Blood Wake

"Too many holes for this boat to stay afloat"

This game has its highs and lows unfortunately this game is hampered by mediocre gameplay, unbearably lame acting, and missions you have played in hundreds of other games. Its graphics though are great and the water looks beautiful.

Graphics:
I would have to say the graphics are a cut above anything in other vehicular action games and are quite beautiful. The water reacts beautifully to explosions, gunfire, and boats. The boats are good examples of next generation power with many animations and high levels of detail. The land is rather plain and static and is greatly overshadowed by the beauty of the water. The weapon effects are well done especially the torpedoes which react beautifully to the water. The game also ran as smooth as you could want it to. The only real problem I thought there was with the graphics was the draw in distance that seemed to hinder some of the action.

Controls:
The game offers four different configurations for the controller which is helpful to those unhappy with the default setting. The boat also responds well to your commands with no lag that I noticed. There is one problem, however, in that quick and sharp turns are often hindered by the water effects and in many ships are absurdly annoying to perform without a turbo. Also turning in small spaces is greatly annoying and often ends in a run in with a wall. There is another issue in that the boat will sometimes begin to turn in the direction opposite of what you desire and seems to sometimes get stuck in this turn for no apparent issue. This turn issue has come up several times and the only way to really get yourself going in the right direction is with a turbo.

Gameplay:
Now here is what really stalls the game's motor, but let's look at the positives first. The game is packed with extra modes, single and multi-player, and also has much to unlock. It also has a very decent number of missions that offer different objectives that coincide with the story. The positives, however, end here. While there are different objectives and different types of missions the action grows repetitious. The fighting is in no way fast paced or very action oriented for that matter. While the fights with the boats are pretty good it is all the turrets on land that ruin the action. These turrets, missiles and guns, slow down the action and seem to serve no other purpose except to attempt to integrate land and water and make the game harder. The difficulty of EVERY MISSION seems to be based on how many turrets there are in the mission. Missions with many turrets are often the hardest missions, but yet missions with many boats are easy. The fact is turrets are annoying to take out because A. they are on land B. your aim can easily be thrown off by the water C. the missiles can be very damaging D. many of your weapons were not designed to take them out. Also the turbo drains too fast and refills too slow and it is very important in maneuvering your boat. Not only this but your boat finds itself flipping over and flying in the air too often and if you run into a wall or something your control goes to hell too easily. It is even possible to get momentarily stuck in a wall while in the air leaving you open for a missile barrage from turrets or boats. Also the acting is far too lame and they seem to have stolen the idea of a comic book type presentation from Max Payne. Another point is that after a lot of continuous fire from your guns they will simply stop; this is very annoying. Also they limit how many of your special items you can fire consecutively like your guns. While this is acceptable in other first and third person shooting games it just seems out of place here and just adds to the holes in the ships already perforated hull.
Conclusion:
Due to bad design decisions this ship sunk before it really got a chance to demonstrate the potential fun of the engine under its hood.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/02/02, Updated 01/02/02