It's definetely possible but i think it's just very hard, you have to capture what made the original unique but do so with completely different tools.

Blood 2 wasn't that far off, at it's time it was a good game but 3D games age too much.

There is nothing stopping people from making custom maps and episodes for Blood though, just gotta learn the editor.

I just keep imagining a monk in Blood 1, running around in circles, shouting those latin lines... that was fun! but he wouldn't be able to do that now! he'd have to hide behind crates, attack from behind, be all serious... and if he wasn't he'd just look stupid, that's what I think :)

Well time has definitely proven that different developers are able to capture the atmosphere of older games (see: Bionic commando rearmed for example) so it definitely is possible

However I disagree with you on 3D, for some reason in some cases I love early 3D games even more than Sprite based games, some of the early 3D games can age well :)

well monks in general are really not present often in videogames

Monks from Heroes of Might and Magic III from the Castle come to mind when I think about it but not "deranged latin monks" no

Undying had them as well.

Wow I have always thought of the "monks" as cultists, why would they be monks? When you examine things better they seem more like cultists like the ones in Resident Evil 4, I suppose it would be better to term them as "cultist monks".

I really miss the old mindless 3d action shooters.

I really don't think the old shooters are so mindless. Faster paced, sure. But just look at the level design we get in most modern shooters. There is a reason why everything has become linear with less secret areas and special items. It's because the average gamer doesn't have the patience to engage with these design features. I'm always blown away when playing games like Blood, Duke and Doom just how many approaches you can take to a level. When you mix that up with the variety of weapons and the types of enemies you get a whole lot of different strategies and tactics that you can use. That's what makes these game so incredibly replayable. It's also why these games continue to draw in new fans. I say that these shooters demonstrate a lot of the depth that has gone missing in the current generation of shooters.

My complaint about today's modern games is that there is no original basis in which a game is made replayable.

When I was growing up in the 1980s and early 1990s, we had a lot of different games that challenged you and dared you to do some problem solving. As old as Wolfenstein 3D and Doom are, there were plenty of secrets scattered throughout the levels that you had to search for. Modern games really don't have this.

Game developers during the 80s and 90s had to work hard to make a game that would last. Today's games, on the other hand, rely heavily on vast marketing.

These days you get more out of the packaging than you do for the content itself. It's the sad truth, but unfortunately, it's the current trend in today's gaming.

I'm not sure what you are looking for when you say "original basis". Do you want something else other than secrets and power-ups for re-playability, or is that what you think is missing out of modern games? The Rock Star games alone are on par with anything dished out in the 80's and 90's as far a secrets. The Force Unleashed series makes you look around to unlock extra abilities. There is also the whole "Achievement" system built into the XBox games, which really just streamlines the whole process.
This is only true because of the shear volume of games out now. When we were kids (I grew up in the 80's and 90's too) we typically had a handful of games we plaid the hell out of. Of course we'd take the time to get all the secrets out of the game. We also had to makeup a lot of the content ourselves because honestly... the graphics sucked ass.

When you invest subconsciously in a game it becomes all the more valuable. If you want the same experience as you had as a kid, just pickup a new game (doesn't matter which one) and lock yourself in a room with it for a couple months. You'll have all the nostalgia for it as you do for Doom.

*sigh*

Either you didn't grow up in the 1980s and 1990s as you claim you did, or you're denying the truth of what's out there.

GOG is here for classic gamers like myself who recall when pushing the limits was the norm. I'm not going to lie, some games out there are doing this. But the majority of them heavily rely on marketing.

This is why I don't follow into crap trends like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. Call of Duty was great when it first came out, but seriously, the marketing is just too much. World of Warcraft, on the other hand, is all about the marketing.

Why do you think 12 million people subscribe to a game you have to pay $15 a month for?

Are you trying to compare the Achievement system on Xbox to the games of yesterday? We didn't need an Achievement system, we just went along with how games should of been played. To have fun.

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"This is only true because of the shear volume of games out now."

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The exact same thing can be said of television and music. And you know what? I think a lot of today's material sucks. Because it's all about the money, and not making a video game/tv show/music album that is pushing the limits. It's not about the quality either.

Name me a few video games, television shows, and music artists today that we'll be cherishing 10-20 years from now. Chances are, hardly any will pop up, let alone a few.

Venture capitalists are taking control over gaming. There is a reason why companies like Activision and Electronic Arts have devolved into nothing more than money making machines. Both were good, but today, not anymore.

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"We also had to makeup a lot of the content ourselves because honestly... the graphics sucked ass."

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What the hell are you talking about? The developers made up the bulk of the content, not us. Sure, there were add-ons, level editors and files that we could change to our preferences, but what made the games were the developers.

The graphics suck ass because you're living in 2011, not 1985, not 1997. Yeah, like we ever saw cinematic videos in gaming during the 1980s.

What you said here is like comparing Myst (1994) to LA Noire (2011).

Of course the graphics sucked ass, if you're stupid enough to compare a modern era game to a game of the past.
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"If you want the same experience as you had as a kid, just pickup a new game (doesn't matter which one) and lock yourself in a room with it for a couple months. You'll have all the nostalgia for it as you do for Doom. "

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Again, you're jumping to conclusions.

Pick up any game? Dude, this is what I want you to do.

Either try a game that looks appealing to you, or do some research on the game before buying it.

This is what I do before I buy any game. Believe me, instead of feeling like you wasted your daily paycheck, you'll be satisfied with your purchase.

Don't ever compare Doom to the generic first person shooters out there today. The closest comparison is Call of Duty: MW3, but even that is a long stretch.

I guess I wasn't clear on my point. Just saying "things were better when I was a kid" doesn't really do justice to the work people put into games these days.

We will all have a limited selection of games we are exposed to when growing up, and they will always be our defacto comparison points. When we were kids I don't think I played through more than 10 or 20 computer games before before Doom and Blood. Most of which were either side-scrollers (eg. Mario Brothers) or top down map quests type games like Diablo or Zelda. We don't compare Doom or Blood to any of these previous games because they were on new and novel technology and came out in the rebellious stage of psychological development, fueling the nostalgia.

People are always limited to these types of constraints to some degree or another just because there is only so much living a body can do. So kids growing up today will say WoW, LA Noire, Call of Duty and Gears of War etc. were far better games than whatever swill tomorrows publishers want to throw at the masses when they get to our age.

It's the same reason grandma and grandpa yelled at us for listening to that damned hippity hop music. It's always been that way.

Let people have their fun man, it's not hurting anything... except maybe the wallet... $60 a title these days WTF!!!

You are not alone, I adore Blood as well. I probably would not have ever played it if it wasn't for the abandonware sites I visited back in 2004-2007 and I thank those sites for exposing me to a lot of different DOS shooters I missed out on that are underrated like Strife, Nitemare 3D, and of course Blood. I like Blood enough that I am trying to track down physical copies of the game and its expansions.

good luck...some of the hard copies and expansions are incredibly expensive...