This game doesn't deserve a title

Author's Rating:

Pros: Visuals and ability to add in bots for multiplayer

Cons: Control is a bit off, Sound is weak, off gaurd difficulty changes, cheap opponents

The Bottom Line: 
Do you like to toss money away? If so, then by all means get Blood Wake.

Author's Review
The reason I picked up Blood Wake was simple; it was
because of the hype. Hype is a really powerful thing,
it can make absolutely anything seem as if it were to
good to be true and that you had to own it, and if you
didn’t, well you would look like an idiot. Blood Wake
had gotten me to lay down 50 shells for this game, and
not only do I regret the mistake of even purchasing
it, but I regret the fact that I had my very own XBOX
play this horrible game, yes it’s that bad! Now as you
can tell from my previous reviews (Cel Damage, Twisted
Metal Black) I definitely do love car combat themed
games, so naturally I was assuming that Blood Wake
would go perfect with my growing collection of XBOX
games, but when you go out to play a game that offers
a annoying and useless story mode, horrible control,
and so much more unwanted errors, your bound to feel
ripped off and used, all because of that damn hype.
Hopefully with this review, I can prevent an
unfortunate experience for XBOX owners when I tell
them to NOT PICK THIS GAME UP!

Presentation:(n/a)

- 1- 4 Players
- Over 10 selectable sea boats
- Realistic water effects
- Total crap

Plot:(n/a)

“Even here in the gulf, rescue is nowhere in sight.
The wind hunts me with a long, cold-fingered reach
that strangles lost worlds in my throat before they
cross my lips. Rain falls from every direction, either
straight down or in torrents or whipped up from the
waves. My energy and hope sapped, I don’t know how
long I can hang on

Patrolling the Gulf of the Moon is usually one of the
best duties a young boat captain can draw – relative
safety, warm waters, and plenty of small coastal
villages to provide food, drink, and entertainment.
The day we cast off was one of those days that beckon
young men to a life at sea. As commander, I had stood
proudly behind my helmsman while he guided our stout
vessel out of the harbor and into the gulf.

I am still not sure when the attack came from because
it was so fast and so final. I’ve been tossed about
like a child’s wooden boat for as best as I can tell,
six days and nights, but the line between sleep and
wakefulness has become blurred save for one clear
thought that keeps me clinging for life – that I must
find out who is responsible for this devastating
attack on my boat and crew. I draw small comfort from
the knowledge that I am the only one who survived the
onslaught, and that this one remaining chunk of hull
is all that separates me from the sharks. The thought
had just crossed my mind when I heard the distant hum
of an engine through the driving rain. ”

Graphics: (8/10)

Ok, I’ll start the review on a good note, and give
credit where credit is due, and that’s with the
visuals. The first thing you’ll notice in this game
are of the water physics, and how realistic they are.
As you move your speedboat you’ll notice that ripples
of waves will cast behind you as water fires out from
the cylinders, causing miniature ripples of waves to
occur. Yes, the water is that realistic, and it
doesn’t just stop there. When sending an bullet fast
torpedo towards an opponent, you’ll see the trail of
ripples left behind as to where it finally hits your
opponent and a gigantic creator (which will slowly
fade away) forms around them as a stream of water
bursts through the center, causing everything around
that opponent to get some air or to bobble in the
water for a few moments. Now visually, the water is
out of this world. Sun sets will taint the water with
an orange hue, sunny days will give a crystal blue
effect in which you’ll be able to actually see past
the water and down to the reef, but most importantly
is that in the evening, the moonlight will cast off to
the water, where it becomes so visually impressive,
that you’ll actually stop what your doing (I’ve done
this numerous times) to actually take it all in and
give a good look to how the water seems almost to
real. However, everything around the water (villages,
rocks, etc.) looks horrible and should not be seen up
close.

The Boats, while nice to look at (although some look
ridiculous), don’t match what the water effects have
to offer. Boats will come equipped with chain guns,
torpedoes, and missiles already equipped to where you
can see them on the boat, or waiting to be used.
Damage received (or given) can be seen with smoke
pouring from the engine to where pieces of the boat
will actually come up and float along the water, but
most importantly is the explosion of the boat, which
at times can be over exaggerated to where it will make
you laugh, but it is notable to point out that the
boats will actually bobble up and down for a short
period of time before actually sinking down to the
bottom of the sea. But what bothers me a lot is that
the drivers in the boat seem extremely stiff and
lifeless to where they’ll sit nice and calmly as they
get struck with torpedo’s blind sided, plus they have
almost little to no animations, even the drivers in
Crazy Taxi had more animation then these cardboard cut
outs.

Sound:(3/10)

With each mission, comes a intro to where you’ll hear
the characters of the game hold conversations about
the mission and how it is to be executed by cheesy
hand drawn pictures, imitating Max Payne’s way of
telling it’s story. But unlike Max Payne, Blood Wake’s
way of telling a story is down right boring!
Characters will sound extremely slow, unemotional, and
down right horrible, so bad that it will get you
hitting the “A” button until you see the loading
screen for where you’ll start your mission. Sound
effects, are pretty mute, the chain guns sound
accurate and to the sense where it actually feels like
your firing one of, but when it comes to massive
weapons of destructions like torpedo’s, don’t be
fooled when you hear nothing. Majority of the
secondary weapons are extremely low pitched to where
you barely notice you’ve fired one off. Plus you would
imagine if a boat were to burst in flames, you would
listen to a booming explosion, but no, Blood Wake
doesn’t feel the need for you to experience that. Heck
even the engine on your boat sounds louder then the
weapons and explosion in the game, and that’s pretty
pathetic.

Control:(2/10)

When creating a game like Blood Wake, the control has
to be dead on as to how the water crafts react to the
water, that is under every condition possible in the
game, to calm waves, to typhoon ones, the control has
to be dead on for the game to work, but unfortunately,
Blood Wake seems to fail on that as well. Boats
accelerate to far to quickly from the giving it some
gas, leaving you to use your brakes much more then
anything else in the game. Your boat will respond in
the right manner to how the waves are, calm waves will
make it seem as if your riding in the air, as to
choppy waves will cause your boat to teeter from side
to side, to where under dangerous conditions will
waves come crashing down on your boat, leaving you
helpless, or even giving you some air time to which it
will be possible that your boat flips over. Which is
great, but Blood Wake over does it to where in those
thunder storm type condition matches, your boat will
stay in the air for 5 seconds, leaving your opponents
to easily pick you off as you come down in pieces, or
how the waves will force you to change direction far
to much, giving you another problem to face along with
the numerous others. But what’s worse is that a simple
thing such as turning seems impossible! During one of
my games I had made a sharp left turn to avoid enemy
fire, and after executing that turn, I wanted to head
straight down into the bank, so of course as I and
many other games would naturally do, I budged the
analog joystick a tad to the right, and to my surprise
my boat jerked out of control and instantly was head
to the right, back to the enemy fire.

Weapons work both ways when aiming for an enemy.
Primary weapons will auto aim to the opponent you are
facing and will mostly hit them dead on, but leaving
little to no damage. Secondary weapons, however, are
to be used as either being a hit or miss and it’s not
up to skill, but luck because the auto aim at times
will suddenly go off, leaving your rockets to attack
the area of water where your opponent was once at, or
that your bullet like torpedoes will slice right past
your opponent as well. Not only does this lead you
into frustration, but also causes your boat to eat up
a lot of ammunition as you’ll constantly be searching
the waters for additional ammo for your secondary
weapons.

Replay Value:(2/10)

Well, the single player mode is basically crap. Sure
it starts off simple, and maybe even to easy for those
experienced gamers. Yet out of the blue, the game
turns into a “screw you cause you’ll never get any
further” mode that will leave you smash your
controller through the wall, if not then the game
itself, which I would actually recommend being you get
more of your money’s worth that way by destroying it.
And what makes the game so impossible, well it’s easy
as this, your team of pirates think that your so
“great” that you don’t need their help and that you
can go ahead and complete their missions where the
odds will always be against you with opposing speed
boats, armory boats, gunners, etc that if you don’t
face head to head, they’ll pick you off from the
sides, blind sided, and these guys can pick you off
from across the ocean, so it seems. The only real
purpose that would want to make anyone play this game
is for the pure need of wanting those extras, and yes
it’s the only way in which you can unlock them for
when you go into multiplayer with unlocked modes,
boats, etc.

Speaking of multiplayer, it’s not that much different
from the story mode, except in this mode your up
against your friends or bots (4 maximum) in a closed
off part of the ocean where the winner is determined
by a certain number of kills, or by having the most
kills in a timed match. Having the option to choose
the weather conditions is nice and will add some fun
into the game, but why not allow the gamers to choose
if they want to play in the morning, afternoon, or
evening? Plus the extremely corny and utterly useless
add-ons are always pitted at the very end of the
arena, so if your willing enough to go out and get
one, don’t be surprised if a boat picks you off from
your tail.

Bottom Line:(1.5/10) Not an Average

This game could have been so much more if it weren’t
for some bonehead mistakes. To make it short and
sweet, don’t pick up Blood Wake, don’t rent it. I
don’t even want you to talk about Blood Wake in a
positive way, heck don’t even look at the Blood Wake
case when you go out to get a better game. Stay away
from it as much as possible.