''Commander Blood'' is a
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
adventure game that was developed by
Cryo, a
French company that also created ''
Captain Blood'' (released in 1988). Designed to run on
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...
, ''Commander Blood'' was released in 1994. ''The Big Bug Bang'', the sequel to ''Commander Blood'', was released in 1996, and was available in French only.
Plot
Bob Morlock, a
biomechanical mastermind, is the founder of a massive company called Kanary. Thanks to scientific advances, Morlock is the oldest being in existence. Knowing his time in this universe is nearing an end, he would like to see the
Big Bang and the beginning of the
universe
The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. ...
. Kanary's
Clone Consortium branch builds Commander Blood in order to help Morlock achieve his goal. Commander Blood is placed on a high-tech ship, the Ark, and aided by Honk, Blood's onboard computer personality; the ORXX, Blood's biomechanical 'clone'; Olga, Blood's onboard translator; a
radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...
,
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
set; and other technology.
Gameplay
Communication with the game's characters is carried on clicking on a series of words that serve as topics. ''
Captain Blood'' utilized
UPCOM (an icon-based communication system), while ''Commander Blood'' makes use of a multiple-choice conversation system, in which players click through word-choices in order to learn more information. Players traverse both time and space as they enter black holes in the search for the Big Bang.
Development
Graphics
The game focuses on Commander Blood's interactions with the denizens of the worlds players travel to in search for the Big Bang. Thus, the game makes use of complex
FMV sequences that depict orbiting planetary systems, expressive characters, and an onboard television with different channels to watch. The animations of the non-
CGI characters were created by performing live action
puppeteering in front of a
chroma key
Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two images or video streams together based on colour hues ( chroma range). The technique has been used in many fields to ...
screen.
Sound
The game makes use of original scores by the French composers
Stephane Picq and Philippe Egret, and the various planetary inhabitants each make distinctive sounds during the game.
Release
A port for the
Atari Jaguar CD
The Atari Jaguar CD is a CD-ROM peripheral for the Jaguar video game console.
Atari announced a CD-ROM drive for the Jaguar before the console's November 1993 launch. Codenamed Jaguar II during development, the Jaguar CD was released on Septemb ...
was announced to be in development by Cryo on the July 1995 issue of
online magazine
An online magazine is a magazine published on the Internet, through bulletin board systems and other forms of public computer networks. One of the first magazines to convert from a print magazine format to being online only was the computer mag ...
Atari Explorer Online, and although internal documents from
Atari Corporation
Atari Corporation was an American manufacturer of computers and video game consoles. It was founded by Jack Tramiel on May 17, 1984, as Tramel Technology, Ltd., but then took on the Atari name less than two months later when Warner Communica ...
still listed the port as in development, this version was ultimately cancelled in March 1996 after several delays. After the system was declared as an
open platform
In computing, an open platform describes a software system which is based on open standards, such as published and fully documented external application programming interfaces (API) that allow using the software to function in other ways than th ...
by
Hasbro Interactive
Hasbro Interactive was an American video game production and publishing subsidiary of Hasbro, the large game and toy company. Several of its studios were closed in early 2001 and most of its properties were sold to Infogrames (now Atari SA) whi ...
, it allowed independent publisher and developers to release unfinished titles from the system's past life cycle and a non-playable demo of the Jaguar CD version was released by B&C Computervisions in 2002 as a result.
Critical reception
Commander Blood was said to have the graphics and music that its prequel, Captain Blood, did not possess. It was also praised for having a play which is ‘written with great humor.’ However, it was also criticised for not allowing the commander to go to all possible planets in the universe just as you could in its prequel.
References
External links
Video of the game's openingGameplay video
{{DEFAULTSORT:Commander Blood
1994 video games
Adventure games
Cancelled Atari Jaguar games
Cryo Interactive games
DOS games
DOS-only games
Science fiction video games
Video games developed in France
Video games about virtual reality
Video games scored by Stéphane Picq
Video games with rotoscoped graphics
Single-player video games
North America-exclusive video games
Video game sequels
Mindscape games