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Awesome game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 60
Date: November 13, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This games is awesome. I suggest that anyone with an Xbox buy this game. Not only are the graphics good, but the physics are very realistic. This is for serious gamers.

Review of BloodWake

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 38 / 44
Date: December 18, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Gamers who have dreamed of being a pirate will be provided with another outlet for their fantasy besides dressing up at home and splashing around the bathtub when Microsoft releases Bloodwake for the Xbox. Developed by Stormfront Studios, the game is a story-driven combat game set at sea. We got a chance to test the waters in the game and have come away intrigued by Bloodwake's slick graphics, arcade-style gameplay, and multiplayer modes.

Kill them all!
The game's story finds you in the role of Lieutenant Shao Kai, an officer in the Northern League fleet. Cast adrift at sea after a brutal ambush by a group of pirates, he is rescued by Ped Zhang, Warlord of the Shadow Clan, another group of pirates. Thanks to the intervention of one of Zhang's group and his slightly surly attitude, Kai is adopted by the clan as a sea raider. Kai's acceptance of the offer is one part survival tactic and one part opportunism. Although he feigns ignorance when questioned by Zhang about his squadron's assailant, Kai is well aware of the identity of his attacker and hopes to you get an opportunity to exact revenge. The twist is that the object of Kai's hatred is his own brother, Admiral Shao Lung of the Northern League fleet, the commander of a fearsome warship called the Dragon.

A little multiplayer death.
You'll find two main modes to choose from: the single-player story mode and battle mode, a multiplayer mode for up to four players. The story mode follows Shao Kai as he balances being a quality pirate in Ped Zhang's crew with his quest for revenge. Levels are grouped together under different "chapters" and strung together by Shao Kai's narrative and sketches, which work together to tell Shao's story and inform you of the objectives for each level. You'll initially start out with a lightly armed and armored speedboat, but as you progress through the game, you'll be assigned better craft such as catamarans, torpedo boats, and sampans. Although, you may find that completing your objectives with even the best of ships is quite a challenge in later levels. The game's battle mode will eventually offer seven different types of matches for you and up to four friends to fight in. Unlike in the single-player game, you'll find power-ups that will give you new weapons or enhance your abilities for a limited period of time during a match. You'll unlock the various battle types and a variety of selectable ships to use in the battle mode by going through the story mode.

The gameplay is standard mission-based fare, which keeps Bloodwake accessible. Your missions will include attacking a ship or building, collecting crates, escorting ships, or performing recon. The game's control scheme is basic and works well with the Xbox controller. You'll control the rudder and throttle on your ship with the left analog stick or D-pad. Pushing left or right steers, while pressing forward accelerates. The left trigger fires your boat's primary weapon and the right trigger fires your secondary weapon. The clear face buttons allow you to toggle between several views, including a first-person view that is sure to nauseate anyone who isn't seaworthy thanks to the game's realistic waves.

Graphically, the game makes good use of its clearly generous polygon budget. There's quite a bit of eye candy on display--the boat models are so detailed you can see gears turning in the engines and weapons. As the game is set at sea, Stormfront has put quite a bit of effort into the "look" of the water and come up with a very stylized and beautiful environment to interact with. The game's environments are huge, though they're a bit sparse at times. Missions set at various times of the day showcase the game's impressive lighting, which is quite beautiful.

So pretty.
In our time with Bloodwake, we found the game's single-player game to be challenging fun. The stylized sketches and voice-overs that drive the story fit the game and are an interesting departure from the CG cinemas that are the norm these days. Being able to select the difficulty of each level before you play it is a nice touch, as it lets you ease yourself into a more challenging game if you feel ready for it. The control scheme is user-friendly and didn't take long to pick up. Although the water's physics, in combination with that of the various boats, made for a slightly floaty experience at times, they gave the game an arcadelike feel that was fine. The multiplayer mode was fun, offering a good variety of battle options and ships once they were unlocked, which wasn't that hard to do. Overall, Bloodwake is looking quite promising.

A poor copy of TWISTED METAL

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 17 / 28
Date: January 01, 2002
Author: Amazon User

A big fan of action/arcade shooters, I found myself disappointed with BLOOD WAKE for a couple of key reasons:

1) Uninspired Missions/Levels - The mission objectives are the typical fare - collect objects (treasure chests), race against time, destory all enemies, etc. More work than fun.

2) Poor environments - The environments themselves aren't very interesting with little in the way of shortcuts or secrets. Much of this is due to the problem of boats & water (has to be flat) but you'd think they could build some cool waterfalls, crazy canyons & cliffs (think Thailand), or some other wild environments. Instead, its like battling around the San Francisco bay or the Puget Sound. Boring.

3) OK graphics - sure, the water graphics look great (reflections, bump maps, etc.) and the boat poly-counts are high, but the overall look of the game is rather poor. Textures are poor quality (example: drive your boat close to an island and look at the rock/plant textures... its pixelvision). The lighting effects are OK, but don't showoff the power of the XBOX hardware.

4) Gameplay & Action - racing around and blowing up boats seems like such rush (just watch a Bond film). However in playing BLOOD WAKE, it comes across as stale, flat action. Sure, the controls are easy to learn, but the problem is there is only so much you can do to master driving a boat. Tricks & finese moves are non-existant. Plus, the various boats you unlock aren't that different from another. Weapons are OK, but aren't creative and offer little excitement (unlike Twisted Metal).

SUMMARY - did you ever play Microsoft's game CRIMSON SKIES? If so, this game is the exact same thing (but on water). Don't be fooled by the marketing spin... a TWISTED METAL this is NOT!

A pirate's life for me!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 5
Date: January 02, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Great graphics, but a bit monotonous on the gameplay. Basically, you drive an armed boat and blow things up to a story line. It is fun, though, and I have a good time playing it. I am yet to do at it in multi-player, so I cannot comment on that aspect of the game.
Getting through it is very easy on easy level, and does go up from there. Easy, though, is very easy. Ensign level, this is more like cabin boy level.

Good not great

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 03, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Bloodwake has great graphics and the gameplay is pretty cool. I found myself thinking the game was a little easy, but come about the 7th mission it started becoming a little more difficult. I guess they are trying to ease you into the game. I have enjoyed playing the game so far the only thing I don't like about the game is that it's not as fast paced as I would like it to be. The boats don't move that fast it's almost like controling an ocean liner instead of a lean mean fighting machine. Besides that the game seems fun for what I have played so far. It's worth a look see.

A DISAPPOINTMENT...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: January 03, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I was really looking forward to Blood Wake, as it was one of my most anticipated post launch games. What I got, was a letdown.

The game has unbelievable water effects and gameplay is quite fun to play, yet frustrating at times. There are over 25 different type of missions, some incredibly easy others mind boggling difficult. My biggest complaint though, is the lack of story. The game is told through drawings and is poorly done. The voice acting while mediocre becomes annoying and silly at times. The sound is also poor. The battle mode is fun but lacks the maps, boats, and modes to make it replayble. This game could have been much more.

All in all, I feel this was a botched effort by Stormfront Studios. It is a decent game but could have been wonderfully done if given the time and effort. My take, give it a rent before you fork over the [PRICE] for this game.

Twisted Metal Gets Wet

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: January 04, 2002
Author: Amazon User

"Bloodwake" is a good looking, speedy boat combat game with that groovy Asian flavor. Story is typical revenge revenge revenge stuff, but it works well and features competent voice acting. The game itself features some very good visuals, particularly in terms of the water mechanics. Some of this goodness is slightly lessened in my opinion by goofy boat physics, particularly when your raft gets knocked into the air. The framerate is solid overall, there are a lot of nice details to see and plenty of things to blow up with a variety of guns, missles, and torpedoes. Control of the boats varies based on which craft you use but there is the real feeling of turning in water...somewhat slow, realistic, and requires you to modify the way you fight. Neat missions, a variety of cool weather conditions, and several game modes and difficulty levels give "Bloodwake" decent replay value. Overall, worth your dough if you like boats with guns, car combat styled games, and/or straight forward mission based shooters

Great Fun, extremely good game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: January 08, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I love this game. It has great action in a well designed and programmed environment. This game is technically solid and well developed. No slow downs, constant frame rate, great graphics, and the best water effects around make this one of the best games around.

I don't find this game at all monotonous like a few claim. It's a mission based combat game. It's a dog fighting game in water. If you like Star Wars Starfighter or Star Wars: Rogue Leader you will love this game. Plus, It has advantages over those game due to it's great multiplayer and battle mode features. Tons of stuff to do in this game!

I find it disappointing that people who haven't even touched this game come up with clearly false reviews. This game is not Twisted Metal or a Boat Racing game. This game is a mission based combat/ dog fighting game in water.

Do NOT BUY this game!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 6
Date: January 08, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Pros:
* The water effects are fantastic, but, thank the nvidia chip for that.

Cons:
* Deathmatch was boring and not challenging
* I got vertigo from lousy ship control
* The levels\missions were not challenging

:(

Blood Wake is one of the better games for X-Box...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: January 09, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This game is not the best X-Box game out there... coughHALOcough. However this game is fairly entertaining in its own respect. I won't go into the details about the graphics (boats and water are fantastic other graphics less impressive). The storyline is average with the cheesy voiceovers that you find in just about every game these days. The one player missions are challenging and you have to play them to unlock all the boats for multiplayer. The mutliplayer features various modes all of which are pretty good. There's nothing like blowing up my roomate's ship w/ a torpedo. The key to remember w/ Blood Wake is it's a vehicular combat game on water nothing more nothing less. This game isn't groundbreaking but it is fun. I would say that unless you know for sure you want this game to go out and rent it first to see how you like it. Just remember that you won't have access to all the multiplayer boats until you unlock them in the one player missions. Overall, this is a good game that belongs in the upper tier of X-Box titles.

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