Hey all. I’m back with a review of a title that is patterned off classics like Doom, Painkiller, Quake, and other shooters from the golden era of that genre. It’s my Bloodhound review.
Plot and Gameplay: The plot is very bare bones which is fine because the focus of Bloodhound, just like those aforementioned old school shooters, is the gameplay. Bloodhound opens up with a sort of motion-based comic but has no real dialogue. From there the shooting starts up and you take control of the main character, whose name I never got.
So, there is actually a plot in Bloodhound, but I had to go to its Steam page to learn what it is. That said, you won’t need to know much. If you see something in Bloodhound, you pretty much shoot it. According to the Steam page, your character is a member of the Order of Keepers of the Gates, entrusted with the sacred duty of safeguarding the portals to Hell. Standing in your path is the nefarious Cult of Astaroth, which is hell-bent on unleashing unspeakable evil upon the world. As the dark minions of Astaroth emerge, it falls upon the player to eradicate the cultists and banish their wicked plans. But again, there is little reason to know all that because it’s just background to start the combat.
As for the gameplay, Bloodhound plays, not surprisingly, a lot like the original Doom, although there are a few modern implementations like fully 3D levels and much easier depth perception. When looking out across a field of bad guys in Bloodhound, it’s easy to tell which ones are closer to the player so you can target them, which was not always easy to do when playing the original Doom.
But other than those modern upgrades, Bloodhound plays very much like a classic first-person shooter. You can carry tons of weapons and switch between them at will, and never have to worry about recoil or even reloading. That last convenience was a big shock for me at first because I’ve very much become used to reloading in almost every modern FPS like Halo, Call of Duty, or Destiny. Here, you can just lay on the trigger and mow things down, which might affect your overall battlefield strategy.
That all being said, the gameplay for Bloodhound isn’t particularly innovative, nor does it need to be. It’s certainly fun to play, and there are 16 distinct different types of enemies. But it’s just not especially engaging like the gunplay in a modern title like Destiny. But for the time I was playing Bloodhound, I definitely was having a good time blasting demons and cultists with a shotgun, chain gun, and other various light and heavy weapons.
Art: The art in Bloodhound is not particularly great, and certainly can’t compare to most modern titles like the latest Call of Duty. It’s more along the lines of Halo 3 in terms of quality, so not terrible but just kind of passable.
Music: The music is very fitting for going around blasting demons and cultists, but not something I’d care to listen to for years to come like a tune I might hear in the Final Fantasy series. It’s kind of a rock music type of soundtrack which will keep you pumped up while playing.
Overall: Bloodhound is a fun choice for a shooter patterned heavily off the original Doom, and it certainly meets that expectation. It’s not particularly deep or intriguing, but it has some heavy nostalgia packed in there that diehard classic FPS gamers might enjoy. If that is your thing, then there is some great replay value, but personally I was satisfied just playing through it one time.
For those who like: Classic First-Person Shooters and Mindless Fun.
Not for those who don’t like: Either of the above.
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Steam, Xbox One, Xbox Series X