Written By Joel Perry

Blood Wake is another X-box game that looks better in the video preview that I saw than anything on the Playstation 2 has ever looked. With some of the most realistic water that has ever graced a video game console I quickly ran out to pick this game up when it came out. After taking it home and carefully opening the package so as to not damage the exterior plastic nor the seal on the case I placed the game disc into my X-Box and sat back ready to be engrossed in what looked to be the best action speed boat game ever. Well it lasted almost 25 minutes and two levels before I put it back in the case sealed it back up and drove back to the store that I purchased it from. Graphically yes it was very pretty, but everything else about the game was fairly non-existent.

The background story goes something like this; your name is Shao Kai a navel lieutenant from the Northern League whose buddies decided that you were no longer necessary and left you for dead one day. Rescued by the Shadow Clan you, vow to assist them in any way in order get revenge on those who betrayed you. Starting out in the not so well equipped Barracuda ship you use your intense arsenal of 4 chain guns to blow the smithereens out of anyone who gets in your way, including several buildings and docks. The game allows the use of many different weapons and vessels throughout the game all of which are also available during the multiplayer missions. However, during the mission mode you are restricted to playing with the vessel that is given to you and of course none of them are customizable. For the most part the only thing you need to worry about is blowing up all the bad guys and anything else that appears on your screen in red. (Similar to another game I recently reviewed, known as Air Force Delta Storm).

Being set in an Asian Pacific area the game has been well designed, as it has a very strong Asian atmosphere.   Throughout the entirety of the game, from the music and the design of the ships to the building designs on through the soundtrack it all carries an Asian flare.

The multiplayer aspect of Blood Wake allows for up to four people to ride around in their vessels trying to get lucky enough to have one of your opponents move in front of you while you are shooting. Blood Wake suffers from short missions involving little to no thought necessary to complete them, non-realistic vehicular controls and movements, and levels with too many hiding places for enemy boats to sit and wait for a good chance to squash you.

Graphically Blood Wake is just as unbelievably beautiful as Air Force Delta Storm, with an acute attention to detail give to each and every vessel. Down to minor damage modeling and moving engine parts. The water causes the vessels to move in a realistic manner when you are wave hopping, but if you just sit there for a minute it is as if the vessel was dry-docked. When you use one of he larger vessels you can actually have more weapons and are able to watch them reload as hatches open and weapons come out to be auto loaded into your guns.

One of the things that bothers me the most about Blood Wake is that there is no effect on gameplay from ramming or vehicle damage which on would expect when you are talking about boats. Also the great amount of repetitiveness in the game it is more like a water-based vigilante 8 or Twisted Metal 1 style game more than anything else. I was not very impressed by Blood Wake when I played it, as I was not impressed with the original Twisted Metal. I would however recommend renting it when you have 3 friends coming over as getting the chance to blow your friends up only comes along every once in a while.

Publisher   Microsoft   Developer   Storm Front   Platform   X-Box   Player   One to Four Player

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