Game News BloodNet Released on GOG

[Infinitron]

Tags: BloodNet; Microprose

The latest addition to GOG's catalogue is MicroProse's BloodNet, the world's only vampire cyberpunk RPG and one of the most interesting bad games of all time. Here's the promotional blurb:

BloodNet, a dark cyberpunk adventure classic with RPG elements, in which vampires take Manhattan--and cyberspace!--and the stake of the game is your very soul, is available for Windows and Mac OS X on GOG.com, for only $5.99!

In 2094 the children of the night have a new playground, as far from the burning rays of sunlight as possible--the cyberspace. With the wired and wireless networks covering the whole of New York with a thick digital shroud, there's virtually no place out of their reach. The fact that you have fangs at the helms of the mega-corporations doesn't help either. It would seem that humanity is doomed. But this isn't the story of the human race's fall. It's a story of one person's struggle. When you wake up with two bite marks on your neck in the middle of vampire-ridden Manhattan, and you start to feel the HUNGER, there's very little time to save your soul. Just remember to install some humanity-boosters in your cyber-deck.

BloodNet is a remarkable game that brilliantly blends horror and cyberpunk in a mixture of adventure and RPG gameplay. You will explore the gritty locations of a high-tech futuristic city full of cyber-enhanced freaks, and tread the dangerous paths of the Cyberspace, that houses more demons than it did ever before. Build a team of deckers, cyberpunks, mercenaries, and rage gangers to help you in your desperate fight for your last threads of humanity. With a dark, memorable story, a haunting setting, graphics that aged surprisingly well, and hours of exciting and original gameplay, this classic title is a cyberpunk delight you cannot say no to.​

The release includes both the CD-ROM and floppy versions of the game, plus the manual and soundtrack. According to GOG, the game's publisher is an obscure firm called Tommo Inc, which apparently picked up some of MicroProse's IPs when their former owner Atari went bankrupt last year. Hopefully that means we can expect more MicroProse releases in the near future.

 

[thesheeep]

My only weakness - death!

 

[V_K]

Nice, hope Challenge of the Five Realms gets there too. That game deserves a lot more recognition.

 

[Infinitron]

Oh hey. According to MobyGames, this game's "producer of roleplaying" was Lawrence Schick - none other than Elder Scrolls Online's official "loremaster":

http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,2107/

 

[Crane]

A perfect time for ghostdog to pick back up his LP of it.

 

[Zeriel]

But who is the Lead Producer for his mustache?

 

[LeJosh]

From Bloodnet to Amalur to TES:O... damn, that's verticle decline right there.

 

[Infinitron]

PnP interview with Lawrence Schick from 2009: grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/05/interview-with-lawrence-schick.html

4. I believe that you were involved in the organization of D&D tournaments for TSR in the early days. Is that correct and, if so, did you see tournament play as an important part of the growth and development of the game?

The early TSR management consisted almost entirely of hardcore gamers who loved tournaments for their own sake and insisted that they be part of every convention TSR sponsored or participated in. So despite the fact that tournaments appealed to a very small percentage of D&D players, and designing for and managing tournaments drained development resources that could have been spent on publishing more or better products, we did lots of them. When I was head of the studio mid-’79 to mid-’81 I tried to make sure that any tournament scenarios we wrote could be repurposed as modules, but they’re two different animals, so we weren’t always successful. The A1-4 series ofAD&D modules, for example, were originally written for a big tournament.

I enjoyed tournaments as much as anyone, but I did not, in fact, regard them as “an important part of the growth and development of the game.” I thought they were a distraction from what we should really have been doing, which was figuring out how to reach a broader audience. Eventually TSR came around to this idea, and created the RPGA to handle tournaments and suchlike hardcore community-building work.

5. It's interesting that you called tournaments "a distraction," because that's a view shared by many fans of older editions of D&D. Are there any particular approaches or projects that, in retrospect, you wish had been undertaken, because they would have done a better job of reaching out to a broader audience?

A more professional approach to publishing, instead of rampant cronyism and callous exploitation of the D&D fan base, would have enabled TSR to reach beyond the niche and find a broader audience. D&D would have been able to co-opt computer RPGs and collectible card games, instead of being steam-rollered by them. Ultimately Gygax and the Blumes were unable to transition effectively to the mass market, and thus lost control of their product and brand. I mean, I was only 24-25 years old in those days, and even then I could see where they were going wrong. They were done in by greed and arrogance.

 

[Crane]

What most players will see right before they give up on the game:

 

[Diggfinger]

Stumbled upon this lets (NOT!) play of the game, where this dude is moaning about the game alongside two former Micropose employees. Have a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObEzrqhc2yg

 

[Grotesque]

Stumbled upon this lets (NOT!) play of the game, where this dude is moaning about the game alongside two former Micropose employees. Have a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObEzrqhc2yg

why do you post videos like this that stirs up the animal in me, wanting to go on a killing spree?

Bloodnet is one of the best written games

 

[himmy]

From Bloodnet to Amalur to TES:O... damn, that's verticle decline right there.

My expectations for TES:O are pretty low, but I still can't imagine a world in which it can be worse than Amalur.

 

[thesheeep]

It is very well written, yes. But everything else in there is somewhere between mediocre and just plain weird game design. I tried two or three times, but could never force myself to finish it.

The game is something very unusual, so if you fancy that, you should play it. The art certainly is hilarious.

 

[Infinitron]

From Bloodnet to Amalur to TES:O... damn, that's verticle decline right there.

My expectations for TES:O are pretty low, but I still can't imagine a world in which it can be worse than Amalur.

Schick actually worked on Ascendant, which is what Reckoning was before it was overhauled with R.A. Salvatore's Amalur setting.

So, who knows what his work there was actually like.

 

[abnaxus]

More like docking, amirite?

 

[Jed]

Is it just me ... or does he look like the bastard child of Ron Jeremy & Vincent Price?

 

[RK47]

Beat this game once.
Hard and frustrating combat.
Not to mention the skill checks.

 

[made]

Best played on Amiga. Free, too.

 

[Crane]

Best played on Amiga. Free, too.

The soundtrack is better, for sure, but the Amiga loading times ruin the experience. The introduction, which might take 5 minutes or so, took me like triple the time because of all the disk swapping and loading.

 

[SCO]

That's why you get WHDLoad versions.
http://www.whdload.de/games/Bloodnet.html

 

[made]

Best played on Amiga. Free, too.

The soundtrack is better, for sure, but the Amiga loading times ruin the experience. The introduction, which might take 5 minutes or so, took me like triple the time because of all the disk swapping and loading.

I had it installed on HD 20 years ago. These days there are emulators.

WHDL is one option, but it doesn't work with savestates if you ever need that feature.

 

[SCO]

butthurt detected

 

[Diggfinger]

Stumbled upon this lets (NOT!) play of the game, where this dude is moaning about the game alongside two former Micropose employees. Have a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObEzrqhc2yg

why do you post videos like this that stirs up the animal in me, wanting to go on a killing spree?

Bloodnet is one of the best written games

Im not saying that the game is good or bad (I've never played it), I actually find the setting quite intriguing. Its odd to hear these dudes fault the game for graphics and design flaws when its so old...

 

[St. Toxic]

Apparently the "O" key being used as shorthand for "Ok" is the worst control system ever.

 

[RK47]

Good vid.

Gold