Mini Review: “Blood – Cryptic Passage” (Expansion Pack For “Blood”)

As regular readers of this blog know, I’ve been playing a classic 1990s FPS game called “Blood” quite a bit recently. So, for today, I thought that I’d look at one of the expansion packs for it (anyone remember those? They’re like modern “DLC”, but much better) called “Cryptic Passage”.

I got “Cryptic Passage” when I bought the “One Unit Whole Blood” collection on a website called “GoG” a while back. You can also get this package on Steam and it contains the original “Blood”, along with both of the official expansion packs and some other bonus content too (at least on GoG, I’m not sure if the Steam version comes with bonus content).

Anyway, let’s take a look at “Cryptic Passage”:

Hi there!

One of the first things I will say about “Cryptic Passage” is that, unlike the other expansion pack, it contains no new weapons or new enemies. All it contains are nine new levels and one secret level (which I actually found this time). This is also why this is a mini review rather than a full review, since there isn’t too much to say that I haven’t already said about the original game.

But, saying this, the levels in “Cryptic Passage” are surprisingly well-designed and, most importantly of all, there’s a really good variety of settings on offer here. In fact, this may well be my favourite “Blood” episode for the simple reason that most of the levels are completely different from each other.

Duke Nukem might get to visit a cinema, but Caleb has far more sophisticated tastes….

The scariest thing about this level is that the steamboat doesn’t have enough lifeboats for everyone! Will someone PLEASE think of the zombies!?

Seriously, you get to visit a whole range of different places here, including an old steamboat, an opera house, some treacherous mountains, a creepy monastery and- at the very end of the game – a giant floating castle:

Yes, back in the 1990s, videogame villains lived in style!

Not only that, one cool thing about “Cryptic Passage” is that most of the levels follow on directly from the previous level. In other words, you’ll start most of the levels near to where your finished the previous level.

In fact, you’ll sometimes even be able to see part of the previous level from the beginning of the next level and vice versa:

And, if you find the secret level, you’ll be greeted by none other than the grim reaper himself.

As for the level design itself, it’s as challenging and as enjoyably difficult as you would expect from a “Blood” game. All of the levels require a lot of exploration and many of them are fiendishly difficult – so, don’t even think about playing “Cryptic Passage” until you’ve had some practice on the original game.

Even so, the first couple of levels are fairly easy – although this might just be to lull you into a false sense of security.

Don’t get too used to it, the game will quickly get a lot more difficult…

Another interesting thing about this expansion is that it actually contains an ending cutscene when you defeat the final bosses. Yes, it’s just a couple of pictures and some text, but it’s still pretty good to see considering that the other expansion pack didn’t bother with cutscenes.

This expansion pack also has a story too. It’s something to do with an old scroll, I think.

One thing that I will warn you about is that, if you get this game on GoG, the “Cryptic Passage” expansion launches from a separate shortcut to the rest of the game. But, surprisingly, the save files from the game also carry over from each version.

What this means is if, as I once accidentally did, you start up the original game by mistake and load a save file, it will take you to the corresponding level from the first episode of the original game. In fact, I accidentally skipped two levels of “Cryptic Passage” this way (before getting an odd sense of deja vu and thinking “this isn’t right”) and I had to go back and use the “level skip” cheat in order to play them properly. So, be careful about this.

All in all, “Cryptic Passage” is a fairly solid add-on for “Blood”. Yes, it doesn’t contain anything in the way of new weapons or monsters, but the levels in this expansion are absolutely brilliant. They’re varied, well-designed and often enjoyably challenging. If you liked the original “Blood”, then you’ll probably love “Cryptic Passage” too.

If I had to give it a rating out of five, then it would get four.