Name: Blood II: The Chosen
Publisher: GT Interactive(now Atari)
Developer: Monolith Productions
Media: 1 CD
HD Installation: 514 megs
Dirt Cheap Price: $5.98(new)
Blood 2 was played on a Pentium M, 1.6Ghz machine under Windows XP MCE 2005 with a 64 meg ATI Radeon Mobility X300(PCI-E) card and 1.25 gigs of ram. It was running with all options turned to their highest settings and at a screen resolution of 1280X800. The game was played through on the "Homicide(normal)" difficulty level.
Patches?
Yes, two.		 Just for kicks, let me present the recommended system requirements:

Retail v1.0/1.01 -> v2.0 patch - Size: 12.2 megs

Retail v2.0 -> v2.1 patch - Size: 2.6 megs

Be sure to run both patches *before* you start playing as each update renders saved games from the previous version unusable. Both patches can be downloaded at 3D Gamers.

 166MHz or better CPU, 32MB RAM memory, 200MB(Minimum Install)Available Hard Disk Space(515MB for Full Install), 4X CD-Rom Drive Distribution Drive, 100% Soundblaster Compatible Audio System, DX 6.0 and above compliant 3D accelerator(or without an accelerator: P233, 32MB RAM) Video System, Keyboard, mouse, DirectInput compatible game devices Input Devices, Windows 95/98 OS.
One hundred years after defeating the Dark God Tchernobog, the Cabal have hatched yet another "thrilling" scheme to revive their evil leader. Caleb, along with three others(known as "The Chosen") must put an end to the cult before they destroy the world! Your part in all this will be trying to uninstall the game before you destroy your computer...

What's it all about?

Look at that fucking gun!
It's a really fast paced FPS. You can choose to play as any of the four "Chosen"(though you won't get any of the story scenes unless you go with Caleb), each with slightly(and I do mean *slightly*) different characteristics and abilities. Each level is mission based, with a number of objectives that you'll have to carry out in order to move on; usually it's just simply going and getting a key card, unlocking a gate, etc. Like Hexen and PowerSlave, you will travel back to previous areas in order to move on. Of course, what makes it so "wonderful" here in Blood II is that you don't just revisit them a few times...but, like, four to five fucking times throughout the game's three chapters(it gets really old, really quick). The game features a huge selection of weapons, most becoming worthless the second you find the next step up. There are, however, quite a few really unique and interesting weapons to help you try to forget about bullshit like the Mac-10 Sub Machine Gun, Howitzer and others. At the end of each chapter you'll run into a boss who will just tear your ass to pieces until you happen to run into some glitch that allows you to kill it in one hit or just make it disappear altogether.
That brings me to the LithTech engine. I have no idea what revision of the engine this is, though I'd like to believe it's the first as if it's anything past that I'd have to buy a gun and shoot myself in the throat for experiencing such shitty programming on a first hand basis. It has so many fucking issues, you'd almost believe it to be a damn beta or something. First off, there are glitches all over the place. Like mentioned above, sometimes you can kill bosses(or regular enemies) in one hit, they'll just disappear, get stuck in walls or any other assortment of disgraceful physics you can think of. Then there's the actual in-game world, where walls are paper-thin, solid ground you're walking on just happens to let fall *into* it, invisible walls make it difficult to navigate and a whole host of other issues. It's really something you have to experience in order to get the full kick to the nuts this engine is throwing out there...
Graphics - Interesting character design, with some solid graphics to back it up. The enemies sport some nicely detailed textures, and though there is no end to the clipping going on in their models it still makes for an gory effect. The world architecture is also very good, and features some slick texture work. This is all topped off with some almost PowerSlave-like lightsourcing.
Sound - The soundtrack is slightly retainable, with a few decent pieces squeezed in between the generic filler. Sound effects, on the other hand, are outstanding. There's quite a bit speech in the game, with Caleb making more than a few humorous quips based on the popular movies at the time(The Crow, Jackie Brown, etc), and the enemies *constantly* yelling at you(even if they have yet to see you. Apparently The Cabal are all a bunch of nuts with Tourette's disorder).
Control - Questionable at times. Walking up to a door, switch or other interactive item and using it should be an easy task. Not here though. Sometimes you have to move back and forth in front of a door or switch to get it to register that you're hitting the fucking "use" key; sometimes you have look at it in a different angle with your mouse while trying to hit it. There's absolutely no consistency to the procedure. Past that though, everything else(control-wise) is alright.

You will kind of wish that the bloody mess you've just left behind was the development team...
 AI - Some of the cheapest, worst AI I have *ever* encountered in a FPS. The enemies will shoot you the *millisecond* they see you, causing massive damage. They can see you through walls, and thanks to the LithTech Engine's issues, they can also SHOOT you through walls. God help you if you're fighting someone who has a splash damage projectile, as that will come straight through whatever you're hiding behind to annihilate your ass. If that's not enough, invisible walls will inhibit you ability to shoot straight. Also, enemy hit detection is almost nonexistent, and what there is of it is just completely fucked. Sometimes you can kill an enemy in two or three shots by hitting them in the head, sometimes it takes sixty shots, sometimes you can hit them twice in the leg and they'll go down. Now, as if all that is not enough, as if all that doesn't just piss you off to the point that you're ready to break the fucking disc, the damage scale is through the roof. You can have your health at high two hundred points, and these enemies will kill you in as little as two seconds. It will drive you up the fucking wall.
Replay value - Low, low, low. As much as I truly believe that statement, I have to admit that I have played through this motherfucker *twice*; the first time off an ISO I had acquired from now-dead FrenchKiss Abandonware site, which had no music. The second was when I actually, and foolishly, bought it and wanted to play through it again with the music and whatnot. Honestly, if the music would have been included in the ISO, I probably would have passed on buying this one...or ever playing it again.
Getting it to run - Easy, with a few quirks. You'll pop in the disc, run the installer and basically be done with it all. As mentioned above, in the Patches section, you'll want to immediately patch the game before even starting it up. From there, the only thing left to do is make sure you have the game set to "Windows 98/ME" in the Compatibility tab for the executable startup file(blood2.exe). If you don't do this, *NONE* of the in-game music will play(though, oddly enough, the music that is supposed to play when you're in the game's options screen will still play). Oh, the game requires that the CD is in the drive...so before you break it, pop it in.
Tips for better gaming experiences:
Caleb is not a nice guy. Anytime you see citizens, don’t bother saving them, just kill them yourself. They’ll drop life essence a lot of the time for you.

The Flare Gun is more powerful than you’d imagine, so break it out on the more powerful enemies. Stick them with a few flares, then break out another weapon and let them have it. Also, anytime you run into a Prophet keep in mind that you can kill them in *one shot* from the double Flare Gun.

The Shikari will, a lot of times, jump right on your head. When they do this, don’t freak out, they can’t hurt you up there(they just sort of spaz-out and start spinning around). Break out your best, non-splash weapon and hit’em with it. You only get one shot, as after that they jump off, so give’em your best.
When trying to rip a Bone Leech or Thief off your face, hit the “use” button as fast as you can while moving in one direction. For some odd reason, Caleb pulls them off his face and throws them directly up in the air…when they come down, if you’re standing in the same place, they’ll just land on you and again, begin sucking(again).
DO NOT pass up the chance to get the Life Leech! Not only is it extremely powerful, but for every hit it registers on an enemy, it gives you much needed life points.

If you’re having trouble seeing the transparent Death Shrouds, shoot a flare at them.
Like in Quake and Doom, you can pit the forces of evil against themselves. Anytime you're fighting multiple enemies, try to get them to accidentally hit each other. Successfully doing so will result in the two(or three, or however many) enemies fighting to the death, leaving you to take out the winner.

After killing a Zealot, run like fuck!

The Ancient One is easy to defeat. Just run behind one of the rocks just outside its reach, for cover, grab the Anger and mow him down. You'll kill him in less than twenty seconds...

Finally, when you need help(and you will, trust me) you can find a full walkthrough for the game over at Planet Blood.

Still Supported?
Yes, surprisingly enough. You can receive support for the game in the Support section of Atari's site. The official site is even still up...
My rating: 42(out of 100) - An embarrassingly sad attempt at what could have been such a great game. The engine has so many issues, the AI is unbelievably cheap and though the gameplay isn't too bad, it's hard to see that when there are so many other problems. If you're going to try to squeeze some fun out of this one...you're going to have to be squeezing mighty hard...

Miss Meowy Meowenstein says: Here's how I like to play Blood II: Pop disc into PC, install Claw demo, take disc out of PC, break disc, throw pieces at JD.
Oh no, here they come to (slowly)get me.
Two Zealots vs Caleb's knife...this is going to go well.
High above the city on one of Calbaco's Airships.
Behemoth's don't seem to take damage from the Orb...or any other weapon for that matter.
Fun Stuff on the CD:
There are five demos available on the disc. The demos are:
Claw: Excellent side scrolling fun that actually works on XP!
Get Medieval: Interesting Gauntlet clone that uses rendered characters.
Rage of Mages: Sort of a Diablo/Ultima-like Adventure-RPG.
Shogo: FPS that features Mech and on-foot combat.
PowerSlide: Down and dirty racing!
Note: All demos need to actually be copied from the "Previews" and "PwrSlide" folders to your hard drive before running them.
Throwing stones in a glass house:
The developers of this shit-fest of a game actually had the nerve to attack Valve's Half-Life, calling it "Incredibly Onerous".