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THE story of Captain Blood is an unusual little tale – a third rate games programmer finally came up with the goods, a game so mega that he became part of it the first time he typed run. All was well until Bob made his first hyperspace jump and a glitch in the system resulted in him being cloned. Now there are 200 Bob Bloods scattered around the galaxy and each one contains a fraction of his vital fluids. Unless he captures every one of them and recovers the fluid he is doomed.
We join the story with only five clones remaining – hidden somewhere among the galaxy's 32,768 inhabitable planets.
You begin the game sat at the Ark's control panel, viewing the planet you are currently orbiting and Blood's bio-mechanical arm – this is your link with the game.
Too large to land on a plent, the Ark is equipped with a limited supply of Oorxx – mutated, remote controlled space fish. These are despatched to the planet's surface in an attempt to communicate with intelligent beings who may know the whereabouts of Bob's clones.
The ground skimming flight over the planet's surface is the game's only arcade-type sequence. With full control over the Oorxx's speed, altitude and direction, you wend your way over mountains and valleys in search of a canyon. Life forms, if present, will always be gound at the far end of a canyon.
Wireframe landscapes are animated quickly and smoothly, but some of the structures are difficult to pick out when flying over a ravine of rock pinnacles at speed. Having read glowing reviews of previous versions, I was a mite disappointed when I saw it for myself. The view from the Ark of the nearest planet is limited to a low resolution sphere of swirling colours – yawn.
Investigate the first planet you are initially presented with, as this is always inhabited. I mention this point because if you decide to go boldly where no man has gone before, you will get pretty bored – a surprisingly large number of the galaxy's planets are devoid of life. Assuming you have located your local friendly alien life form, the ship's Upcom will automatically burst into life. This Universal Protocol of Communication uses an icon system to allow conversation between beings of different worlds.
When Mr Alien speaks, a seris of icons appears on your Upcom display and running Blood's finger over the icons gives you a literal translation. Likewise you can piece together a sentence by selecting the relevant icons and then pressing the transmit button.
The game resolves around your ability to successfully interrogate aliens – many of whom have needs of a reproductive nature. If you can fulfil these needs – not personally – they may divulge information relevant to your quest.

Captain Blood is a game with good graphics and an excellent title tune, but sadly it lacks variety and depth in the gameplay department.
James Riddell

Title Captain Blood
Game Type Action-Strategy
Company Infogames
Released 1988
Players 1
HD Installable Yes (With Patch)
Compatibility All (With Patch)
Submission Nick Scott (HP_Lovecraft@hotmail.com)

Review
Captain Blood is the strangest game I've ever played on the Amiga. Bar
None, and I've seen plenty of strange games in my days.

Here is the premise:
You are "Captain Blood". Some sort of intergalactic space pirate, who is
dying. You need some special fluid to survive, or you will be dead in a
couple of days. In order to get more fluid, you have to locate clones of
yourself that were scattered throughout the universe, and take their
"fluids". Apparently, they know you want their "fluids", and have all gone
into hiding. The general point of the game is searching for these clones, so
you can kill them, and extract the "fluids", live a few more days, and
then find another clone. You find these clones by travelling around the
galaxy, talking to aliens, and doing basic detective work.

You spend the game sitting at the controls of your spaceship, called the
"ark" which looks rather like a Giger drawing. You start the game by
opening a map of the galaxy, with a variety of planets on display. You
pick a planet by connecting a line from your current planet, to your
destination, and you travel there by hyperspace.... The map only shows
known planets, but you can also travel anywhere in the galaxy by entering
a set of coordinates.

Once you're in orbit around the planet, you have a few options: You can
blow it up, scan it for defenses, or land and talk to some aliens.
"Landing" sounds like a simple task, but apparently, in this Galaxy, all
the aliens live at the ends of long, dangerous valleys, and you need to
fly through them in order to find the aliens. This opens up a very
interesting flight-simulator mode on Captain Blood: The graphics are all
vector, but the update speed is VERY fast, and it makes for extremely
realistic effects. I remember at the time (1988) it was one of the most
impressive things I've seen my Amiga do.

The landing mode gets tiresome very soon. As impressive as it is, it's
pretty much the same scene over and over. As the game gets longer, the
landing-sequence just gets faster, and occationally, you need to avoid
missle-launchers. Unfortunately, you need to do it in order to land, and
talk to the Aliens.

This brings up the reason why this game is so strange: The Aliens TALK,
but they don't speak English! They speak some weird alien language, which
you don't understand.

So, you have to communicate with the aliens using the UPCOM system.
It is a series of 150 icons, that all have some meaning (like alien,
friend, kill, help, laugh, clone, etc). There are a lot of different words,
and you have to arrange them into sentences. The alien uses the same
system, but usually gives cryptic messages like "ALIEN FRIEND CODE LIKE".
The trick is to ask the alien if he knows where the clone is, or at least
where to find somebody that does.

Sounds simple, but there are 10 different RACES of aliens, and they all
speak a completely different dialect. A simple word might be a greeting
to one race, but an insult to another. Some races only speak gibberish,
and some are specifically trying to fool you. So, not only is using the
UPCOM extremely difficult to learn, but you basically have to use a
different system for each alien race you come across. To put it simply,
it's hard!

After a while though, it almost becomes second nature. It helps to keep a
little notebook of sentences that WORK for each alien race. Also keep
track of all the coordinates they give you for clones, and other aliens
that are "not on the map". At first, I hated Captain Blood, but eventually
the UPCOM system fascinated me. Very clever! I've never seen anything
like it since. Certainty not for everyone, but a challenging and addictive
game.

Also, apart from the graphics and gameplay, the music and sound effects
were actually pretty good. I remember the ads for the game promoted the
fact that some famous French musician made the music, and there was even a
CD released!

CAPTAIN BLOOD

Welcome to the galaxy created by CAPTAIN BLOOD. It contains an
incalculable number of stars, nearly 33,000 planets, 14 distinct
alien races, and, unfortunately, CAPTAIN BLOOD. The "Captain" is not
really a captain. And "Blood" is quite misleading because he's very
nearly out of that precious fluid. This admittedly confusing set of
facts comes together in the unique and intriguing role-playing
game, CAPTAIN BLOOD. (This review is based on the Amiga version.)

Blood's galaxy came into existence on his personal computer: Blood
is a programmer and the author of computer games. For one such
game, he created a galaxy and named it "Hydra." In addition to the
features listed above, he gave each alien species distinct
language, customs, and disposition. Some of these populations were
at peace, while others were at war with one of the other races. He
devised an inter-species, icon-based communication system called
"upcom," and other technological nifties. He then capped the whole
thing off with a hero -- a protagonist for the drama -- whose role
would be that of the person playing the game.

Along the lines (I suppose) of Lord British, who enjoys placing his
own identity within his ULTIMA masterpieces, Blood named his hero
"Captain Blood." Obviously Blood was a far better programmer than he
was a debugger, for when he ran his program, he found it
sucked...sucked him right into the Hydra Galaxy! Blood is now flying
the spaceship he designed among the stars and worlds he programmed.
But Blood is not exactly himself: The program, for reasons unknown,
created five additional Bloods, each copy taking some of the real
Captain Blood's vital fluids.

The five clones are scattered throughout Hydra, and Blood needs to
find them to regain his juices within several real-time hours. In
order to locate the five copies, he must use his own "upcom"
communication system to converse with the 14 races he created. As
the clock ticks down, Blood's ship's computer is gradually replacing
body parts with bionic bits. If this is allowed to continue, Blood
will lose control over his body, and, ultimately, his humanity.

This game is simply fantastic! Learning to use the upcom is a real
challenge requiring many hours of linguistic exercise before
progress can be made. Once there is communication, Blood will have
to bargain and deal in Hydra's political jungle. A pencil and paper
for taking notes during exchanges with the aliens is recommended.
Some aliens will require your services before they give you
information. You may need to rescue, kidnap, or destroy in order to
satisfy the creatures. Your ship is capable of annihilating an
entire planet, so you're not exactly without clout in Hydra. Your
goal here is to learn the coordinates of each of the planets on
which the clones are hiding. Each time a clone is recovered, your
available time is increased. Once the clones are found and Blood is
no longer in danger of becoming mechanized, there is still the
problem of returning home.

The sound and graphics are terrific. The interior of Blood's ship
is made up of strange, techno-organic mechanisms: that is,
everything is either a living mechanism or a mechanized organism.
These are rich in detail, and are colored in deep shades of blue. At
the controls you see Blood's arm; as time runs out, it slowly
mutates into a less easily controllable robotic arm. On the ship's
view screen, planets and stars shine with an unnatural light. While
moving through hyperspace between the stars, the screen explodes
into brilliant rainbow displays (which may be skipped over once you
decide you've seen them often enough).

The aliens Blood meets also abound in detail and imagination. He
communicates with them using an "Oorxx." The Oorxx are creatures who
make their eyes and ears available to Blood. They enable him to
carry on his conversations with aliens as though he were down on the
planet, even though he remains in his ship. However, the Oorxx must
be guided to the planet's surface. This involves a brief arcade
sequence in which you maneuver them through canyons on the planet's
surface. The technique for doing this takes some practice, but it
soon becomes effortless; the flight through the canyons is hypnotic
and almost dream-like.

Sound effects in the game are everywhere and are of the same high
quality as the graphics. The ship's engines sound as if they're
about to disintegrate during hyperspace travel. The Oorxx, as well
as the aliens on the planets, make species-distinct noises when they
speak or yell. Most impressive is the game's title-screen music,
programmed by noted electronic composer Jean-Michel Jarre. (Atari
owners may recall that Jarre composed the music for his albums on
the ST.)

There are so many reasons for recommending CAPTAIN BLOOD, I doubt
I've covered them all. It is indeed rare for a game so rich in
graphics to be such a winner when it comes to game play. This is a
twist on the "Emperor's New Clothes" syndrome that applies to so
many programs on the market: This time, the Emperor really does
dress royally.

CAPTAIN BLOOD requires 512K on the Amiga and is played almost
entirely with the mouse. It uses only one disk on the Amiga, but
other versions are distributed on two disks. A formatted diskette is
required to save games.

CAPTAIN BLOOD is published by Infogrames and distributed by
Mindscape.

*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253