Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold

Blake Stone was based off the Wolfenstein 3-D engine and included many graphical and game play improvements. The floors and ceilings are textured, there are many more enemies, a automap, and you can move back-and-forth through levels. All that is great but those were baby steps compared to the seismic shift that Doom brought to the genre. “So what?” You might ask, but realize that Doom was released a week after Blake Stone. One could say the game was doomed from the start, har har har!

Taken on its own merits the game is still okay especially when compared to Wolfenstein. It’s fast-paced and offers a little more variety. It still feels more like navigating a maze than exploring a world. Each episode is book-ended with some flavor text but it doesn’t ever really amount to a story.

The game is best approached as a leisurely time killer more akin to an iPhone game than an epic PC experience. There is some challenge at the higher difficulty settings but that comes more in ammo management rather than tricky enemy A.I. I didn’t hate it, but it is not an essential retro FPS. Rise of the Triad is a much better bridge between Wolf 3-D and Doom.