Blood in Other Media

From Blood Wiki
Jump to navigationJump to search

This is a list and index of outside media that have references to Blood or characters from that universe, or those that contain content similar to Blood.

References[edit]

Shogo reference
Grim Pray screamshot
Cabadath fan art
Caleb Jack-O-Lantern
JoJo the Idiot Circus Boy Easter Egg reference in Postal REDUX
Half-Rats screamshot
  • The Korean manhwa Priest is almost certainly inspired by Blood as it features an extremely Caleb like anti-hero protagonist and a supernatural dominated old west setting. The series creator Hyung Min-woo has gone as far as stating that the game and his comic are "inseparably related."
  • Another indie first-person shooter, Dread Templar (formerly Hell Hunt), is also inspired by Blood among other games such as the first Quake and non-shooters such as Bloodborne. Creator Johnny Blanchard remarked: "Another one is Blood, which I actually didn't like at all when I was a kid, even ranked it as one of my most hated FPS. But strangely enough, when I replayed Blood a few years ago I was totally hooked. Compared to other boomer shooters, Blood's level design is particularly fascinating to me, and DT is really inspired by Blood in level design."
  • Infra Arcana, a free roguelike created by Martin Törnqvist, borrows heavily from Blood's entourage and gameplay, including cultists and their signature curses, self-reanimating zombies, tommy guns and dynamite (complete with agonized screaming of its unfortunate victims). The general feel of this game is reminiscent enough to consider Infra Arcana almost a roguelike version of Blood. The game also features quite a few references to Lovecraftian fiction, further establishing the resemblance.
  • A recent original Half-Life modification called Half-Rats: Parasomnia makes an obvious nod to the aesthetics of Blood by offering a stylish Western horror setting of the 1800s. Half-Rats is actually a series of mods with independent stories focusing on the same character, who finds himself in all sorts of trouble usually involving the undead, madness and infernal entities. The main hero wears a black hat and a trenchcoat, and is often observed making intelligent, but cynical remarks, which clearly betray inspiration by the signature attributes of Caleb. In Parasomnia, there is a carnival level, although the player encounters highly aggressive clowns instead of the placid, passive mimes from Blood. The mod features an inventory system, with the player being able to find and buy restoratives (food) and ammo via vending interface. The weapons include a revolver, a carbine rifle, a sawn-off and even a gatling gun. Light is a limited resource represented by a lamp recharged with fuel. There are a few puzzles and boss battles along the way. A mid-game boss has a deep voice similar to The Voice/Tchernobog, albeit the conversation between him and the protagonist is more elaborate and humorous compared to the cutscenes in Blood.

Possibles[edit]

Fighting off Zombies in Eternal Damnation using an Aerosol Can
  • The video game Duke Nukem Forever features a number of lines that are similar to those in the Blood series, such as "time to paint the town red", "another day, another disembowelment", "rainin' blood, baby", and the Army of Darkness quote "good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun". The quip "when you get to hell, tell 'em Duke sent ya" is particularly curious as the taunt "when you get to hell tell 'em I sent ya, you'll get a group discount" was an original for Blood II submitted by Glen Maydom in a fan one-liner contest. The voicemails scattered throughout the game are also similar to the phone gags from Blood II. As another sequel to a Build engine title, opinions were similarly divided as with Blood II - only Blood II had notably higher scores on average and has been commonly described as rushed out, something Forever certainly was not, even if the gold version did feature notable cuts restored by the Duke Nukem Forever: Enhanced mod.
  • OpenArena, a free software arena first-person shooter game built on the ioquake3 engine, contains many Blood-like bots such as gargoyles and spiders (and a cultist-like bot called an "Assassin"). Also one of the original OpenArena developers has a user page on DeathMask (with the comment "Gargoyles are cute"). It is possible that these connections to Blood were deliberate. It is also worthwhile to note that the Q3 BloodBath maps and the Caleb Quake III bot/model both work in OpenArena.
  • The Marvel Comics character Shiver Man was once a man named Caleb Jackson who lived in the Wild West and killed armed men who had hidden in a church, because he was seeking revenge against them for killing his wife. During the fight, Caleb accidentally gunned down a priest in the crossfire just before he finished putting a curse on Caleb, stating that when Caleb died himself soon after, he would walk the Earth forever as some kind of restless undead creature for bringing violence into his church. Shiver Man's first appearance was in Wolverine #163 in June 2001, four years after Blood was released, while his true name was revealed in Astonishing Tales: Shiver Man #1 released in April 2009.
  • They Hunger, a notorious horror mod for the original Half-Life released in three parts during the advent of the 2000s, is very similar stylistically to Blood. The story revolves around anonymous writer who visits a quiet, secluded town in hopes of getting some inspiration from the local environment. Instead he finds the place forlorn, defiled and completely overrun by a horde of its former residents, now infected and zombified. This mod strays far from the "metal military bunkers" style of early first-person shooters, in favour of plunging the player into an oppressive atmosphere of hopelessness and constant, yet uncertain fear. Locations include a swamp, occult Stonehenge-like site, mausoleum, catacombs, countryside (with zombified animals), church, various ruined buildings and an insane asylum. Much like Blood, They Hunger makes use of makeshift and vintage weapons like heavy brass umbrella and bundles of dynamite (which are far less common in this game). Unlike Blood, various vehicles are prominently used at certain stages. A deliberately minimalistic, dim and washed out graphical style (even for its time), challenging gameplay and genuinely disturbing voice acting are likely to pique the interest of many Blood fans seeking another dose of intense, purely dark gaming experience.

Coincidences[edit]

Pre[edit]

These games pre-date Blood, and therefore can be safely said to be, at best, inspirations for the game.

Catacomb Abyss
  • The 1994 first-person shooter Nitemare 3D was, like Blood, inspired by classic horror franchises. As such, it shares several similar enemies such as bats, werewolves, and the undead, and also features a combination of firearms and magical weapons. The game is mostly set in a haunted house, similar to levels such as E2M5: The Haunting. The main antagonist is also a mad scientist named Dr. Hammerstein. Unlike Blood however, the game features no explicit gore.
Robed enemies from the original Rise of the Triad
  • The 1994-5 first-person shooter Rise of the Triad features the player fighting an evil cult, although with more a fascist militaristic edge than the Cabal (from its initial conception as a Wolfenstein 3D expansion). Robbed opponents begin showing up in episode four, with Death Monks and Death Fire Monks, as well as the game's ultimate boss El Oscuro. The entire game is based on the premise of a special forces team called HUNT infiltrating a captured monastery on the island of San Nicholas. The last episode also makes a magical staff weapon available to the player. Although tongue-in-cheek, the game's Dog Mode is not dissimilar in concept to the Beast mode originally conceived for Blood; as well as the option of selecting multiple player characters which eventually was added in Blood II: The Chosen. The Blood Alpha contained gas mask and asbestos suit items similar to those found in ROTT.
    • The game also premièred many features present in Blood, such as destructible objects, bullet holes, varying forms of armour, a variety of environmental traps (including flung fireballs), the use of push walls as essential game elements (foreshadowing the dynamic sectors present in Blood), using player translation to avoid engine limitations (elveators in ROTT, room-over-room/underwater in Blood) and heaping doses of graphic violence, and is often considered a dry-run for then in-development Build engine games. ROTT was instead the last title to use the Wolfenstein 3D engine, heavily modified by Blood contributor Mark Dochterman, which included the use of pixel shearing to simulate looking on the vertical axis used in Build, as well as some shared code from the early Doom engine. This title has also received a modern, and very loyal, remake built on Unreal Engine 3 by Interceptor Entertainment (now Slipgate Ironworks, part of the Embracer Group); one contributor to which is currently involved in the Blood Evolution fan project on Unreal Engine 4, while Interceptor itself is receptive to making a commercial remake should the rights ever land their way.
  • The first-person shooter Killing Time features numerous stylistic and game-play similarities to Blood. Its arsenal includes akimbo pistols, shotgun, and a tommy gun (as well as using a crowbar as a melee weapon before Half-Life); molotov cocktails function similar to dynamite. Enemies include various types of zombie, including butcher knife throwing chefs, and even two-head dogs. The Windows/Mac version also features a hedge-maze, among many other similar environments in and around Tess Conway's island mansion. However, it needs to be noted that the PC version was released in 1996, one year before Blood - and the original 3DO incarnation was released a year before that in 1995 - meaning it is only possible for it to have inspired Blood, and not the other way around. The game also took the then-popular full motion video route for its cutscenes, while Blood used the competing format of pre-rendered 3D cutscenes.
  • Strife features some Gothic elements similar to Blood due to its futuristic medieval aesthetic, with its story also being based around fighting an evil cult. As well as the ubiquitous sewer level, Strife also features catacombs, temples, laboratories, and mines. The player can set both enemies and himself on fire, and the game's Sigil weapon will drain your health for ammunition much like the Life Leech does once it runs out of Trapped Souls. Released for retail on May 31, 1996, it was published exactly one year before the full North American release of Blood. Its current re-distributor, Night Dive Studios, released a modern remaster of Blood on May 9, 2019 as Blood: Fresh Supply.
Chex Quest hedge maze
  • Despite being a Doom total conversion, the advertising video game Chex Quest (and sequel episodes) features many Build engine styled sensibilities in how it presents more realistic environments. Chiefly like Duke Nukem 3D (featuring vent passages and even a theatre level), the level most like Blood is E1M3: Chex Museum from Chex Quest 2 which features environs similar to "C1L3: Lafayette Museum of Antiquities" and later a hedge maze ala "E2M3: Rest for the Wicked" or "C5L1: Cold, Cold Grave". E1M4: City Streets of Chex Quest 2 or E3M3: Villa Chex of Chex Quest 3 also reminds of E3M1: Ghost Town or the environs of New Town. E3M2: United Cereals of Chex Quest 3 features a subway train similar to those repeatedly seen in Blood II. E1M3: Laboratory of the first Chex Quest is similar to "C3L7: Research and Development", with flasks and equipment resting on tables. As with E3M3: Raw Sewage, Chex Quest 2 features its own take on the classic sewer level trope with E1M5: Sewers. E3M4: Provincial Park of Chex Quest 3 features mountainous terrain similar to "E5M7: Mountain Pass" or "E4M6: The Ganglion Depths". It should be noted that Chex Quest 3 was first put out in 2008, and so might feature some direct inspiration from Blood; the first two were released in 1996 and 1997 respectively and so are contemporary to the game's development.

Post[edit]

These games were released around or after the release of Blood or Blood II, and therefore might not actually all be coincidental.

  • SiN features rats that attack the player much like in Blood. In one level of the game protagonist John Blade is also turned into a mutant, which plays much like the planned Beast Mode from the Blood development. Sharing a similar near future setting, the game also has many similarities to Blood II, including levels set in subways, laboratories, sewers, water treatment plants, and corporate offices. Amusingly, the game came out on the very same day as the demo for Blood II.
    • Wages of Sin includes many of the same urban locales including a level set in a museum. It also depicts a sect of mutants led by a Robed Cultist.
  • Half-Life: Opposing Force features two chapters (Crush Depth and Vicarious Reality) that are very reminiscent of "C3L7: Research and Development" right down to featuring terrariums housing otherwordly creatures and otherwise caged laboratory specimens, as well as advanced weapons research. It should be noted that the expansion to the original Half-Life was released in April 1999, meaning it was under development in the months immediately following the release of Blood II.
  • Both Quake III Arena and the Unreal Tournament series feature a low booming announcer voice that provides commentary to the action on screen, similar to The Voice from Bloodbath. This is also apparent in many other later games, including the speedrunning platformer SEUM: Speedrunners from Hell which even features a similar chiding sarcasm for the player's failures as well as acknowledgement of their triumphs.
Male and female Cappadocians from Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption
  • Vampire: the Masquerade - Redemption by Nihilistic Software is a gothic-themed action role-playing game that was released in 2000. Unlike the better recognized and well-known game Bloodlines by Troika Games, Redemption features a gothic storyline involving both the Dark Ages and the present time, with levels ranging from middle-ages towns, chapels, monasteries, cathedrals, castles and strongholds to urban areas like warehouses, offices and sewers. There are both ancient (pitchfork included!) and modern weapons, as well as occult items and powers to gain. Despite being a Vampire: The Masquerade game, there's plenty of other types of undead enemies in Redemption, including zombus (sic). The robed Cappadocians in one early quest are also resembling Cabal Cultists a lot (although they do not use firearms). Visually it is often quite reminiscent of Blood, but some elements, like the black humour, are more rare in Redemption. There's a whole party of characters for you to control, with the maximum of four members. The main character shares with Caleb his fate of undeath and having to feed on Life Essence/Vitae (human blood), though in this game (as well as in Bloodlines) there is a deeper emphasis on your undead nature.
  • Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, released by Troika Games in 2004, is situated entirely in the neo-gothic urban setting featuring an intricate, complex plot revolving around a vampire fledgling caught in the middle of a conflict between the undead society's many factions. The levels in Bloodlines include a haunted hotel reminiscent of The Shining, city hubs, hospitals, graveyards - mixing typical city environments with traditional horror settings that can also be found in Blood levels. The game's grim, cynical atmosphere and liberal use of black humour are quite similar to Blood, though being a role playing game, Bloodlines includes more gameplay elements other than shooting and solving puzzles. Both Bloodlines and Redemption have levels where the architecture is made of flesh.
  • Although conceptually distinct, the action role-playing game Deus Ex does bear some artistic similarities to the Blood series, most importantly due to it's gruff voiced trench coated protagonist and it's emphasis on dark urban environments similar to much of Blood II: The Chosen. Both games place a heavy emphasis on subway systems, and Deus Ex does have two sequences taking place in a crypt and one in a cathedral.
  • Max Payne (2001) by Remedy Entertainment also has a few things in common with Blood: the general noir style prevalent throughout the whole story, a gloomy protagonist suffering from loss of the loved ones and seeking revenge. Max wears a trenchcoat, and combat often happens in desolate urban areas. Many locations in the game are covered with snow, and the action happens during the night-time - which invokes certain similarities with the second episode of Blood. The psychedelic dream sequences include Max walking on the trails of blood, suspended in a black void. A more direct similarity is in the games' conception, as both were started as projects supported by 3D Realms.
  • In a similar vein with the previous title, The Punisher (2004) is another gruesome third-person shooter with a long-coated, perpetually grim protagonist who is avenging the murder his family. Frank Castle's coarse voice and cold remarks can instantly remind players of Caleb. The game's dark urban (and occasionally cyberpunk) style and extreme violence including a whole plethora of execution and torture sequences make The Punisher a worthy spiritual successor to Blood.
The visceral exterior of The Red Queen's Castle from American McGee's Alice (click to animate)
  • American McGee's Alice (2000), a third-person horror game includes prominent use of gory combat, haunting soundtrack and twisted grotesque environments. Constructions similar to the Blood "In The Flesh" map appear in the late stages of the game, while the weapons and early levels in Alice are quite similar to the playful dark humour of the carnival level from Blood.
  • A 2003 horror shooter game, Nosferatu: The Wrath of Malachi involves a journey into a vampire count's castle, where the main hero, James Patterson, is trying to save his sister and other relatives from a marriage celebration gone terribly wrong. The presence of vintage flintlock pistols, cane sword, muskets, revolvers and holy water, together with enemies including lesser and greater vampires of both genders, ghouls and zombies, makes this game a staple of the early horror first-person shooter genre, just like Blood. The gothic architecture of the Count's castle is similar to some levels present in the first Blood, but is unusual in that it is generated randomly on each new playthrough - coupled with a time limit imposed on the player during the rescue of his family, this makes the gameplay quite a challenge.
  • Sacred, a 2004 Action RPG by Ascaron Entertainment, includes robed cultists called Sakkara Priests among the commonly encountered enemies. These fanatics cast magic spells, practise demon worship (e.g. human sacrifice, summoning infernal entities) and utter various curses when approached by the player character.
  • Clive Barker's Undying (2001) is a first-person shooter horror game focusing on topics of the occult, curses and corruption. The player can utilize the power of magic in addition to conventional weapons. In Undying, spells are used directly or with an optional aid of a magickal stone, while Caleb uses magic via talismans. The game has rather extensive graphic violence and gory after-death sequences mocking or scaring the player. Locations to be visited include a mansion, a crypt and a monastery.
GTA: Long Night freeroam mode, featuring Sawed-Off Shotgun
  • GTA: Long Night, a 2005 total conversion modification by The Fighting Hellfish for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, features a very atmospheric urban zombie horror setting. Following the original game's story, defeated antagonist and drug baron Ricardo Diaz returns from the grave as a zombie to kill and take back his criminal empire from Tommy Vercetti, former protagonist of Vice City. Diaz's revenge rouses hordes of other undead citizens that quickly wipe out nearly all of Vice City's current population, leaving only a small group of survivors who manage to take temporary refuge in a movie studio. Long Night is notable and memorable for its non-linear narrative consisting of both flashbacks and present time missions from various playable survivor characters, who face unique and extreme challenges in what has now become a Zombie City. In stark contrast to the original, all action happens at near pitch-black midnight devoid of normal cars and pedestrians typical of any GTA game. It definitely shares with Blood its oppressive atmosphere of loneliness and hopelessness. Long Night's zombies are capable of running at full speed and attack the player ceaselessly in constantly respawning hordes, making for much more hardcore gameplay than base game. Thankfully, the mod's rendition of Sawed-Off Shotgun is exceedingly powerful, downing several enemies per shot.
  • In Return to Castle Wolfenstein, upon being raised from his 1000-year imprisonment, Heinrich I exclaims "I live again!" RTCW contains a Tesla Gun that is quite similar to the Tesla Cannon from Blood as well as Dynamite and a Thompson Submachine Gun (albeit more military inspired than the classic gangland-derived weapon of Blood). Also, Deathshead's Super Soldier laboratory has been described as similar to "C1L6: Center for Disease Management". Many of these similarities probably come from RTCW being set only 15 years after Blood.
Fan art of The Postal Dude created by Blood fan artist Lena "Hellen" Iachoukova for Postal 2
  • Postal 2 features a wide variety of similarities to Blood and Blood II such as a talkative anti-heroic trench-coated protagonist (though more morally ambiguous than downright evil), an implementation of head kicking, similar urban environments to Blood II including a meat factory and water filtration plants, and interactions with non-playable characters similar to that of Innocents. Both games feature deliberately over the top violence but Postal 2 also features obscenity, stereotypes, and other shock-value functions as well as subtle (and not so subtle) social commentary. Reviews and user comments of the game also have compared the Postal Dude's numerous quips to those of Caleb.
    • The Postal 2 expansion Apocalypse Weekend also features some similarities to the Blood series such as the introduction of zombies which can have their heads removed (though unlike Axe Zombies, they will continue to move and attack the player unless the head is actually destroyed) and hospital levels exhibiting some of the dark tones of E3M4: The Sick Ward, or the Blood II fan map Hospital of Souls, as well as a bridge level. It also for the first time allowed the player to dismember bodies, a feature similar to that provided by the Limbloss modification for Blood II by Andy Guillaume.
      • Several weapons and elements from both the Eternal Damnation (see above) and the A Week in Paradise fan modifications have made their way into the main product as updates, bringing the original game even closer to Blood.
    • The Postal 2 DLC Paradise Lost features a new powerup called "Habib's Power Station", a can of soda that acts as the game's equivalent to the first Blood's Guns Akimbo powerup; when drank, it allows the Dude to produce a second copy of his current weapon (any pistol or automatic weapon, two of the shotguns, the rocket launcher, or scissors) to fire alongside his first one. Interestingly, however, the double-barreled shotgun is not able to be used akimbo.
Various forms of fat zombie
  • In Doom 3 there is a new type of zombie that does not appear in any other Doom game: the Fat Zombie, which is similar to the Bloated Butcher, except that it wears an open shirt, and attacks only with its fists. There is also a section of the game where the protagonist is riding on a Monorail eventually crashing it it in a manner reminiscent of Blood II: The Chosen. Some parts of the Delta Labs also share a similar feel to "C3L7: Research and Development", with new weapons and portal technologies being developed and various specimens from other worlds or dimensions being experimented on. CabalCo and the UAC share many similarities: a focus on R&D, caring about progress before safety, a willingness to risk their own members in scouting missions to hostile new dimensions (compare the scouts in hell to the scouts in Reality Beta), and sheer monopoly over many industries giving them no legal or moral obligations and control over dangerous advanced technology.
  • The later Monolith Productions game F.E.A.R. features many levels similar to Blood II: The Chosen including a sewage treatment plant, corporate offices, and condemned tenements, with the game's soldier enemies also being similar to Fanatics. It also has something of a focus on using guns two at a time, with the player able to use the default pistols and, in the Xbox 360 version, a pair of larger machine pistols akimbo. The third-party stand-alone expansion pack Extraction Point also has similarities to the original Blood, featuring a haunted cathedral, funeral home, and hospital, as well as subway stations much like those in Blood II. Perseus Mandate features a trainyard.
  • The Bloat, of Killing Floor, greatly resembles the Bloated Butcher: both are obese zombie-like foes that use meat cleavers and corrosive vomit to attack the player(s). However, the Bloat is nude and can be heard speaking actual phrases, compared to the fully-clothed Bloated Butcher, which can only moan incoherently at the player. Additionally, the Bloat has no ranged attacks like the Bloated Butcher - it cannot toss its meat cleaver or spit its vomit as a projectile - and it explodes on death from regular damage, showering its nearby foes in its bile.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 bloody hand print coincidence
  • In Call of Duty: World at War, a minigame known as "Nazi Zombies", in the maps "Shi no Numa" and "Der Riese", contains a weapon known as "Wunderwaffe DG-2", which fires a bolt of electricity towards enemies. The file name for the DG-2 is apparently "Tesla", which is coincidentally a nod off to the Tesla Cannon. In addition to the two maps, an enemy known as the "hellhound" (a demonic dog that attacks with its fangs and claws or explodes on the player) is featured in the game; when injured or nearing the player, the hellhound suddenly catches on flames, indicating it will explode when killed or on contact - similar to the fire based attack of the Blood Hell Hound. World at War also contains weapons that appeared in the Blood series, such as the Sawed-Off Shotgun, Thompson Submachine Gun (which appears more like its military counterpart, though can be fitted with the drum magazine of the version in Blood), a ray gun, a combat knife and a type of timed explosive known as the "Monkey bomb".
E3M8: Spellbound from Base Ganymede
  • The Trine 2 expansion pack Goblin Menace includes a level set inside a worm's stomach which plays rather similarly to E4M7: In The Flesh from Blood.
  • The freeware first-person shooter LAB features multiple enemies with projectile vomit, similar to the Bloated Butcher. Unlike the Butcher however, their spew is capable of bouncing along the floor.
  • The indie first person shooter Affliction Rescue opens with a level set in a hedge garden.

See Also[edit]

Retrieved from "https://www.blood-wiki.org/index.php?title=Blood_in_Other_Media&oldid=52483"