I'm glad to see I'm not the only one having trouble with Blood. My main problem so far is the way the cultists shoot you almost the instant they're on screen, giving you no time to react - I'm on the second easiest difficulty and still having to use an embarrassing amount of quicksaving!
Glad this has popped on on GOG though. I remember reading a review for it around its release in a GamesMaster magazine, I'd totally forgotten it existed since then.

Makes me remember what I hate about Blood 2 the most : The damn split-second reaction and aimbot like precision that the enemies have. It's nearly impossible to get out of a gunfight without getting wounded.

Arrrgh - Yeah too true. Not like the enemies in Blood are much better. Of course thats made up for by the great level design, ingenious weapons, and overall superiority to Blood 2.

Playing on the easiest difficulty. Not feeling embarrased. Just enjoying all the blood. Aargh:-D

Yeah, I don't remember it being this hard when it first came out. I had a tough time too for the first couple of hours, but now I'm getting the hang of it. Fast movement is your best defense for most enemies.
Sometimes it just takes luck though. I can't tell you how many times I've opened a door only to be immediately blasted for ~75hp by some punk cultist who just happened to be walking right in front, facing me. I've started trying to open them at an angle now to avoid those little surprises.

Blood is kind of really cheap, and part of the game is predicting all of its "dick moves". The goal is to sniff out ambushes and lobbing dynamite around corners before they even see you.
Also the shotgun is kind of crappy compared to the shotgun in Duke/Doom. It has a huge spread so you can't really rely on it as a default weapon. Use the alt fire more often than the primary fire.
The flare gun on the other hand is an amazing pistol since it's an autoaim projectile and is essentially one shot/one kill for "small" enemies like cultists and zombies. It's a great sniping weapon. And if a crowd forms, the alt fire is good for dealing with them.
The Tommy Gun is very useful for large rooms. Its alt fire seems useless and gimmicky at first but it really can help you chop through an entire room quickly.
Don't be stingy with explosives. That's the trick to using dynamite-- spam the hell out of it! You get plenty.

I agree. The game is pretty touch when compared to others like Duke3d, Doom, Redneck, etc... I think a lot of this has to do with the amount of damage the enemies dish out and their rate of fire, too. Even a few of the game's lowly cultists can be very deadly at close range. I think the best strategy is to not let them get close. They don't seem to cause much damage from long ranges.
I've been playing the game on the medium difficulty and it is great fun! It feels like Duke3d on "Come get some".

The shotgun takes a bit to used to, but when you do it'll bring almost anything down quickly.
As for toughness- hard games are good. There are too many easy games around.

S**t this is indeed hard...I'm in E1M6 facing a dozen of zombies in a closed room...guess I need to roll back to a previous save to stock up health and dynamics...

It sure is. I started it out on normal mode (the third difficulty; I don't remember the name of it) and was getting hammered. I was constantly saving and it was detracting me from the experience so I decided to start a new game on easy mode (the second difficulty) and it was fine.
You can't go in guns blazing; you have to pick enemies one by one and plan out what to do with whole rooms of enemies.
On the final note, I love the TNT. My favourite weapon by far. The voodoo doll is interesting too. I seriously love this game; it's better than 95% of shooters that are released today.

New to this game myself. I'm a big Duke Nukem fan. When Duke was released here, alot of peeps here were screaming for Blood (so to speak). Had to check it out and am not dissapointed. Love the atmosphere.

I'd strongly advise against using excessive amounts of LSD when playing BLOOD since it impairs judgment and the game itself should provide enough stimulance. Duke's shotgun is one of the most impotent shotguns in any game of that era, whereas BLOOD's shotgun is one of the most powerful kinetic, non-explosive weapons in any game ever, as compared to other weapons on the palette.
Alt fire has a huge spread and is utterly deadly at closer ranges. The range also determines the amount of power. Primary fire is weaker but much, much more precise. You need to know how and when to use both.

I just love the level designs myself. I've played through the first couple of episodes and yeah you have the standard "City" map and the "Cave" map and "Temple" map and so forth but they make these bland levels so fun to play. I find myself wanting to play the game just to see what else they can do with the levels.

I'm on the third episode now, playing on the default difficulty again, and it actually isn't that hard when you get used to it. At first I was playing it like Doom and just charging around like a madman, but now I know to play cautiously it's much more bearable. And it adds so much to the atmosphere - the enemies really feel threatening and it never seems to degenerate into an 'enter room, kill everything, repeat' snoozefest. I'm liking it a lot!

Somoen said fast movement is your best friend. True but Cover is you next best friend, and only a little less important then speed.