Bloodhound mini-review

When publisher-mandated bowdlerization is only one of your worries.

The most interesting thing about Bloodhound isn’t the first-person shooting. No, what’s especially noteworthy is the game embodies an incongruous stance toward violence and sex. Within minutes of starting the game, you’ll be gunning down demonic cherubs and reducing them into sprays of pulpy viscera.

But oddly, Sony draws the line at a pair of statues with bare breasts on the game’s main menu. Apparently, a topless figure is more provocative than hours of weaponized bloodshed. If you want a front-row seat for the American Theatre of the Absurd, get a ticket to the PlayStation version of Bloodhound. Here, butchering bodies is perfectly fine, but an ambiguous depiction of the female form is taboo in an M-rated game. Somehow, enemies that resemble members of a hate group are acceptable by Sony’s logic.

But you’re here for a review of Bloodhound, not another rant on PlayStation puritanism. Well, Kruger & Flint Productions’ first-person shooter certainly looks nice. On the PlayStation 5, the developers manage to squeeze a solid sixty-frame-per-second experience from Unreal Engine. The game’s seventeen stages won’t offer anything you haven’t seen in similar titles. But if you’re OK with disembodied weapons roving around decently rendered environments, Bloodhound’s visuals don’t disappoint. There’s even a solid selection of enemies, even if one unfortunate opponent has her mammaries mosaic-ed.

For better or worse, Bloodhound channels the simplicity of last century’s first-person shooters. With their linear layout, it’s nearly impossible to get lost in any of the game’s stages. Sporadically, you might notice some branching paths. But these almost always lead to a room or alcove that rewards your discovery with ammo, extra health, or shards that provide defensive shielding. Habitually, the game will seal an exit, prompting a firefight as waves of opponents materialize. While spawning enemies behind your back is generally an obnoxious tactic, Bloodhound’s foes tend to have terrible aim, so it’s not too frustrating.

While the game opens with comic-panel background, don’t expect Bloodhound to deliver much additional exposition. Instead, the setup provides justification for a collection of special abilities, so you can temporarily increase your damage output or slow down time. And while the title’s ten weapons are attractively drawn, there’s a good likelihood that you’ve used the crossbow with exploding bolts, assault rifle, or grenade launcher in countless other shooters. But between balancing issues, a lack of recoil, and little indication when you’ve actually hit a foe, the game’s shootouts, and boss battles feel far too rudimentary in 2024.

Although you could purchase the PlayStation version of Bloodhound for about eleven dollars, the PC version can be found on sale for less than three dollars. At that price point, you might get a scrap of enjoyment and avoid the frustration caused by PlayStation prudishness. Just be aware that the game feels more like an early demo than a polished retail game.

Bloodhound was played on PlayStation 5 with review code provided by the publisher.