First Impressions: Water World meets Vigilante 8. Cool premise. Ridiculous name.
First off, let me get this out of the way; Blood Wake receives my personal award for the silliest Xbox game title yet. I mean, come on… Blood Wake? It reminds me of that episode of The Simpsons when Bart wants the latest hot video game entitled Bonestorm. Says Milhouse, “Get me Bonestorm or go to hell!” Frankly, with a name like Blood Wake, I wouldn’t be surprised if future games from Stormfront take the premise even further: “Coming soon, Steaming Pile of Shredded Guts IV – The Return of Boomstick!” Try saying it aloud using the voice of that guy that does all the Monster Truck Rally commercials.
Ok, so a title that a child would be embarrassed about aside, what do we have here? A pretty cool idea for a game, that’s what. Blood Wake is a vehicular combat/shooter based on water. The setting places you in a world dominated by 3 warring clans. As a young lieutenant, you are betrayed by your own, the Shadow Clan. Swearing to bring order back to your homeland (er, homesea?), you make alliances with some mercenaries and begin the long task of fighting the good fight by blowing up most everyone else.
A simple story, yes, but we’re not playing an RPG here, this is a game with lots of fiery munitions. The game features 10 different boat types including Battleships, Sampans, Catamarans, Torpedo Boats, and Cruisers. The differences between boat types are not simply cosmetic or only a matter of different weapons equipped – the word is that each boat handles differently from its counterparts based on the most realistic water physics model to ever grace a video game.
That water physics model is the crux of what makes this game different from your average land-based vehicular combat game. Not only does it look spectacular, but it also behaves as real water should. A nearby underwater explosion will suck your boat under. Wakes affect all nearby boats, and multiple wakes both multiply and cancel each other, as real wakes do. Weather happens. At least one mission is reported to take place during a heavy storm that rapidly becomes a typhoon, making the sea perhaps a more dangerous adversary than your human enemies.
There are 25 missions to the storyline part of the game, and completion of each advances your cause. Not all are of the “kill everything in sight” variety, some are of the “kill almost everything in sight” variety including escort duty, courier runs, and so on.
Online play is not included or planned at this time. This is not surprising considering Blood Wake is a near-launch title. However, split-screen multiplayer is included and looks to be pretty sweet, pandering to those who love to tweak the “stage” settings. Not only are most of the single player game options available, but you may also choose from some other custom designed maps, set the dynamic weather parameters, the time, and other fun things. Anyone up for a deathmatch in opposing rocket-equipped Catamarans at midnight during a hurricane? Bring it on.
