Blood Money is a Horizontal Scrolling Shooter game made by DMA Design and published by Psygnosis, released for the Amiga console.
Unlike other similar spaceship shooters where the player character is a heroic pilot fighting evil aliens or robots, this one have the player assuming the role of a fearsome space pirate on a mission to invade and plunder a number of different planets of their resources, in several stages whose environment varies from an ice world to a planet of flames and the abyss of an underwater planet. Each and every stage grants the player a unique vehicle as well, either a spaceship, helicopter or submarine.
In-between kicking ass, the player can come across recharging stations at various intervals, to purchase upgrades or extra armor and various equipment.
Blood Money is Psygnosis' first major success, with plenty of positive reviews and selling 40,000 copies. A Commodore 64 version is made available a year later.
Not to be confused with Hitman: Blood Money.
Please Insert Blood Money. Press Fire When Ready.
- Asteroid Thicket: Right in the opening FMV, the player is introduced piloting his ship through an asteroid field from a behind-the-back perspective before landing on a nearby moon. On the snow planet, the game will throw blocks of frozen asteroids as an obstacle, which can be shot or avoided.
- Attack of the Monster Appendage: The underwater stages where you pilot your submarine through a cavern have the huge pincers of some unseen Giant Crab (larger than your submarine) occasionally sticking into the screen from above or below, where you'll suffer damage when colliding with them.
- Davy Jones: In the underwater stages, repair stations are labelled onscreen as "Davy Jones' Equipment Locker".
- Jet Pack: The stage on a winter planet, where you're unable to pilot your spaceship for some reason. In which case you travel around on a jetpack and shoot at enemies along the way.
- Macross Missile Massacre: Your spaceship can have it's rocket launchers upgraded into firing entire waves of missiles at onscreen enemies, and you can even fire them simultaneously from the front and back!
- Money Spider: Your collected points are represented as gold coins and medals of assorted sizes, which are dropped by all sorts of enemies - even giant insects, jellyfishes, killer plants, pterodactyls, and animal-based mooks.
- Predator Pastiche: While the player protagonist isn't visible onscreen, the loading screen reveals him to be clad in a Predator-like armor.
- Sea Serpents: In the level atop the seas of some snow-covered planet, occasionally gigantic blue serpents will pop out the water before going back down. These monsters can't be harmed, but they won't purposely attack you and only poses a threat if you collide with them by accident.
- Segmented Serpent: The underwater planet stage ends with you battling three of these monsters crawling out a hole in the abysss, as bosses. Though they prefer attacking one at a time.
- Space Pirate: You get to play as one, and completing each stage will have the game announcing, "Planet Plundered!"
- Spread Shot: The one mission where you're controlling a jetpack instead of your ship have this as an available firearm upgrade.
- Under the Sea: The level set in the abyss of an ocean planet, where you pilot a submarine instead of your usual spaceship. It's crawling with jellyfishes, underwater grubs, and pincers of kaiju-sized crabs will periodically attempt ripping you to shreds. Survive long enough and you'll even make it to some Underwater Ruins.
- Xenomorph Xerox: On the ice planet, you unexpectedly fights a massive Xeno-head as a boss (just the head!). With an eyeless, phallic-shaped face and all that as well as an Overly-Long Tongue it can shoot projectile attacks from.
