High Flying, Explosive Gunboat Action

Author's Rating:

Pros: Great water effects and multiplayer mode

Cons: Some may not like difficulty or control

The Bottom Line: 
Overall, Blood Wake is a great game for like $20. It's long, tough, fun and has a great multiplayer mode.

Author's Review
Earlier this year, I played a demo of Blood Wake on one of the OXM's demo's. I had wanted to play this game since I seen the commercial and I was happy when it was on one of my demos. After playing the demo I wasn't really all that interested in the game anymore. Then a few weeks ago, I got it new for $15 just for the sake of getting a game. While I didn't care for the demo, I liked the actual game. Find out why.

Story

You play as Shao Kai, a lieutenant in the Northern League who's fleet was attacked and destroyed by your brother. You were found by the Shadow Clan who rescued you only if you'd join them. The Shadow Clan fights against the Jade Kingdom and the Iron Empire who are also enemies of each other. Now you must be brought into this war and get revenge on your brother for attacking your fleet.

Gameplay

Blood Wake plays a lot like Twisted Metal with objectives to complete instead of just killing everyone you see. You'll have to be an escort at times, defend bases, or even collect items. Theirs multiple objectives to complete in each mission so it won't be quick and easy. In fact, Blood Wake is actually the most challenging Xbox game I've played yet. Playing through the story mode you can unlock new arenas and boats for the Battle Mode. Some things can only be unlocked by beating levels on higher difficulty levels. There are three difficulties, Ensign, Captain and Admiral. Even on ensign, the easiest difficulty, you'll be challenged. Blood Wake has over 20 missions so you'll be playing for a while, especially if your trying to unlock everything for the battle mode, which will be hard.

The Battle Mode is a death match for 1-4 players. It's great for multiplayer even if you don't have four people. CPU boats make matches more explosive and fun. The gametypes are different depending on the amount of players. For example, there is certain gametypes that can only be played with fours players. There's survival matches, handicap battles, free for all's and many others. You can unlock a total of 5 levels to battle in. Another really cool thing is that you can set the condition of the water that your in. You can have it calm, rough or stormy. It's really cool when it's stormy and you'll go flyin' in the air from the many waves. You can also unlock many different kinds of boats and classes of them.

Blood Wake contains a ton of different boats, some which can only be used in the battle mode. Most of the boats contain multiple classes and special weapons. The boats are ranked by their armor, speed and weapons. Each boat has a basic chain gun or auto-cannon and at least one special weapon. Special weapons consist of rocket launchers, missiles, torpedo's, mines and more. I believe a boat can't have more then three. Also in the battle mode you can collect a few power-ups which come in handy.

The enemies are pretty smart and there is many of them which adds to the challenge. They use the special weapons and they put up a good fight. Unlike a lot of games the tend to be a little smart. If your attacking one of the bigger ships from the behind they'll try to turn around and fire at you. One thing I would like to have seen would have been really big ships. You really only face off against ships your size, slightly bigger ones and gun turrets. Though most enemies tend to be similar, you shouldn't get bored anytime soon.

Graphics

Blood Wake has the most amazing water that I've ever seen in a game. The waves look so cool especially when the boats are getting sent into the air from them. The boats themselves are pretty detailed and good looking. I like when your switching your special weapon and it shows the guns getting into place on the boat. The shores and land don't look very great but you don't see much land anyway.

Sound

The sound effects are pretty cool. Explosions and guns firing sound good. I don't really pay much attention at all to the music so I cant really say anything about it. I don't care much for your copilots voice though. I heard some people complain about it. It's not a big deal to me but it tends to get annoying at times.

Final Comments

Overall, Blood Wake is a great game for like $20. It's long, tough, fun and has a great multiplayer mode.

Random Info.

Year of Release: 2001
Developer: Stormfront Studios
Console: Xbox
Genre: Action
1-4 Player(s)

Final Rating: 8.6/10