Bloodhound Review

When it comes to a setting for a fast-paced first-person shooter, there are a few great options. One of the more popular has to be a variation of Hell. Several games have used the setting, combining the potential for great level design with varied enemy types and musical scores. This popularity means that any title that wants to join this hellish brotherhood has a lot of expectations to meet, and Kruger & Flint Productions thinks it has what it takes with its latest game: Bloodhound.

The first thing to know is that BloodHound has a plot, but it takes a back seat. This concept isn’t unusual, as most arena shooters view the plot as secondary. All you need to know is that there is a cult around a figure called Astaroth, and it is up to you to find and unalive all of them. There isn’t really much more than that, and that is okay. The main character is equally pretty bland; he is a smiling maniac with a revolver and a disdain for reloading. He doesn’t really talk, although there isn’t much dialogue outside of a few lines. There are some interesting bits of lore if you look, but there’s no rush to do so.

Let’s be real: you don’t play this kind of game for the plot; you play this to run around maps and shoot things. This aspect is on full display here, but it’s a bit of a mixed bag. For the most part, players have to move through the maps, collecting health, armour pick-ups, and ammo for the multitude of guns. Some powerups and souls need to be collected, which have different effects on the gameplay. The maps themselves are varied in terms of simplicity and ease of travel. For the most part, they follow a pretty simple line of travel with the odd offshoot and divergent path. However, the issue is that Bloodhound blocks off movement with gates that throw a bunch of enemies at you. This isn’t a new mechanic in this kind of game, but sometimes they feel like pointless padding to the run time of some of the shorter levels. 

The main point in this style of game is the shooting, both with the weapons and how it all feels. I will tell you now: the gunplay feels great, and the movement keeps everything feeling fast-paced. The weapons are varied, and each has a secondary fire mode, although some are just using a second gun for a short time. There is also no reloading here, well…I mean, there are some weapons. It is a bit strange, but the sawn-off shotguns do have a reload animation that is used to separate them from the normal shotgun. However, this is a minor problem, and the wealth of guns on offer all feel powerful in their way and are fun to use. There is also a ‘demon mode’, which is activated by collecting souls and grants a brief invulnerable period and some other powerups that add some variety. This is increased with the wealth of different enemy types, all of which have different strategies that help to kill them faster. 

Visually, BloodHound doesn’t match up to the current standards, and it has some issues standing out from other games of the same type. However, the maps do get more interesting as the game progresses and the same can be said for the enemy models. Also, there is an important note, this game is quite liberal with the nudity, and it can be turned off if needs be. The weapons also start with a quite basic look, but they get more interesting over time. There is one more important aspect when it comes to a game based on Hell: the music. As you would probably expect, the music is very rock-themed and it…well, it isn’t bad. The tunes are all fast-paced with a strong bass line, but they sort of fade into the background quite quickly. There aren’t any standout tracks and I’m certainly not humming the riffs to myself or looking for the album like I did with DOOM.

BloodHound needed to do a few things to stand out in the arena hell-shooter market. It needed tight, interesting combat and to be visually drawing. It manages to succeed in one of those areas, that being the shooting. The visuals and music serve their purpose and the design of the enemies, and the bosses help to make it feel more interesting to play. The only aspect holding the game back was some of the padding when it came to blocked paths and the weakness of some of the secondary fire options available.