I was a big fan of the original blake stone when I played it. I thought the additions to the engine and the presentation and polish put into it made it leagues above it's predecessor wolfenstein, which was already a fine game. so then, why do I not recommend this game, when it's mostly more of the same? well... what few additions there are either detract from the experience or add nothing new whatsoever.
the minimap is far smaller to help accomodate a "powerup" that only lets you zoom further in, not out, which is not helpful considering how claustrophobic the minimap is by default. there are invisible shadow enemies that are neat in theory, but in practice don't do nearly enough to alert you to their presence. I get that's the point but it goes too far. the explosive weapons now blow up ammo as well, and while that's a neat touch presentation wise it just means I never used them until the final boss and one hairy situation near the very end.
the game is not even half the length of aliens of stone. it's too short, even for an older DOS game. it felt like an expansion pack that someone decided should be made into a "sequel". there's also a weird problem with difficulty scaling in this game, the early game has the same tier of enemies but less ammo and weaker weapons. I was blasting through later levels and trudging through the starting ones.
if the original blake stone didn't exist, I'd have no problem recommending this. but as it stands there's really no reason to get this over the original. you won't regret playing it if you buy it as a pack-in, but there really is no reason to recommend this over aliens of gold.
