics and let them drop into the water while you're still up top. The swimming section is absolute agony with those swimming Fanatics. They'll carve you up in no time. What you should do instead is to run forward and make a jump for the Skull key. With the push force from the river ride's current combined with your movement speed, you'll have enough momentum to cross the entire gap and skip the swimming section. Skull Key obtained! Go down to the torture chamber and Pitchfork the Zombies. Now get the Flare Gun and open the Skull door. There's a Guns Akimbo here that is impossible to avoid picking up. You should inch forward and touch it to collect it, then go and kill the Cultist. You want to do it this way because picking up a Guns Akimbo will switch you to two guns, and the animation that plays when you get your extra gun stops you from firing. The Cultist around the corner can kill you during that time. I'm pretty sure you get an extra crate of Dynamite before the Skull door, so bank one of those to the right to kill the Cultists. Fire at the other hitscanners on the left with the Tommy Guns to try and stunlock them and to take less damage. Get the drum of bullets and the new Doctor's Bag and kill the other hitscanners, now that you've got a safe space.

March through! Bank a Dynamite to the next group of Cultists. Don't feel pressured to use your Guns Akimbo, its already done its job. The cemetery section is another lethal section. You should use one Dynamite on the hitscanners in the way back, and then MOUSE2 Flare Gun as many of the other hitscanners as you can. If you have two Dynamite left, use one of them on the Cultists around the bend. Otherwise, peek-a-boo MOUSE2 Shotgun them. Go up the ramp and deal with the Fanatics on the left. Use your Shotgun and your Pitchfork on the Zombies. Now it's time for the most difficult fight in Episode 1. This ramp that's coming up has like 20 hitscanners on it and you only have about 18 Flares, 1 Dynamite and a good amount of Shells to work with. If you have one Dynamite left over, bank it off of the bend to pre-damage the horde. The first hitscanners should start approaching you, and you can Shotgun them. If no one else is approaching you, you can go around the bend and use a MOUSE2 Flare Gun to hopefully kill the rest of the monsters. If you've made it out of this section without dying, then congratulations! You're basically done with the map. There's a delicious Life Seed secret, a Napalm Launcher and a Doctor's Bag secret in the next few sections which should make the next couple of fights trivial. Make sure to save some napalm for the underwater section, as you still need to go back there for 100% kills.

This map is unbelievably difficult! It's a contender for the hardest map in Extra Crispy in my opinion. There's tight corridors, not a lot of health, it's dark everywhere and there's hitscanners everywhere you look. Just an absolute terror to play. The Ramp of Fun is very luck reliant and you're forced to keep one Dynamite in reserve just so you can stand a better chance at finishing the map. This gets a 5/5 for me.

This is a fine enough map. It's another map where I find it harder to appreciate because having to play this three separate times for Extra Crispy sours what is a pretty unique concept for a map. It's this unfinished dark ride that has more unique textures exclusive to this map, and the lights are strobing. I feel like the torture area would have been a setpiece that would be eventually built into the dark ride if it were to ever be completed. This map looks worse than Dark Carnival though. It's probably due to technical limitations, but a lot of the walls in this map are just one texture, with there not being that many indents in the walls or textures used as decals to create scenes. This is obviously a much better map in general, but Route 66's Carnival of Terror has a much better looking haunted house section that uses its own pool of textures in more unique ways. I still like this map though. I like the swinging chains and the laughing sound effect that plays on loop, and the MIDI is still great. It fits the carnival maps better than it does for E4M1. There's not really much else to say here that I hadn't already said in the EC Pitchfork walkthrough. Enter House of Horrors if you dare, but don't get upset and say I didn't warn you. I like this map, but it's not one that I'd willingly want to play again for a while.

7/10.

[Quacken]

Next map! And one of the most interesting Extra Crispy routes...

Hallowed Grounds
Nick Newhard, Craig Hubbard, Terry Hamel

EC Pitchfork:

Spoiler

Pitchfork all of the Zombies at the start. Bank one Dynamite to kill the Cultist in the lobby with the Gargoyle statue, and then bank another one to kill the hitscanners near the door. Hug the left wall, because you don't want to wake up the Gargoyle statue just yet. Use your Dynamite to kill the hitscanners and the Gargoyle in this first section (do it in one dynamite if you can), and avoid approaching the gate with the Moon key behind it, because there's a bunch of hitscanners there you don't need to do anything with for a long while. Use one Dynamite from your new crate in this area to blow up the Doctor's Bag secret. You can Pitchfork the headless corpse in the hallway for a Life Essence. MOUSE2 Shotgun the hitscanners behind the double doors. Use the rest of your Dynamite to clear out the hitscanners on the upper ledges. If any of them fall down, you can Shotgun or Pitchfork them. Hey, remember when you could Footstool off of a Zombie in E1M2 to reach a higher ledge with Dynamite? Well, meet George - he's your buddy in this map and he will gladly use his head to give you a leg up.

Run back to where that Gargoyle statue was and wake George up. You'll need to lure him over to where you just were. Gargoyles are easier to lure when they're closer to the ground, and you can try and bait them closer to the ground by standing (not crouching) under them. When George is in position, you can get on his head and jump off of it to reach the higher ledges where the hitscanners once were. There's some very useful items here, including another crate of Dynamite and a secret with a box of Shells in it. Since Gargoyles can fly, lure George up to the ledge and Footstool off of them again to get this secret. If you look around here you'll stumble into the room that has the Spider Key in it, which also has a Tommy Gun and a drum of bullets! You can also get some Body Armor, though beware of the hitscanners. You can use George to get one last item. If you lure him back to where the Doctor's Bag secret was, you can Footstool him to get that secret too. Now that George has served his purpose and you've got all of the items you can with him, say goodbye by killing him with one Dynamite. There's another two Gargoyles in the next section which you can use to do some more Footstooling and keeping George alive will just result in him bothering you,

Now that you're fully armed, just take it slowly for the rest of the map. Knowing where monsters are in this map will greatly help you. Lean on the Tommy Guns if you know there's monsters behind doors, and MOUSE2 Shotgun other hitscanners if they're coming around corners. In the next section with the two curtains, you can Footstool off of another Gargoyle to get the second Doctor's Bag and the Basic Armor earlier than you're supposed to. Behind the Basic Armor curtains, there's three hitscanners which you can kill which makes an upcoming ambush much easier. When everything's dead in this room, get the Skull Key and blow up the horde of Zombies with Dynamite. You get the Jump Boots at this point, so use them to get the Reflective Shots powerup that's just above the Boots. Use that to clear the next room of hitscanners and get the Napalm Launcher. This map's over now. The only other problematic fight is after the Skull door and clearing out the Courtyard, but you can use both an Invincibility from a secret by using your Boots to get up there, as well as a secret Cloak, so you can rampage through all of the other hard parts.

The start to this map is pretty tricky but everything after you get the Jump Boots should be no trouble at all. It would be much harder if you couldn't use Gargoyles to Footstool up to higher areas. But since you can, you can get a bunch of ammo really quickly and then ride invulnerability after invulnerability to the end of the map. If you bring a Jump Boots from E1M4, this map is very free as long as you're patient and good with banking Dynamite. Gets a 2/5.

Oh boy, it's Great Temple 0.5! This map's really average honestly. There's no MIDI and no good sound design to make up for the fact there's no MIDI like in E1M3. There's an unused track in this game that's called "PESTIS" in the files. It's technically present on five maps that have no MIDI (E1M3, E3M2, E4M6, E4M7 and E4M9), but PESTIS is always commented out in the game's .INI file. However, this map is a spiritual temple and it doesn't have the music which has priests chanting hymns. This is the only map that just doesn't have a MIDI assigned to it, according to the Blood wiki. Very strange. I mainly remember this map because it's one of the few maps you can heavily sequence break by abusing Footstooling. If you don't want to read the EC Pitchfork walkthrough, you can jump off of Gargoyles' heads to reach places unintended by the map makers to get items earlier than intended, including a Tommy Gun, which makes the struggling start easier to handle. This map has a lot of cleanup duty which can make wandering around to kill everything very tedious, especially if Zombies end up in the Fish lake and you don't really have any shells or bullets to kill them. Even still, we can take comfort in knowing that there is Napalm Launcher. Now's a good time to learn that Gargoyles really don't like this weapon. One shot, as long as it touches the Gargoyle's body, will instantly kill them on any difficulty. Gargoyles have a slight Body resistance but they don't have any resistance to Fire. I wouldn't really recommend the Flare Gun or the Aerosol Can though, they're more weak against Dynamite and napalm because those weapons do much more damage. The Shotgun can still be a good option despite the Gargoyle's resistance to it. About 10 Shells will do it on Well Done (I think), which is still pretty decent. Hallowed Grounds is not decent though, I think it's a fairly mediocre and forgettable map that gets saved by the fact it's easy to goof around in.

5/10.

[Quacken]

The penultimate map of Episode 1, and it's a real slobberknocker. Here's another tip: When you're fighting groups of Zombies and you have enough ammo to use the Shotgun, shoot at angles so you can try and fish for double kills with the MOUSE2 attack.

The Great Temple
Hamel, Wilson

EC Pitchfork:

Spoiler

Pitchfork the Zombies, then run into the water as fast as you can. You don't want the Cultists above to fall into the water. Swim to the next section, dodge the Fish and grab the secret Cloak. Then surface at the centre section with the Shotgun and MOUSE2 Shotgun everything you see. Use as much of your Cloak as you can. If you use your time well enough, you can get to the bridge where the next lever is and kill nearly everything. Ignore the Fanatics on the other ledge on the far side, you'll kill them later. Flipping the lever lowers the bridge and reveals a door. Two Gargoyles will come alive when you open the door, but they'll usually fly into the water and kill themselves. Watch out for the Cultist who wakes up though. Bank a Dynamite off to the right to kill the Cultist, then get the Body Armor and destroy the explosive barrel next to the Cultist near the Flare Gun. The next section you need to worry about is after the room with the stained glass windows. There's five Fanatics around the bend, so MOUSE1 Shotgun them. If you get a Tommy Gun here, use that instead. This huge room is very lethal, with hitscanners high up on ledges that are hard to shoot. It's tricky to bank Dynamite here, but try to bounce them off of the orange columns. There's two Gargoyles here too, which you can lure back to the bridge and wait for them to die to the water. Go around the left side of the central pillar and watch out for the Fanatic that's on high ground, and the one on ground level. Run for the door and shut it behind you. Nothing can open this door, so you're safe for the moment.

You won't have a lot of health in this next area, so take it really slowly. You'll have to lure all the hitscanners around the corner in the Guns Akimbo area to kill them without taking too much damage. At the temple with the Reflective Shots, open the doors to it but get out of there. Inch forward to slowly wake up the Zombies that appeared from the closet next to the door. Peek-a-boo with your Dynamite to slowly kill everything in the temple. It won't matter a lot if you take too much damage here because there's a Life Seed soon enough. Don't take the Reflective Shots right away, you should clear out the Zombie ambush first. The door shuts behind you, but it will open after a little bit of time. Start crawling around to avoid taking damage from the Zombies. They'll climb over you, but as long as you keep moving around and alternating between the monster closets you should take minimal damage. When the door opens again, move back and kill the Zombies in there. Get the Reflective Shots now, because it's time for a big fight at the Skull Key and you'll get minced without it. While you're here, Footstool up to where the Fire door is. You can't do anything useful here as you still need the Fire key to open the locked door, but you can at least get some ammo and health, and blow up a barrel with a flare to access the upper section. At the Skull door, let the Zombie walk into the Proximity Detonators instead of you shooting them yourself. There's no more special tricks after this section - in order to beat the rest of this map, you have to play the best Blood of your life. Take it really slow and don't take unnecessary risks. You have enough ammo to afford imprecise play, but you're also able to die really fast. Know where the secrets are and know where hitscanners are placed so you can Dynamite them. You'll get a secret Napalm Launcher soon enough, so you can even rely on spamming that around corners if you're really scared. Once you get the Super Secret, you have nothing to worry about. You get an Invincibility and a Cloak to ride out the end of level gauntlet.

This map is difficult but not extremely difficult. The start can be rough, but it's not unduly difficult. Once you get the Napalm Launcher secret you can pretty much just main explosives until you get to the super secret, and then the level's over. It can be really exhausting if you're not an extremely good shot, but your nerves as you reach the end of the map are the hardest thing about it. Gets a 4/5.

This is a cool map. It doesn't quite have the largest kill count in a commercial Build game, but it's a close second (Derelict has around 297 kills if the Protozoid Eggs all hatch, and you also count the Eggs as kills). On Extra Crispy there's 276 monsters all raring to tear you a new one. This is kind of like a Blood SAT test. It's a huge journey through an expansive temple that quizzes you on your street smarts. Fitting, as this is the penultimate level of the shareware version of the game and it's almost like Monolith is asking you what you learned. There's some killer fights in this map. The Skull Key shindig will eat you alive without the Reflective Shots or a Napalm Launcher, but it's a real relief once you ace it with either of those things. The final gauntlet featuring every non-aquatic monster in Episode 1 is also no doubt a power fantasy, especially if you found the Super Secret and you can storm this place with a Guns Akimbo and an Invincibility. There's quite a lot of traps in this map, too. Not only monster closets, but also a lot of incendiary traps that require careful movement. The cart ride through flame geysers is a cool bit of mapping wizardry but takes a lot of time to actually crawl through, and the row of napalm spitters can get really janky. I don't really have much to say about the MIDI in this map. I like that it's there, but it kind of feels like elevator music to me. Same with the visuals. It's very samey even though James Wilson and Terry Hamel try their best to add in traps and rotating sectors. For its challenge and grand scale alone, Great Temple is a memorable map that doesn't have a ton of replay value due to its immense length.

7/10.

[Quacken]

I can whip this next review up quickly because there's not much to talk about.

Altar of Stone
James Wilson

EC Pitchfork:

Spoiler

Go around the bottom first to get a Tommy Gun. Then use all of your ammo on the Fanatics surrounding Ophelia. The boss maps in Blood are interesting on Pitchfork starts, because they're almost like puzzles. You don't have enough ammo in the map to kill the boss, so you will eventually have to Pitchfork all of them. The question is, how do you neutralise the boss? For Cheogh it's pretty simple. You need to stay crouched. Cheogh is unable to damage you while you're crouched, so when you run out of ammo you can safely Pitchfork both of the Cheoghs and the Gargoyles to death. Both of them. See, on Extra Crispy, there's a second Cheogh in this map you also have to kill. Do yourself a favour and just go to Episode 2 once you've killed the Fanatics. I finished this map on Extra Crispy by killing everything and it took me 35 minutes of nothing but Pitchforking. There isn't an easier way to do this as you can't make the two Cheoghs infight. You can get one of them to chase after the other if they're shot by the other's eye beams, but they will try to get in range for a melee attack and repeatedly fail, as the other Cheogh is trying to chase you and is too fast. There also isn't a useful corner in the map you can use to get the fleeing Cheogh stuck. It could maybe be doable if you managed to get the fleeing Cheogh asleep by going far enough away from it, but I've yet to do that, and I don't want to do it. Not to mention, you'd still have to Pitchfork at least one Cheogh.

E1M7 is a blight on Extra Crispy and it is the easiest map in the game. Gets a 1/5.

Oh, Altar of Stone... the best thing about this map is the banger voice acting from Stephen Weyte. This map is notable for introducing Cheogh and featuring a unique texture of Ophelia hanging on the altar. Cheogh is a big, stupid bullet sponge who you would only ever have enough ammo to properly kill if you brought ammo and guns over from E1M6. He doesn't like Spirit weapons, but you get your first Spirit weapon in Episode 2, so you're stuck with using weapons that Cheogh is resistant to. If you don't have a Spirit weapon, then you can use about 80 shells to kill him on Well Done. There's a way to neutralise any encounter with Cheogh, and it's a pretty infamous way - you just have to stay crouched, and Cheogh will be unable to hurt you. In the right situations Cheogh is sort of meant to be a bully unit who demands you both be crouched and have a Spirit weapon or else you'll waste a ton of time trying to Pitchfork him, but on Well Done, Cheogh is either fought solo or is paired with Gargoyles, who can also be crouched under. There's only really three situations in all of Extra Crispy where Cheogh can bully you for a while, and two of those situations are on E4M7 and E6M2, so I can't play them this month. I don't even really play this map because I don't want to waste my time. Side note: Get ready to hear CBLOOD7 a lot and for it to become really grating.

3/10.

[Quacken]

Hello again! And we're now on Episode 2, what is probably the easiest episode for Extra Crispy. There's still some ball breakers in this episode though!

Shipwrecked
Craig Hubbard

EC Pitchfork:

Spoiler

Get the Shotgun and the Tommy Gun, then swim around to where the Voodoo Doll secret is. You can get easy kills on the hitscanners on the boat's stern if you stay here. The high barrier separating you and them makes it so you can shoot their heads while they can't hurt you. Clear out the section with the opening to the hull and get some Dynamite. First, bank one up the ramp and into the T-section to kill most of the Cultists there. Then, toss the rest into the hull where the Fire key is. The hitscanners down there are unable to hurt you. Jump down and get the Fire Key, and also get the secret Doctor's Bag. There's a Cultist next to it you'll have to Shotgun too. Head back up and grab the Eye Key. There's hitscanners here, but you've got a Tommy Gun and plenty of cover, so they're no trouble at all. There's two Eye Doors which provide different areas to approach the next section. You should get the Flare Gun first, but go through the door next to the ramps. You'll be able to get Remote Detonators, a drum of bullets and the ability to blow up some barrels which damages the hitscanners on the other side. You can get the Life Seed secret down in the water if you want here, just mind the Gillbeasts. In the underwater section near the Fire door, you can wake up the Fish and get out of the water for them to all kill themselves. Due to how the underwater section was made and how water works in Blood, the Fish will swim up the ramp to try to attack you only for them to die. Bomb the Gillbeasts both around the corner and past the Fire door. Then for the Skull door you can use the last of your explosives. Bank them off the left-most wall or just toss them directly at the hitscanners, you have enough health to do either. Kill the Gillbeasts at the exit switch and you're all finished.

Pretty easy map all around. You get a Tommy Gun and a Shotgun at the start so the hitscanners can't really do anything, and past the Eye door you get Remote Detonators which makes none of the other fights in this map a challenge. Gets a nice 1/5.

Well, what do you know? Ice is nice. Shipwrecked is a nice break map that will hook you in on Episode 2's aesthetics. I like the look of Episode 2 more than I do Episode 1. It uses a completely fresh palette of textures and maps generally use more colours in them such as blues, greys, whites and browns. You've also got new monsters in this map. Gillbeasts are definitely the standout. They may be a melee rushdown unit like the Zombies, but they're infinitely more threatening. Not only do they have more health and they make constant loud noises that can disorient you, when they enter the water they zoom around way faster. On Well Done and above they can outswim you in the water. Thankfully, no one on the Monolith level design team thought to put both swimming hitscanners and swimming Gillbeasts in the same place. That would be a horror combination! The best strategy for Gillbeasts is to either lure them out of the water if you can or to backpedal and Shotgun them in the water. The MOUSE2 Shotgun will push them back far enough so they can't melee you. Red Spiders are in this map too. They are a nuisance enemy who can apply a "debuff" to you, which is to swirl your screen around and make it much harder to aim. On NBlood this effect is bugged and it makes your screen go completely apeshit instead. You'll want to crouch down to get closer to their level and either Pitchfork or Aerosol them. They don't have a weakness to fire as far as I can see, but fire is still a great counter to them regardless. The Aerosol Can, the Remote and Proximity Detonators and the Voodoo Doll also get introduced, which add a plethora of much-needed options to your arsenal. Hitscanners are generally much easier to deal with in this episode as Remote Detonators are a good counter to use against them, and the Voodoo Doll is your new weapon for Cheogh, Gargoyles and Gillbeasts. If you know there's a Cheogh in a map (which you can check with the Blood wiki), save your Voodoo for it. Shipwrecked is a chill map that's a good way to start off Episode 2. It's simple, easy and not too complicated.

7.5/10.

[Quacken]

Still going and still waiting for someone to break my dectuple posting streak.

The Lumber Mill
Craig Hubbard

EC Pitchfork:

Spoiler

This is the first time I'm playing a map on NBlood because I think it makes it a little easier. Go left at the start and kill the hitscanners on the crates. Then, get the Butchers and the Gargoyles to infight. This is the main reason I'm playing NBlood, because infighting is much easier to trigger compared to Fresh Supply. If you're on Fresh Supply, you can ignore these monsters and come back a little later when you have more Dynamite. You can let the Butchers and Gargoyles to kill eachother while you're going off and doing other tasks. Remember, staying crouched will make you take much less damage while you're trying to start fights. Don't go towards the outhouses, you want to go up on the palettes here first. Mind the Cultist and bank one or two Dynamite at the room to the right. Get the Super Armor secret here and you're basically already done with the map. There's a lot of shells in this map so you can afford to play much safer by using MOUSE1 Shotgun attacks to clear out big waves. If you're lucky enough to get the Tommy Gun, even better. The only potentially troubling area is the optional area near where the Fire Armor is. Even then, you can charge up a long distance Dynamite or use a MOUSE2 Flare. The other areas in this map can be easily beaten by either banking or throwing dynamite at walls, or using the MOUSE1 Shotgun. The Innocents placed in this map will wake up hitscanners for you so you don't have to step out into danger to fight. For the room with the Doctor's Bag, shoot the window with the Shotgun and then bank a Dynamite off of the Windowsill to clear it out easily. You can then kill the hitscanners by the outhouses through the window where the Skull key is.

Really easy map, you should have no problems beating this if you can beat E2M1. The two hitscanners at the very start can potentially do a lot of damage to you, but it doesn't matter too much if you die at the start. Honestly, the most difficult monsters in this map are probably the Red Spiders. A nice and easy 1/5.

This is another map I don't have much to say about besides the fact that it introduces the Bloated Butcher. Butchers are a pretty interesting monster. They soak up a lot of damage but have a terrible weakness to fire and explosives, so they are easily exploited. Their high health, straight-shooting projectiles and the fact you can whiff their attacks by staying crouched makes them great targets to infight with Gargoyles, Zombies and Hellhounds. This is also a good place to practice your Dynamite aim. One direct hit on a Butcher with Dynamite will instantly kill it, and the window for doing so is much less precise than the same situation for a Gargoyle. I guess the visuals are pretty cool. You can die on the saws past the Skull door, and there's a lot of death traps that have some neat voxel work (and also shouldn't be in a lumber mill). This map's placement in relation with E2M3 makes sense thematically, and I like it. E2M2 is a labour camp where the workers (what were left before the Cabal presumably took over the place) go to process timber, and E2M3 is a resort with a lot of leisure activities for the workers. Wonder if they have company-specific money here for the workers to buy perks with? I'm just brainstorming here. The Lumber Mill is a sleepy and unassuming map with not much to speak about. I at least like the textures for the outhouses.

5/10.

[Merlijn]

Quacken, on 02 July 2023 - 02:55 PM, said:

My opinion on the hitscanners is actually the opposite - I really like fighting Blood hitscanners while I've always disliked Duke 3D's ones. Pig Cops and Enforcers always felt like they were way too bulky, and that's because the Duke 3D weapons are really weak in damage compared to Blood. Having to fight hitscanners one after the other greatly drags out any map's momentum and pacing for me and it's why I always tend to rate maps lower than they probably should. It always takes two shells to kill one Pig Cop no matter how good your positioning is but in Blood (on Well Done at least) you can kill Cultists and Fanatics in one MOUSE2 Shotgun hit. You're using the same amount of ammo to kill a hitscanner but you're doing it in literal centiseconds. There's no waiting around to do Shotgun dances like you have to do in Duke 3D, it's just one hit and you bag someone. Their corpses even slide away so you can keep walking and fighting. But of course the hitscanners are still ludicrously overpowered, so close range fire-fights are still tense. They're overpowered and that's why I like them.

I personally think Blood is my favourite game of the "trinity" (This, Duke 3D and Shadow Warrior) because in spite of the fact it's the most unstable game of the three, it feels a lot more tactical and satisfying to play. Everything's just way faster and you have a lot more options for how to handle groups of monsters such as utilising the environmental hazards or doing tricky Dynamite bank shots.

Late reply but I actually really enjoy the 'pig cop dance' in Duke. The Enforcers can be a lot more annoying but you can always quickly neutralize them with the shrinker or explosives (the OG game gives you plenty of ammo for that). The Blood shotgun is awesome though, no arguments there!

I also love the sound design in Blood, as you mentioned the train has fantastic use of ambient sound. And in 1 of the last maps there are creepy disembodied chants throughout the entire map, like 'The Abbys' on steriods. For episode 1, I really enjoy the first 4 maps. Especially Phantom Express and Dark Carnival, they are great examples of what works really well in the build engine. The last few maps are a bit weaker IMO, the temple setting gets a bit samey after a while and in my memories there are a lot of hidden hitscanners in corners in those maps.

Quote

Cheogh is a big, stupid bullet sponge who you would only ever have enough ammo to properly kill if you brought ammo and guns over from E1M6. He doesn't like Spirit weapons, but you get your first Spirit weapon in Episode 2, so you're stuck with using weapons that Cheogh is resistant to. If you don't have a Spirit weapon, then you can use about 80 shells to kill him on Well Done. There's a way to neutralise any encounter with Cheogh, and it's a pretty infamous way - you just have to stay crouched, and Cheogh will be unable to hurt you.

That's a pretty massive oversight - I didn't know about it until I saw the Civvie11 video's. Judging from his footage it seems like a complete chore to deal with Cheogh as a regular enemy TBH. I'm not a huge fan of bringing back full health bosses as regular enemies, only Doom kinda gets away with it because it has the BFG and an in-fighting mechanic that's easy to manipulate.

[TheDragonLiner]

For the creepy chanting, I suppose you're talking about that Temple Map ? The ante-penultimate level, the one before "In the Flesh".

[Merlijn]

Yes, that's the one. It certainy left an impression, it has been ages since I played the full game but I vividly remember that part. It's just one of the many examples of excellent sound design in the game.

[Quacken]

Hello! Glad to see more activity here. Here's another tip to celebrate, and a bug you should watch out for: When you set enemies on fire (relevant monsters include Zombies, Butchers, hitscanners and Gargoyles) using the Flare Gun, Aerosol Can or Napalm Launcher, or if you use a Hellhound, they will amble around for a while as the fire slowly kills them. This is a pretty iconic feature of the game and it's something everyone in this thread would know. In this state, burning monsters can do small amounts of chip damage to you if you touch them. This is fire damage, so if you have any Fire Armor active then it should only take away from your armor. However, if you don't have armor, it'll damage you instead - and even the small amount of chip damage may cause you to accidentally consume a Life Essence when you don't want to. There's a bug with this mechanic too. Occasionally, a burning enemy will stay in their burning state without actually dying. They can still hurt you in this state by touching you, but they can't be killed by hitscan, the Flare Gun, the Aerosol Can or a Hellhound, and if they fall in water they come back to life (burning monsters can fall in water and extinguish themselves, by the way). You can use explosives to kill them and cause them to drop their items - Proximity Detonators can trigger on burning monsters, so they are a convenient weapon to use for this.

Rest for the Wicked
Kilstrom, Hubbard

EC Pitchfork:

Spoiler

Under normal circumstances, this would be an extremely difficult map with loads of claustrophobic spaces, unfavourable positions to attack from, not a lot of health early on and no armor to help you for a while - but we can use Footstooling to our advantage here. Get the Dynamite and Shaotgun and Pitchfork all but one of the Zombies. Use that one to Footstool up to the hedge and drop a Dynamite on the hitscanners below. Then drop back down on the same side you came up. Move towards where the Remote Detonators are. There's two Gargoyles here, so use them to Footstool into the area with the Cloak. This not only skips having to get the Skull Key, but it also lets you get the Cloak which will help out a lot. Using the Cloak, clean out the swimming pool area using the Shotgun and your Dynamite, which includes the two Cultists near the gas canister. Head back up the ramp where that gas canister was, ignore the Spiders and go down the stairs. Your Cloak should be running out by now, so use the last of it to kill the hitscanners near the Flare Gun. Kill the Butchers nearby before you do anything else, because you'll need some peace and quiet for getting the Moon Key. In the gray room you ran by with the two explosive barrels, there's a window overlooking the jacuzzi where the Moon Key is. Break it and use your Dynamite to kill the hitscanners. If there's only one left, you can Shotgun them too. Moon Key obtained, good! Now you've got a choice to make. Either go straight ahead and fight the hitscanners from the front, or go back to where the Flare Gun was and go around the back way. Taking control of the bath house is the next step, as there's a Tommy Gun and a Voodoo Doll in there.

If you decide to go around the front, bank two Dynamite off of the wall with the Moon door to kill both sets of hitscanners. You'll have to throw two at different charge levels. Shotgun the rest. There's two Fanatics behind both of the corners of the bath house's entrance, so bank your last two Dynamite off of the wall to kill them. If you don't have Dynamite, you're able to backtrack and open the Skull door from behind to pick up five Remote Detonators. Pick up the Aerosol Can in that section too if you haven't already, it's useful for the Spiders and you'll have to lob it at a group of Cultists shortly. If you're coming at the bath house from the back, when you see the line of hitscanners once you come around the corner, fire a MOUSE2 Flare Gun at them. You can then bank Dynamite off of the wall to kill the others. When you've gained control of the bath house, it's time for the Moon door. There's a band of Cultists behind that door, but it's a good time to throw a MOUSE2 Aerosol Can at them. You have a good amount of Basic Armors, so make sure you're at at least 90 health and max armor before you try this. Throw your MOUSE2 Aerosol at the group of Cultists and tank damage if you need to. That'll evaporate nearly all of them, if your aim is good. There's some hitscanners to your right, so chuck another MOUSE2 Flare Gun at them if you have the ammo for it. Otherwise, you can Tommy Gun both of them. When you get the Skull Key, you've got one last room to clear out that's behind you, and that one's free. Press on the shovel near where you found the Flare Gun, which opens a cubby with a statue. Killing the statue gives you an Invincibility, so haul ass over to to where you need to be and use your invulnerability productively. After that you've just got cleanup duty to do. When you've got everything you can exit.

The Footstooling near the start makes this map pretty manageable honestly. It's still easy to mess up, but even if you play a little worse than usual you can get a Life Seed secret. Not to mention, you can always use the Invincibility to clear the Moon door. You can hug the Cultists and blow them up with an up close Dynamite and then rush to clear out the other room with whatever invulnerability you've got left. This gets a 3/5.

This is another good map. The routing on this map is really fun in my opinion, even moreso on higher difficulties. There's a lot of different ways to approach the fights in this map, and there's not really a lot of doors you need to go through to get keys or weapons. You can always break windows or find long ways around that reward your patience with extra armor or ammo. Ironically enough I like this map even more when I'm skipping the Skull Key. Using a Footstool to jump through the window where the Cloak is near the start seems like it's unintentional, but there being two windows at all to jump through makes me also think this was a clever shortcut for speedrunners. There's a lot of cool locations here. I like the jacuzzi a lot, with how it's frozen over initially but then breaks open once you press the button next to it. Jumping off of the diving board and landing in the freezing water will open a nook in the underwater section with a Life Seed in it. That's a cool secret, I hope Xatrix doesn't make that a mandatory thing you have to do in E2L6 in Redneck Rampage Rides Again. (That is a really long name by the way. I wish I could say "Rides Again" or "RRRA" but I don't think enough people know about either of those shorthands for those to be useful.) This map introduces yet another monster, the Green Spider, who is hiding in a secret. These little buggers are deceptively tanky, being able to survive more Pitchfork stabs than a Red Spider, and I swear that they have some kind of resistance to fire because they can swallow a Proximity Detonator while having only 38 HP. The debuff they give you when they hit you results in your vision being briefly darkened, which isn't too bad as the effect lasts for much shorter compared to the Red Spider's. That's their trade-off for being persistent assholes. Rest for the Wicked is a jolly good time. If you were starting to get cocky from E2M1 and E2M2, this map will give you a light reality check.

8/10.

[Quacken]

Hello again! This next map is a ball breaker. Here's another bug, by the way: If you shoot napalm at a Fanatic, launch them out of the water (not to kill them, but to put them in the burning state), but then they fall back in again, they'll turn into a Cultist and they can now Shotgun you. Very spooky!

The Overlooked Hotel
Kilstrom, Hubbard

EC Pitchfork:

Spoiler

I'm on NBlood again as the start becomes easier with the increased chance for infighting. Dynamite the first horde of Zombies. It's a little too crowded in the start to Pitchfork all four of them, but the Dynamite should kill at least two. Pitchfork the rest of the Zombies now that you've got room to move. This first group of hitscanners is tricky as you can't bank a Dynamite off of the hedge. You have to peek around the corner and throw one, risking taking damage, or toss one blind over the other side of the hedge. There's a Gargoyle and two Butchers in the next section. Make one of the Butchers infight with the Gargoyle. While you're crouched, a Butcher's projectiles can connect with a Gargoyle circling around you. Watch out for the Cultist on the right side! For the next triplet of hitscanners, use the lift to get on top of the hedges and drop one Dynamite down on them. Those Gargoyle statues on both sides will wake up, so try to get both of them to target the other Butcher. If you can't, that's okay. There's six Zombies that show up just ahead, and you can get the Gargoyle to attack one of those. Now you're finally at the front door. Wake up the two hitscanners on the roof and lure them over, closer to where you are to MOUSE2 Shotgun them. You could also try MOUSE1 Shotgunning them from further away. There's a ton of Zombies in this section - so many that it's hard to crawl under all of them without getting hurt, especially if you get stuck in that little niche with the Dynamite crate. Rather than Pitchforking all of them or using your Dynamite, wake up all of the Gargoyle statues, open the front doors to the hotel and start an infighting party. If you get lucky enough, some of the Cultists inside can throw their dynamite out into the horde to thin it out. Some of the Cultists themselves will also be drawn out into the courtyard, but that's fine. You can crouch behind the Zombie horde and the Cultists will usually hit the Zombies, get cornered on the crack in the middle of the courtyard and die. When the coast inside the lobby looks clear, brace yourself because you're going to have a heart attack. Run inside, close the doors to lock out all of the Zombies and Gargoyles, then run for the left hallway. Hopefully you're not dead!

Make another left and go down the stairs. At the far end of the wall is a Cultist. Throw a long distance Dynamite at them to kill them. You can kill the Gargoyle here too. Go around the other staircase, and crouch down so the Fanatics up the top don't see you. Throw another Dynamite at them from below, and Shotgun the rest who live. Now you can go across and jump through a fake wall on the other side of this room through a fake wall to get some shells, which will be very useful soon enough. Now go up the stairs. There's a grandfather clock at the end of the hall, and opening the grandfather clock and the wall behind it leads you to the secret passage that circles around the hotel. There's a lot of monsters here, including four Zombies and three Phantasms, plus some Spiders near your destination. Crawl through this entire section and Pitchfork the Spiders you see. You want to locate the Cloak secret. Behind the door with the Cloak secret there's some hitscanners, so make sure you've killed the Spiders as they'll block you while you're still crawling. When you get the Cloak and the other items in this area, jump through the hole in the wall and you're in the library now. You don't have time to waste. Use your Cloak to clear out the library's hitscanners (ignore the Phantasms) then out of the library turn left and MOUSE2 Shotgun every white-eyed freak you see. If you're fast enough, you should have all of the hitscanners in the main loop of the map dead, besides the dining room area and the area with Cheogh. Hopefully you got a Tommy Gun on your killing spree, so use that to gun down the hitscanners near the fireplace. Otherwise, use a Dynamite. For the other group of Cultists near the Cheogh arena, you can throw Dynamite at them from above. Alright, now you're essentially on cleanup duty. All of the hard parts of the map are over and done with, the rest of this map is about managing your shells and bullets so you can kill all of the Phantasms. Remember where all of the hitscanners are behind all of the locked doors, because you can bank Dynamite and Remote Detonators off of the walls to kill them.

Getting the keys is no challenge at all, and a lot of the hitscanners from here on are placed in small rooms that are easy to bomb with Dynamite. Cheogh is similarly a pushover if you have the Voodoo Doll from near the dining room. Just crouch down and poke him until he's dead. Cheogh's not that hard to kill past Episode 1. In every map he appears in there is always either a Voodoo Doll or a Tesla Cannon somewhere else in the map that you can use, and Spirit weapons mop him up really fast. The challenge is getting to those weapons in the first place. The harder monsters to kill are the Phantasms due to the fact that all of them require 10 shells to kill. Make sure to get all of the tomes and find the secret exit!

The start of this map is very time consuming. On Fresh Supply it's even harder as you can't really get things to reliably infight, so you have a bunch of Gargoyles following you and two Butchers that will get lost in the hedge maze. After you get the Cloak things should settle down, but you can still get a lot of nerves and might mess up a section, causing you to have to reload a previous save. Just stay calm throughout the entire map and don't feel like you have to rush things. It's no doubt a hard and complicated map, but it's very doable. Gets a 4/5.

What a map! This is a great dungeon crawling map with lots to do, see and fight. It has 190 kills in it on Extra Crispy and 170 on Well Done, so it has a higher than average kill count. I like the MIDI for this map. It's very menacing-sounding to me. I think it fits better for E3M5 rather than this map, because there's a lot of machinery in that map that can kill you quick, and this sort of sounds like a dark and dangerous factory tune. This map introduces the final monsters of Episode 2 before you meet Shial. Phantasms, or as I call them the Traffic Light Ghosts, are bullies similar to Cheogh, but they have a different way of doing it. Phantasms are invulnerable to all damage while they are moving. You can only hurt them while they are attacking. The best strategy for a Traffic Light Ghost is to stop while they're moving, let them come to you, then go and shoot them with your Shotgun when they go to do their melee attack. Their melee attack hurts like hell, but it has a wind up and can be danced around similar to how you dance around a Pinky Demon or a Revenant's melee attack. And like Revenants, they make annoying noises that disorient you. If you manage to shoot them with the Tommy Gun while they're performing a ranged attack, you can lock them into repeatedly using their ranged attack and you can barrel them over with the Tommy Gun overtime. 8 shells will kill one of them on Well Done, but on Extra Crispy you need 10.

Choking Hands are the final nuisance enemy and can drown in a river. Unlike the other nuisance enemies they can survive water. You'll have to deal with a swimming Choking Hand once in this game and it's still hell every time. Choking Hands will latch onto you and slowly drain your health. You mash the use key to throw them away. I think there's another bug with NBlood relating to these guys, on Extra Crispy you have to mash the use key much more to remove them (to the point where it's sometimes basically impossible, so a Hand grabbing you is just death). The Aerosol Can is a good counter if you want to stay safe, but the Pitchfork is another good option. To find the secret exit in this map, you need to go on a scavenger hunt to uncover five different Tomes, which form a star in the Cheogh arena that teleports you to the door with the secret map. They're not really hard to find at all. You'll get all of them by finding all of the secrets, and if you're stuck you could always look at the wiki. The Overlook Hotel is certainly not a map for everyone, but I respect its non-linearity, length and the amount of different fights it tries, and it's one of the most visually striking maps in Episode 2.

9/10.

[NNC]

I agree with Merlijn about the cultists. And they are so frequent in episode 1, it's a harder episode than the later ones for all the wrong reasons. I also don't like their voice. The language created for them is amazing, but their voice is too harsh, and high pitched.

Several other factors include the blurred, brownish palette, the weird texture choices (the train for example), and the somewhat unremarkable level designs. Honestly, I can't even tell the difference between the styles of Hubbard and Wilson. The maps are too flat, and the difference between outdoors and indoors (in scale and shading) is too small. The best maps are Dark Carnival and Overlooked Hotel IMHO.

The game has some genuinely great weapon selections, and some great enemy types, but too many things drag this down to me, sorry.

[Quacken]

I personally like Blood's palette and art direction, I love the emphasis on de-saturated colours (particularly greens and the reds on wall and floor textures) and the monsters are distinct and recognisable from each other, even if while in coloured lighting the hitscanners and Red and Green Spiders would be hard to tell from each other. There's probably a little too much gray and black I will admit, but I don't think Blood is meant to be a colourful game like how Duke 3D or Shadow Warrior are. You go to four vaguely European-inspired episodes (Episode 2 and 3 especially) where there's never sunlight out and your main character is a brutal serial killer who, among other things, eats and sets his victims on fire. Duke and Lo Wang are almost cartoon characters in comparison to Caleb, and just as I think Duke and Lo Wang's characters fit their aesthetics, colour palettes and worlds perfectly, Caleb blends in with his world incredibly well. The walls are gloomy and dark. It's only once he paints them with blood and guts does the world become brighter, as the blood colours are a very bright red. There's sort of a metaphorical meaning in that. I completely understand if it's not your taste though, and I can see where the issues arise with maps being too flat. I don't mind it too much though.

[Quacken]

We've got another interesting map today. I hope you like swimming!

Thin Ice
James Wilson

EC Pitchfork:

Spoiler

I played this map on NBlood and found another bug which I can't currently confirm works on Fresh Supply, but it would make the map easier. Get the supplies behind you and then stand at the edge of the cave to wake up the hitscanners. You want them to fall in the water so you can kill them at the very end. When everyone's fallen in the water, drop down to the ice below and jump for the ice with the Flare Gun on it. Stay on the water's surface to not wake up the hitscanners. At the other side, you can MOUSE1 Flare Gun the Cultists to the left that for whatever reason may not have fallen in the water. Use a combination of infighting and Dynamite to kill the horde of Zombies and Butchers. Blow up the wall when you're done and keep going. Ignore the Fish for now and surface to the right. This section has some Fanatics up on the cliff. Use Remote Detonators to kill them. They can survive the fall if they drop behind though, so beware of that. You've got the Napalm Launcher now, but this map's not going to be easy from now on. When you drop back in the water, you'll land in the middle of five Gillbeasts. These Gillbeasts are very dangerous. They can easily encircle you and bite you to death, and they can just as easily corner you. Thankfully, I accidentally stumbled upon a bug that will neutralise them. As you enter the water, jump in the direction where the opening is to take you to the next area. The Gillbeasts will follow after you, but if you surface than all of the Gillbeasts in the circular area will die. I can't really tell why this happens, but I have a feeling it's probably due to them being crushed by some kind of Build jank. Or they just hit their heads really hard on the rocks.

Surface in this section and use two napalm on the hitscanners here. One for the wave of Fanatics and another for the Cultists around the left corner. You can either Dynamite or Napalm the Gargoyles, just make sure you have about 12 leftover. You need 12 because for the campfire of Cultists ahead, bank a MOUSE2 napalm off of the wall (or peek-a-boo shoot it) to kill everything here. When you ride up the lift, a group of Zombies will rise out of the floor, and they might force you into the sights of three Fanatics. You can get around this by tossing one or two Dynamite up there to blow them out of the ground. Use a Napalm on the Fanatics around the corner. Use one flare to blow up the explosive barrels and continue on your way. With your extra Napalm, you can blow up the Fanatics near the Guns Akimbo. Get the Jump Boots and platform over to the Life Seed. Those Gargoyles you wake up will likely fly into the water and die. Then, at the tunnel where there's a ton of enemies, bank a MOUSE2 Napalm off of the wall to kill all of them. The final monster before the exit door is a Cheogh, and you have two Voodoo Dolls in this map so he's no challenge at all. The last thing you need to do in this map is the cleanup duty. You should have about 3 napalm left after the MOUSE2 shot, so fire that in the water to kill some of the hitscanners easily. You can also use the Voodoo Dolls to snipe them.

This could be a challenging map, but you get the Napalm Launcher pretty early on so it can't be that bad. Just be good with banking explosives (which you should be) and you'll be okay. It's mainly due to the Gillbeast ambush I'm giving this a 3/5.

This is a map that I could give or take. I really only remember this map for the flowing ice, the cracks in the floor and the fact that you get a Napalm Launcher here. If you're playing on single segment then this is where your Episode 2 run becomes a joke. You'll have built up like 70 napalm over the course of four maps, so you can use napalm to get past all of the hard parts. The swimming in this game can feel a little bit janky, which is something I've failed to mention before. Sometimes you'll be stuck in a situation where you can't get any height as you're trying to surface and you'll be stuck at the foot of a ledge you can easily clear like a child who can't get out of the water in a water park. That's pretty bad for this map, because you don't want to swim in the first section and you might have to submerge just to clear the first ledge and take damage. I do like how you can seamlessly move through the water though instead of getting that weird jittering effect in the other Build games, and you can shoot monsters out of the water and back onto dry land. This map's pretty glitchy honestly. There's the Gillbeast bug I mentioned, but on a previous attempt on NBlood some of the Fish just decided to not live anymore even though they were nowhere near close to being out of the water. I think it might be a bug with the room over room in this map? I wouldn't know. This map can also do some funny stuff with the AI - if a monster is chasing another monster but they fall into the water near the Napalm Launcher, they'll start running at the wall trying to get to them as that's where the water sector is placed on the map. Thin Ice is pretty unengaging to me. I like that there's flowing ice and it's more of a frozen peak, but that's about it.

5/10.

[TheDragonLiner]

I like swimming. Swimming is underdone in FPS.
I want Ecco back T_T

While I'm at it, I can't participate because I can't be arsed playing the game, and I'm struggling too hard getting Death Wish to work with GDX, however I think I'll give my overall opinions and ranking on the episodes ^^
All based on memory though, so I can make mistakes >_>


Ep1 : What I like the most about Ep1 is the variety. Morgue/Cemetery, Station, Train, Carnival and Temple. And since I'm a sucker for originality, the Carnival levels fall into that category. Up until the penultimate level, the environnements are good and ambiance too, especially when using CD Soundtrack.
My favorite levels would be the Morgue level, the Train, the First Carnival and the First Temple. For they all have the most memorable levels of the episode IMO. The bigger landmarks and the better ambiances. Especially the first Temple level with its chanting and the demonic voice telling you stuff on 2 occasions.
Second Temple level is where the episode is falling IMO. I don't like that level much. Design feels kinda empty IMO. I like the part above the clouds and a few select rooms but that's pretty much it :/ And Final Level is just an arena so given the reduced scale, I'm not counting it in the negatives. Secret Level I do count because, while it's got good ambiance and original ideas, design and aesthetics could have been better. Not by much but still in comparisson.

Gameplay, I understand where people are coming when saying the game's very hard. I find the Beginning to be especially hard since you've got only the Flare Gun and Dynamites against many well armed Cultists. But I'd say that once you've reached the Train level, it's becomming more ballanced. The only problem left being ambushes and encounters that will ruin your day if not prepared correctly. Special mentions to Train's Tail Room, Jo-Jo's Area, Second Half of the Corridors in Secret Level, Courtyard and Mirror Orb Room in Temple, and a room or two in Second Temple.


For the ranking, I know it will be striving for 2nd or 1st place. I might tackle the Add-ons seperately. (not grouped with the mains).

[Quacken]

I can quickly spit this map out because it's really easy.

The Haunting
Wilson, Kilstrom

EC Pitchfork:

Spoiler

As soon as you step out of the entrance there'll be a Cheogh waiting to jump you. Crawl around to avoid taking damage. You will have to stop crawling to go up stairs though, so make sure to not forget about that. The hedge maze is easy if you know where to go. There's no Spiders here so nothing can block you from crawling around. Get the super secret with the Voodoo Doll in the maze if you want, you can kill Cheogh immediately. Or don't, there's a non-secret Voodoo Doll you can get to immediately. There's a Phantasm behind the front door, so you'll want to lure them out and then close the door behind you to block anything from coming in. There's a bug in this map where the Phantasm can get stuck in the courtyard and not come down, preventing you from getting 100% kills, but it's a rare bug so you shouldn't really worry about it. If it does happen, I give you permission to leave with 149 kills. That's basically the entire map. This is one of a few maps in Blood to not contain any hitscanners, so you can dodge and crawl under anything to not take too much damage. The hardest fight is probably the basement past the Eye door. There's a lot of Zombies and Butchers here, but you have lots of explosives and Aerosol at this point so it should be no trouble at all. Even the other two Cheoghs in this map can all just barely be killed if you don't use your Voodoo Doll for anything else. You just Dynamite or Shotgun the other Gargoyles or get them to infight.

This is the easiest map in the game. Even on E1M7 you might die from the Fanatics, but in here there is absolutely no reason you should be dying in this map as nothing can kill you if you're crawling around. You just have to be competent with managing shells and good at mashing E to remove Hands. This gets a 1/5.

Oh, jeez. I hope you like the automap, because it definitely likes you. The Haunting is a big silly pile of shit that tasks you with running through a mansion back and forth to get keys in a bunch of rooms that all look the same. This is like a Tom Hall Doom map but Sandy Petersen wasn't texturing it or adding monsters. Visually it's essentially just E2M4 but it's less varied, has a more claustrophobic hedge maze, a much more boring-looking library and has a cube of water you can use to lure the Gargoyles into death. This is about the only map in the game I truly dislike. At least E1M7 is shorter and has good voice acting, but this is a key hunt that has CBLOOD7 playing over it. Basically any time CBLOOD7 plays from this point onward, I don't like it. It works well for E1M7 but the other maps it plays on are just too long or have really long and open spaces that aren't climactic. Want a really inconvenient way to crash the game? You can lead a monster into the teleport trigger for the Super Secret and then push them into the teleporter that ordinarily takes you back to the main map with a MOUSE2 Shotgun which crashes the game. It works on DOS but it was probably patched for the source ports. This map is bad and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

2/10.

[TheDragonLiner]

Ep 2 : Now this, at first glance I would put it in last place (out of 4) due to the levels looking alike, but upon remembering more, it's a bit more difficult. What I like the most about this episode, it's the ambiance of the interiors. I'm not really satisfied with the first 2 levels, and especially the Secret one, due to the samy aesthetics despite their differences. Namely, 1st level only has the Boat as a set-piece, 2nd only has the Wood and Meat plants, and the Secret is nothing but ice everywhere and a few caves.
I'm a lost more satisfied with the OverLooked Hotel, and The Haunting, which have the more memorable moments of the episode, especially The Haunting. As for the level before the Mine Level, it's kinda forgettable. Mine Level is lacking in aesthetics IMO, though the huge WaterFall room and the Bridge are remarkable. And ending temple too. As for the Boss, it's a worse boss than the Gargoyle, that is when you have your weapons from previous levels of course.


Regarding gameplay, I'm guessing it's more ballanced though not by much. Beginning is still the hardest part due to limited ammo types and many Cultists. But unlike Ep1, here it's just a matter of getting passed Lv1. From level 2 onwards, you're already good. Only problem being a few Cultist encounters, especially the ones in the Mines. But overall not as bad as in Ep1, I'm guessing bigger enemy variety helps.
Biggest showstopper IMO being the Stone Gargoyle in the Hotel, and then pretty much most of the encounters with the Ghosts due to their mechanic, and kinda faulty AI when you're not at the same height as them.


So yeah, I'm mittigated about this episode. I think it will be striving for 3rd or 4th place. Will depend on how I appreciate Ep3.

[Quacken]

I love short filler!

The Cold Rush
James Wilson

EC Pitchfork:

Spoiler

Double click the Fanatics on the left as you step out of the exit. There's two of them up on that platform. Then go straight ahead. Don't go left, as you can kill the hitscanners there with a much better vantage point later on. Access the Life Seed secret on the mountain tops and jump across. This frozen chasm has a lot of Gargoyles and Zombies. You can stay on the Life Seed secret and wait for all of the Zombies to fall down to their deaths, but for the Gargoyles you'll need to return to the starting area to safely Dynamite them. The hitscanners near the Skull Key can be a huge bother. Some of them might fall into the pit, but most of them won't. Where you kill the Fanatic on the ledge you're standing down, crouch down and you'll wake up another Fanatic from into the cave. Shoot them twice with the MOUSE1 Flare Gun. Move across the ledge and you'll wake up the other hitscanners, so try to line them up and then shoot a MOUSE2 Flare Gun. You might have a few more hitscanners wake up when you try to get the Skull Key, so Shotgun all of them. Go up the ledge now and kill the Cultist here. So long as you take it slow, you can Dynamite or double click every hitscanner near the Skull doors with the Flare Gun. When you make it inside the Skull building, the map's now over. There's only one Cultist inside the building and you can toss Dynamite up towards the ledge from outside to kill the other hitscanners outside the door upstairs.

Short, easy and you get plenty of ammo. The hardest part about this map is not falling down the pit in the middle. Caleb's air controls aren't really the best, and the jumps to and from the Life Seed secret are pretty tricky. Still though, a 1/5.

I don't know why I like this map but I do. It just feels very cozy to me, especially once you get inside the cabin. There's also the frozen Fanatic in the main body of water and the icy stalactites dripping from the ceilings. The sound design in this map is pretty good. There's a rush of wind that comes around while you're at the frozen canyon. This is probably the spot I think about when I think about bottomless pits in Build games. It's fun to lead monsters down into the pit for them to die, or to push them in there with the Pitchfork or Shotgun. I wish there was a Super Secret you could have gotten by falling down the canyon at a specific area. You'd survive by falling into water and then getting lots of good items. Maybe you don't really need to though, because this map is already really easy. It's a break map with even less monsters than E2M1 and not a lot of those monsters are hitscanners, so you're able to generally conserve a lot of health. The Cold Rush is a pretty simple break map, but it's short, and it happens to have an entertaining attraction that allows it to stick out from The Haunting.

7.5/10.

[Quacken]

Let's do a double feature! E2M7 is short and easy and E2M8 is the boss map.

Bowels of the Earth
James Wilson

EC Pitchfork:

Spoiler

Walk off of the ledge at the start instead of jumping off of it, just so you will take less fall damage. Pitchfork the first four Zombies. Then, use your Shotgun and Pitchfork to carve through the ambush. Keep about 25 shells leftover just in case you need them. For the minecart, crouch down and flip the lever. The minecart will keep you hidden from the Fanatics up ahead while you're crouched down. That being said, you can let go of crouch for split seconds to wake up the Fanatics. They'll walk off the ledges. You could also alternatively fire two MOUSE2 Flare Guns at each of the ledges, which will do the job well. You've got a good health stack from the Zombies in the previous section so you don't need to worry. When the minecart stops, stay crouched and lob a Dynamite over the rock to damage the Cultists behind it. You might even kill all three of them like I did. The wall in front of you blows open so jump across, and Pitchfork the Spiders on the other side. The next kind of difficult section is where the next hitscanners are. You can wake up the Cultists on the right and wait for them to come to the ledge, at which point you can start dropping Dynamite on their heads. When everyone's dead, mind the two Fanatics on the left. If you took damage, you can get the two Life Essences near the crushers. You'll need a good bit of health to survive the mandatory fall damage to get to the switch which activates the crushers. If you're observant, while you're on the bridge to get to the crushers, jump up and you'll spot Fanatics in the darkness. They'll wake up and all fall to their deaths. When you get the Jump Boots and activate the switch, you'll be at a point where none of the other fights in the map will be any trouble. Just know where the hitscanners are and you can either lure them around corners to MOUSE2 Shotgun them, or you can donk them with the Napalm Launcher.

Easy map. If you can beat the rest of Episode 2 then this map will be no trouble at all. All of the hitscanners are either easy to lure and kill with the Shotgun or Dynamite, are able to be manipulated into dying from fall damage, or are grouped together for easy multi kills with the Napalm Launcher. As long as you have a little patience and know to crouch down while you're in the minecart, you'll be fine. 1/5.

Well, I can see where Cultic got its mineshaft maps. Bowels of the Earth is fine, I suppose? It uses E2M1's MIDI again, in the same episode no less, and I think it fits E2M1 better than this map. And it works better for E4M4, for that matter. I think if E2M1 had the MIDI from E3M1 then it would have been less of a music fatigue. This map eschews the snowy tundras of Episode 2 to shove you into a gray cave with a bunch of wood and vague things that look like mining equipment. I like this map's sense of scale, but I think CP08 both looks better (for the most part anyway) and it feels much more like a mineshaft. I do like the sound effect of dangling bridges, though. The map cracking beneath your feet makes good use of warping sectors, and this is technically the first use of lava in Blood. You'll die from fall damage long before you catch fire, but still. The speedrun for this map in the current any% world record looks very funny. You use Jump Boots to (ironically enough) not die from the fall damage at the first lava pit, then use a Dynamite to boost yourself through a wall and end up near the Guns Akimbo ledge near the end of the map. Speedruns for this game have introduced me to Dynamite jumping and it's incredible. It's admittedly not very useful in Extra Crispy or Well Done though, usually you won't have enough health or Fire armor to survive hurting yourself with Dynamite multiple times in a row, but you could do it, and if you're skilled enough it would be handy for E3M1. Bowels of the Earth is about average. That's feeling like kind of James Wilson's motto - usually pretty fun but never very fun.

5.5/10.

The Lair of Shial
James Wilson

EC Pitchfork:

Spoiler

Hi, Shial! Shial is an interesting boss fight. Like Cheogh, there's two of her in this map. Unlike Cheogh, you only need to kill one Shial to exit the map. Move around the right side and Pitchfork the Spiders. Then, as you approach Shial, inch around either side so that you only wake up one Shial. Lure her out into the staircases. Once again, there isn't enough ammo in the map to kill Shial. You'll have to Pitchfork her. But the Spiders she spawns makes it so you can't simply crouch down and Pitchfork her, as the Spiders will get in your way. Luring Shial into the water won't work either. She can swim in water, and while she's underwater she can spawn Spiders that also start swimming. There's a way to make Shial a non-issue, but the question is how. The answer relies on exploiting a quirk of Shial. Shial, much like how a Pain Elemental has a Lost Soul limit (a PE can only create Lost Souls while there are 21 or less alive in a map), Shial has a Spider limit. If she spawns enough Spiders, then she stops spawning more of them. Okay, so now what? You could certainly try and jump around Shial to Pitchfork her to death after using all of your ammo. That works, but it's a little too risky with all of those Spiders. There's a better way. For whatever reason, at the highest point in the staircase (where it becomes a ledge to drop back down to the map's start), the height difference between this stair and the one before it makes it so Shial can climb over it but her Spiders can't. Thus, the answer is this: First, wake up one of the Shials. Then, get her to spawn Spiders until she reaches her Spider limit. After that, lure her all the way up the staircase, to the highest point until you're both at the ledge to drop down. Shial doesn't have a melee attack, so she's defenceless. Pitchfork her to death and claim victory!

Gets a 1/5 if you know the way. Otherwise this map is genuinely pretty hard if you want to fight Shial "fair".

Hi, She-Bitch! I find this map notable for both introducing Shial and its highly graphic ending cutscene. Shial is actually just a Pain Elemental with three times as much health. I made the point about fighting Phantasms feeling kind of like going boxing with a Revenant but Shial is just a Pain Elemental. She spits Spiders, can't fly (but you can sure make her try if you shoot Napalm at her), survives in water and is as flat as a pancake, making using the Voodoo Doll generally not an option. This is the asterisk I put on Red and Green Spiders sometimes being able to survive water. If Shial creates them while she is in a body of water, then the Spiders that come out will be able to swim. If they get launched out of the water by you and then re-enter the water, they die again. The Tesla Cannon works very well in Episode 3 and beyond, but if you're playing Episode 2 in single segment you'll have like 80 Napalm, so use that instead. If you need a quick break from her minions, a MOUSE2 Aerosol will offer temporary reprieve. I think this map's cutscene is probably my favourite one in the game. I like E4M8 intro's dialogue more and E1M1's intro is iconic, but this one is shot so much better compared to both of them. You get up close shots of Caleb, Gabriel's cocooned body has a surprising amount of detail, the music's creepy, everything's a black void beyond the spider webs, I like the janky hat adjustment Caleb does as he inspects Gabriel, and the shot of Caleb pulling out Gabriel's heart to consume it, with his entrails spilling out, is still pretty sickening even for 1997 CGI. The only real issue I have is Shial is way smaller here than she is in game. And I know it's her because her body is all black. I'll talk more about the cutscenes if we get to E4M8. Lair of Shial is a better boss map than Altar of Stone by default, as you're not fighting Cheogh.

7/10.

[TheDragonLiner]

Ep3 : After remembering, i think this episode will be placed above Ep2. I find more memorable moments in Ep3 than 2. Firstly, a bit more diversity than in 2. The outside environnements are more detailedand more interesting to go through. However the inside places are kinda more baren and less inviting than in Ep2. First 2 levels are memorable for the exploding buildings, the Monolith Logo, the encounter in the room with the many Cultists all the while having Mirror Orb activated, the fights in the Restaurant then in the Bank's Vault ...
The first 2 levels are the best IMO. Sewer level is the worst, though I like the ending room. Hospital is good, as good as the first 2. Secret Level I don't like. Kinda baren rooms IMO. Feels like some Doom levels. Spare Parts I like. Though it's not visually diverse, the rooms are distinct from each other and have many specific and interesting design ideas. Penultimate level I don't like. I don't like the progression. While I like the idea of the early section, I don't like the progression.
Final Level is probably the better boss in the game alongside the FInal Boss, simply because there's actual difficulty. In the sense that there's very little ways to abuse the AI without it being cheesy. No CIrcle Strafing namely. Though the Tesla Gun's Alt-Fire kinda cheeses part of the fight >_> Anyway, SKILL.

In gameplay, I find that episode to potentially be the most ballanced one of the bunch. First level can be rough, especialyl once the Cultists have invaded the town, but once that's done, and if you found some secret weapons, you're good to go. And I don't recall many cheap encounters. I recall good ones actually, even in the Barrage level I don't like, and some satisfying Invulnerabilty use in the Secret Level.


Overall I like this episode better than 2, simply because the pros and cons are more ballanced in the favor of pros than Ep2 where it's more even. I'll still prefer Ep1 for better ambiances and diversity, but I like Ep3 for its own diversity, despite lacking in ambiance IMO. Don't like the Air Raid Siren either >_<

[Quacken]

We're painting the town red today.

Ghost Town
James Wilson

EC Pitchfork:

Spoiler

Go and get the Spider Key first. Bank your one Dynamite on the right side of the wall past the door and Shotgun the Fanatic on the other side. The first Hellhound is no trouble at all, just MOUSE2 Shotgun it four times to kill it. Keep 20 Shells for the two Phantasms coming up, one of which holds the Moon key. Get the secret Life Seed here. This is where your path can diverge a little. If you know how to Dynamite jump (or don't mind making a save to learn how to do it), then step outside at ground level. See that window and the cracked wall right in front of it? You see that other building nearby that has the texture with the windows? Adjacent from the door where you got the Skull Key, three windows up and three windows from the left, you can use one bullet to shoot a window behind a fake wall. Then, Dynamite jump into the room with the Tommy Gun, the Remote Detonators and the Choking Hands. Get all the items here and then fall down on the gray sidewalk (don't jump out, as you'll take fall damage then). Don't wait around here as the Innocents also in this room can open the door and wake up the Cultist and the Zombies. Then, use two Remote Detonators at the staircase near where the door to the Fire Key is. If you don't want to Dynamite jump (or maybe you don't have enough health or armor for it, then you can use an Aerosol Can and a Dynamite here too. Now that you've got the Fire Key, get the Reflective Shots and clear out the hotel lobby. Watch out for the Cultist dynamite, you can still be hurt by that. Then get the secret Cloak and clean the rest of the hitscanners in this area, as well as the other two Hellhounds. You're done with the map now, there's no more hitscanners and the secret Napalm Launcher clears out the other random monsters.

This map can be a little difficult if you're not paying attention, but as long as you remember that Cultists spawn outside and can see you where you jump out of the wall once you get the Moon Key, it's pretty easy. 2/5.

We're onto Episode 3 now! I'm pretty sure this is meant to be France. This episode's aesthetics are kind of at odds with itself. I really like how E3M1 looks. There's a lot of Innocents shambling around and most of them are holed up in buildings and taken as hostages by the Cabal. The themes presented in these two maps (and also E3M4) make this a pretty obvious allegory to Nazi Germany's occupation of France, but if this game takes place in 1928 then I don't know why there's fighter planes. I only really have two hypotheses for how this episode exists: Option A is that this episode is still in 1928 and you just have to accept the fact that the Blitzkrieg battles happened 12 years earlier than they should, or Option B, that the episodes have several year breaks in between them and Episode 3 takes place in 1940. But if that were the case, Caleb would be 93 years old by the time he makes it to Episode 3. Maybe killing people extends his lifespan? To move away from the logistical sense this episode poses, I really like the MIDI. It's like E2M1's MIDI but it feels a lot more desolate, with the depressing chimes and bells being very apparent. I wish this MIDI was used for more maps besides E3M1 and CP01. Could we not have used this as the MIDI for E4M3 instead of goddamn CBLOOD7 again? There's a new monster in this map, and it's actually the final monster to be introduced besides Tchernobog and Cerberus, on Well Done and below anyway. The Hellhound is a bad dog with an even worse breath. They're fast, resistant to fire, have a low profile which you can't crouch under and their afterburn damage they can get on you is brutal. However, they're very useful to set up infights with. They'll carve up hordes of Butchers, Zombies and Gargoyles for you if you can bait them into using their fire attack. They'll go down in 6 or 8 shells depending on your difficulty, but the Spirit weapons are probably the best things you should be using. E3M1 is a good opening map with some interesting routing for Extra Crispy, and some better atmosphere and aesthetics.

8/10.