''Bad Blood'' is a top-view,

post-apocalyptic Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astro ...

action role-playing game An action role-playing game (often abbreviated action RPG or ARPG) is a subgenre of video games that combines core elements from both the action game and role-playing genre. Definition The games emphasize real-time combat where the player h ...

from 1990.

Story

nuclear war Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a theoretical military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear w ...

has turned the world into a

wasteland Wasteland or waste land may refer to: * Desert or barren area * an uncultivated area of land, whether wooded or not, whether common land or not Art, entertainment, and media Comics * ''Wasteland'' (DC Comics), 1987–1989 anthology-style horror ...

. The pure-blooded humans have retreated in large cities while

mutant In biology, and especially in genetics, a mutant is an organism or a new genetic character arising or resulting from an instance of mutation, which is generally an alteration of the DNA sequence of the genome or chromosome of an organism. It ...

s live in small villages on the plains where they make a living by hunting the many monsters. Now one of the human leaders, Lord Dominix, wants to start a war to wipe out all the "bad-blooded" mutants. Your village chief has assigned you with the task of preventing this war.

Gameplay

''Bad Blood'' is a top-down action-adventure. You can not create your own character but have to pick one of the three predefined ones: Varrigg (a strong green mutant who fights with his bare hands), Dekker (a human male armed with a knife) or Jakka (who looks human but fires laser beams from her eyes). The choice you make has only a limited impact on gameplay and storyline. Gameplay consists of exploring the world map, visiting several cities and villages, talking with

NPCs A non-player character (NPC), or non-playable character, is any character in a game that is not controlled by a player. The term originated in traditional tabletop role-playing games where it applies to characters controlled by the gamemaster o ...

, picking up items and new weapons (

shotgun A shotgun (also known as a scattergun, or historically as a fowling piece) is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge (firearms), cartridge known as a shotshell, which usually discharges numerous small p ...

grenade A grenade is an explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A modern hand grenade genera ...

Uzi The Uzi (; he, עוזי, Ūzi; officially cased as UZI) is a family of Israeli open-bolt, blowback-operated submachine guns and machine pistols first designed by Major Uziel "Uzi" Gal in the late 1940s, shortly after the establishment of the ...

s, etc.) and much real-time combat. The game has a day-night cycle which influences the amount of monsters on the plains and whether or not you can talk with some NPCs.

Reception

Charles Ardai reviewed the game for ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...

'', and stated that "''Bad Blood'' is nothing if not well-intended, but it fails for want of a spark of innovation, either in the story or the gameplay."

Reviews

*''

White Wolf A white wolf or Arctic wolf is a mammal of the ''Canidae'' family and a subspecies of the gray wolf. It may also refer to: Organizations * White Wolf (band), a Canadian heavy metal band * White Wolf (band), white power oi band from the USA * Whi ...

'' #22 (Aug./Sept., 1990) *''

ASM (Aktueller Software Markt) ''Aktueller Software Markt'' (literally ''Current Software Market''), commonly known by its acronym, ''ASM'', was a German multi-platform video game magazine that was published by Tronic-Verlag from 1986 until 1995. It was one of the first magazine ...

'' (Sep, 1990) *''

ACE (Advanced Computer Entertainment) ''ACE'' (Advanced Computer Entertainment) was a multi-format computer and video game magazine first published in the United Kingdom by Future Publishing and later acquired by EMAP. History ACE launched in October 1987, roughly the same time as ...

'' (Aug, 1990) *''

The Games Machine ''The Games Machine'' is a video game magazine that was published from 1987 until 1990 in the United Kingdom by Newsfield, which also published ''CRASH'', ''Zzap!64'', ''Amtix!'' and other magazines. History The magazine ran head to head with ...

'' (Aug, 1990) *''Joker Verlag präsentiert: Sonderheft'' (1992)

References

External links

* * 1990 video games Action role-playing video games Commodore 64 games DOS games Post-apocalyptic video games Role-playing video games Top-down video games Video games scored by Jeroen Tel {{action-rpg-videogame-stub Video games produced by Warren Spector