Bloodhound Review

I love a boomer shooter, but sometimes one comes along that looks like it does everything right, but somehow it misses the mark. Enter Bloodhound, stage left. It has all the makings of a great FPS, and there’s clearly a lot of love been put into this. However, it falls a bit short in every department.

First impressions are everything and if you’re going to make a retro styled FPS, you’ve got to nail the controls. Even more so when there’s gamepad support. The gunplay is fast paced, and things get dropped relatively quickly if you use the right tool. But, the default aim controls are far too sensitive, and fine aim control is nigh on impossible. It just doesn’t feel great at all. So into the menus, fiddle and test different sensitivities and tune it to your preference. I’d also recommend the aim assist function as it’s quite sticky but still relies on a bit of fine tuning as you move to ensure you get hits. However, this needs looked at as it locks onto enemies through walls and floors. Once it all clicks though, it becomes somewhat enjoyable as you pick demon cherubs out of the sky and blast cultists into gibs. The problem is that it gets boring, very quickly.

Despite its inspirations, it is very linear. There’s a straight path through the majority of levels, with some backtracking to open a coloured door once you’ve found the key or flipped a switch. Every second room is a combat arena but these lack expansiveness and don’t offer any experimentation during combat. It lacks level changes, things to hide behind to catch your breath, obstacles to duck and dodge around. Usually it’s a flat room and everything just runs at you. It’s easy to anticipate these encounters due to every previous room being filled the bursting point with resources. Hilariously though, you can break a few of these moments by sniping the enemies before you enter.

If you do go rushing in, then you’ll spend no more than 60 seconds circle strafing every enemy that spawns in. The same metal track kicking in and looping ad nauseam. And it’s a lot of enemies at times. They might have terrible aim, but the game tries to overwhelm you with the volume. Clear the enemies, move on, rinse and repeat for about 3 hours and you’re done. The bosses are also poor overall and they never felt like they were a threat. There was no tension of immediacy in the fights and they didn’t feel epic. This isn’t helped by the fact that the weapons lack impact and don’t sound particularly meaty. In the final fight I casually strolled round picking up ammo and armour while they did their thing. Half the time they only hit me because I stood still.

These are run of the mill – a pistol, machine gun, shotgun, rocket launcher, crossbow and rail gun round out the selection, and all have alternate fire modes. The pistol and machine gun for example, become dual wield with a cool down and the crossbow arrows explode. There’s also a chainsaw and katana if you fancy getting up close and personal. These were fun at the start but there was something missing throughout. There’s a feeling you get when everything is working in tandem. An inexplicable extra feeling of joy that was just missing here. Combat became repetitive and bosses were as simple as circle straddling til they go down and using every bullet in your arsenal. That is until you adjust the difficulty.

Enemy numbers go up, they get a bit more accurate but most interestingly, the bosses get phases. I actually started on normal and beat the game, it was only after checking out easy to mop up some achievements, that I realised it was different. On easy mode, bosses are just bullet sponges, but move to normal and yeah, they get even more spongey, but new mechanics are added. For example, one boss needs to be lured to an electrically charged pad before he can be damaged. Another can deflect bullets so you need to wait for the opportunity to attack. Basic enemies though – still dumber than a box of rocks.

These guys and gals will just run at you or hold their ground and pretend you’re not there. The demon cherubs are a pain though as they are fast moving, and their attacks definitely feel like they track a bit more than any other. If something does get in your face though, they usually don’t connect as you strafe out the way. There’s zero need for tactics, and so long as you’re aggressive they pose very little threat regardless of difficulty, they just hit harder. There is a pretty good variety, with each sporting unique attack styles but each are equally lacking in intelligence. I’ve mentioned the cultists and cherubs, and we also have various demon knights, fallen angels, gargoyles, “sexy” demon ladies. Basically a who’s, who of standard hell minions, but none of them are a proper threat.

Oh and I nearly forgot about the demon powers you can also take advantage of. I made use of them a handful of times, and noticed no real benefit. You can freeze time, handy in a sticky situation, but you’re never at risk. There’s a golden bullet which is a one shot kill – great but most enemies don’t need many hits to go down. Adrenaline does Xx. The biggest disappointment is demon form. This boosts damage output and turns the screen red and that’s it. You activate it and there is zero indication that anything has fundamentally changed. Like so much of the combat, it lacks the impact of something like quad damage. These were the only unique additions and largely felt like an afterthought.

So basically, it struggled with the fundamentals but this doesn’t mean the bones of a good game aren’t here. It sticks to the iD formula so closely, it doesn’t get to shine on its own merits. It’s a nice looking game, with detailed environments but the set dressing doesn’t cover up a subpar shooter. It’s clear the game was designed with mouse and keyboard as the input of choice, but controller support needs smoothed out for a better experience. The soundtrack, in fact the whole audio presentation, needs beefed up with better bass tones do add a bit more impact. Variety is also severely lacking in the music department.

It can also be a bit buggy. I had a few hard crashes to the dashboard. I had an instance where it wouldn’t load the next level. I had one instance where an enemy fell into the floor so I couldn’t progress. Autosave is meant to be every 3 minutes but there were times I lost 10-15 mins of progress when it broke. Achievements are also borked. I don’t know if quick resume is the issue or something else, but I had times where things didn’t unlock until I quit the app and restarted it. The most irritating issue, and I’m not an achievement hunter, is that I have the achievements for killing say, 10 fallen angels, but I don’t have the achievement for killing my first one. I have the one for 100 RPG kills, but not the ones for my first kill or when I reached 10. Some have just flat out refused to unlock and at this point the only ones I should be missing are the ones tied to hard and nightmare difficulties, but nope, not happening. For those who are precious about round numbers, it also commits the egregious sin of doling out 8’s and 12’s just to mess things up.

Bloodhound is a frustrating game. It has a short runtime and it does get better as the game progresses, but it always felt like it was just falling short of what it wanted to achieve. There’s a game feel that I look for in an FPS that was missing here. That unquantifiable thing we all need to make it feel great to play. Despite all of this, I do hope the team can take what they have learned with Bloodhound and come back with a better sequel. I could sense a great game in there and I’m sure their next attempt will iron out a lot of these issues. However, the only way I can recommend Bloodhound is if you absolutely must play every boomer shooter that hits the market.