Fragfest: Great review! There's just one chronological error. You keep comparing it to "Doom 2" when it was actually released one week prior to the first "Doom".

AVATAR://upload/avatars/2009/03/906701ca748e11dc256438968a57650a055525e0_t2.jpg #Q&_^Q&Q#USERNAME:drmlessgames#Q&_^Q&Q#GROUP:4Blake Stone was released shortly after Doom II hit the markets, and way after it was at the top of everyone's have-to-buy list. This, plus the reality that Blake Stone was based on "older" technology than Doom II made most players completely overlook this title, a decision based on unfair criteria. Yes, Doom II's technology was superior, but it only had that as an advantage. It was a non-squared wolf3d, with more gore. Blake Stone, unlike it, since it used a more limited technology, relied on addding features to the fast corridor FPS games. Medstations supplying medkits to heal yourself, NPCs that you could talk to, backtracking levels, were some of the new additions that Blake Stone provided to the maze fps genre pioneered by id software. Unfortunately, during its time, people were too busy admiring the varying level heights and map mode from Doom II to see them.
Some years later with games like Strife, and much later on, with a game called Half Life, Blake Stone had some sort of reinvindication from these games, which included many of the features that it brought to the table, and made these later games their core gameplay's trademark.
Highly recommended.

Jeffpiatt: AOG had to deal with the original doom being better looking while the sequel planet strike was over shadowed by doom 2 Rott was boned by quake coming out.

kalirion: Planet Strike was based on the same technology as AoG, so it was overshadowed by the original Doom anyway. Rott came out in 1994, same year as Doom II, so Quake had no impact on it.

PredakingCrush: Actually, Doom II was released toward the end of 1994, September/October if my memory serves me correctly. Rise of the Triad released months later, in February of 1995.

kalirion: Well according to the official site ROTT was released on December 21, 1994. Either way, it was a Doom II competitor. I doubt anyone outside of id had even heard of some Quake game by that point. Duke 3D was the real Quake competitor, though it was released 5 months earlier.

kalirion: Well according to the official site ROTT was released on December 21, 1994. Either way, it was a Doom II competitor. I doubt anyone outside of id had even heard of some Quake game by that point. Duke 3D was the real Quake competitor, though it was released 5 months earlier.