X-Day: Impressions of Blood Wake

Sea-born battle left us very impressed. Read all about it.

Though not a launch title, Microsoft was kind enough to show off and let us play the Xbox's vehicular combat game. With an Asian setting, nice mechanical designs, and some of the best water effects I've seen, Bloodwake is looking mighty impressive at being only 60% complete.

Taking place in a fictional world where high-speed watercraft rule the seas, the best way to describe the game is to take the movie Mad Max and put it in the water... and please, don't mention Waterworld as it doesn't even come close to the excitement and speed of Bloodwake. Over a dozen watercraft are available with various power-ups to pick up in each of the huge levels. During our short session with the game, we had a chance to take on each other via four-player split screen and even then, the water physics are incredible. Explosions create huge waves that accurately affect the speed and motion of your boat and I can tell that there's going to be a lot of depth created just from how chaotic the seas are. Although the stormy water setting wasn't implemented fully yet, we were pretty much guaranteed that only advance players would want to tackle that weather setting. Huge swells and tidal waves are planned that will definitely effect the way you handle your vehicle.

As mentioned above, four-player split-screen mode allowed us to take each other on and the game responded with a solid frame rate (not quite 60 but over 30) and lots of explosive action. Weapons weren't very abundant - we had a selection of torpedoes, soaring balls of fire, floating water mines, and the standard machineguns. With the motion of the waves, one of the key elements in controlling your craft was the turbo boost. All of the vehicles were unlocked with some of the vehicles being much stronger, faster, and having more firepower (the Eel) than some of the others (the Sampan), so there's a little bit of gameplay balance to address. Additionally, I admire how big the levels are in four-player mode, but I think there should be a few more obstacles or hidden stage weapons that can be triggered during a four-player brawl fest. Again, the game is only about 60% and I'm sure the team has much more interesting plans than the ones I've listed here. If that's the case, get ready to have those sea-sick pills right next to you.

-- Anthony Chau

I don't have much to say about Blood Wake, since I picked the campy Rubber Ducky to play during the multiplayer battle. Sure the waves looked fantastic, and yes the ships were inventive and cool, but all I got to see was the bottom of the ocean as Aaron slammed me again and again with his missiles. At least the physics were realistic enough that the Rubber Ducky bounced around and wobbled just like the real thing. Next time, though, next time I will pick an appropriate vehicle and I will slay them all. You will all pay! Do not mock the Ducky!

-- Vincent Lopez

I never knew I could like boat combat until Blood Wake came along. You could call it a Twisted Metal: Black on water, but that wouldn't be fair to the marvelous water animation. The grotesque boats with the nasty looking weapon loads wouldn't be half as interesting if they weren't slicing and bobbing over and through waves and swells as nice as the ones Blood Wake is pushing.

There's a little cheating going on with such bland sky textures, but you can see to the end of the horizon if you have time to look in that direction. The ocean is a big place and you wouldn't think a big naval battle would be very hectic, but the speed of the game is well done.

I had a lot of fun ruling the high seas with my Eel class vessel. It came loaded with machine guns, electro blasters, torpedoes and some spiky mines that launch out of the rear. Weapons will make the difference in this game. I wasn't too keen on the power ups because they can be hard to locate. In fact, I'll even say the game seemed a little too dark to be effective. The Xbox has no problem animating this game so I couldn't really understand all of the darkness. I guess there wasn't really anything wrong with the powerups, it was just too dark to find them.

-- Aaron Boulding

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