Finished Blake Stone: Planet Strike
More of the same from Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold. They made a few changes for the sequel, but it largely plays the same. This one adds 20 new maps plus 4 secret maps.
A few of the enemies were just reskins, but they did add a few more, but there's only so much you can do in an old game like this. Also a new gun, that was supposed to be the best, but I rarely used it. Instead of finding a key in each level, you had to find an explosive and drop it near some security cube to unlock the next level. They added some barriers that are triggered by either stepping on a particular (invisible) location, or by killing certain enemies. Enemies moved a lot faster, so they could kill you quickly. The game gives a ton of health, so surviving wasn't a problem, it was mostly about not getting surprised by an enemy that would take you out before you can react. Particularly ceiling turrets that are beside when you enter a room.
One major change was that you could blow up your ammo. There was a lot of ammo on the ground and your best two guns would cause explosions that destroy them. So not only would it cost you the chance to refill your ammo, it would also do a lot of damage to yourself and enemies. Really annoying.
They changed the map system. Instead of showing you a 2D map when you press TAB, the game always showed you a map. The problem is that it rotated as you turn your character. With a low resolution game the map was kind of hard to see as it rotated, which made it a lot less useful. But they did add a map battery item you could pick up. This let you zoom the map, which revealed where there were secret doors. An interesting solution to the 'headbutting' problem of the original game (and Wolfenstein 3D) for finding secrets.
Hard to say if this game was better or worse than Aliens of Gold. Pretty much the same, but I was kind of burnt out on these games after playing Aliens of Gold.
Time to take a break from old classic shooters for a while.
