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"An interesting title featuring pirates and gunboats"

Blood Wake for X-Box is a unique game. It is a mix of futuristic technology with pirates. The whole premise of the game revolves around riding around in a boat completing missions with an assortment of weapons. The game is good and bad. It almost is close to that of a Twisted Metal on water that is mission based.

The graphics in this game are to put it quite simply not exactly anything groundbreaking. They are not bad, but not as good as they were hyped up to be by the ads for the game. The boats don’t look particularly bad. The minor details look good. The guns swivel about when locked onto a target. There are moving parts on the boat, such as the pistons of engine on some of the boats moving up and down. Not all boats have this exposed. Torpedo launchers will move about when you select the torpedoes. The rudder of the boat moves the left and right depending on which way you go. A nice touch of detail is that on a lot of the boats, you can see the main character and his partner sitting in the boat. Enemy boats look the same as far as detail goes. There really is not much to make the boats visual standouts. The levels look as good as one could expect when the action takes place on water. Some levels are visually bland as you carve your way through deltas or cliffs. It has a somewhat exotic feel to it. The ports look quite well. There are munitions depots and fuel supplies strewn about the docks which make for some good explosions. Well, the explosions are a bit generic. But they add to the chaotic feel which is a good thing. One of the things I enjoy is when you destroy an enemy ship and it sinks. I like the way it gently slips under the water and vanishes. The daytime, twilight, and nighttime levels all look good. My disappointment with the graphics lies in the water. Supposedly it was supposed to look great and have a sense of realism. I think it fails in the area of looking great. It doesn’t have a crystal clear look ever which would have been nice. Sure when a torpedo cuts through the water and explodes the resulting effect looks cool. But it never really looks that great. When you are cutting through the water, the resulting splashes look bland. Sure, the motion the water moves in looks great, but the look the water itself has is somewhat of a let down.

Sound-wise, the game is ordinary. The briefings that are done before and after missions are done by voice actors. No complaints there. The emotions displayed happen to sound good, and it doesn’t reach any sort of cheesiness. Once in the game, the explosions are nothing to get excited about. The music is average. A player can live with everything just fine. I really enjoyed the voice acting because it came across genuine and not forced. It was something I found myself looking forwards to after completing a mission.

The control is a mixed bag. You accelerate forward, turn, and go in reverse by using the main analog stick. The left trigger is for the guns, and the right trigger is to fire whatever weapon you have selected, albeit missiles, torpedoes, etc. The “X” button is used for the turbo boost. “A” changes the current weapon you have selected. The control is solid for the most part. However, the one issue I had with it was the fact that the analog was used to control all of the ship’s movement. It was a bit of a pain going to push forward, then wind up going forward but turning slightly because it wasn’t directly forward. Same thing with the reverse, sometimes if you don’t have the analog stick in the correct down position, the boat will start to turn while going in reverse. Turning left and right can be a chore at times. The boats do not turn sharp enough for when you need to. I found myself slamming into walls and shore lines because it did not turn fast enough. Plenty of missions were replayed due to crappy turning which caused me not to be able to avoid a slew of torpedoes quick enough. That’s the only concern I have in regards to the controls.

The gameplay is quite simple. The main beef of the game is the story mode. It is broken down into “Acts”. In each Act there are a certain number of missions to complete. Each one furthers the storyline along a bit more each time. There are three difficulty levels to select from, “Ensign”, “Captain”, and “Admiral”, each one being easy, medium, and hard in those respective orders. Playing on medium provides a good challenge. In fact I found it to be a bit cheap at times. More on that as I continue. The missions all revolve around your main character being forsaken by his brother and you join the Shadow Clan to take on the evil Jade Kingdom. The missions all vary. They range from simple objectives such as destroying a convoy of enemy ships to infiltrating enemy ports and laying waste to the ships there and destroying things on the docks. Every mission has a good challenge. There are about 35 missions in the game. The difficulty becomes at times aggravating due to the fact that it’s not particularly fun when you wind up being the only ship going into an enemy port. The problem with that is because you have to deal with multiple ships firing weapons as you, as well as gun turrets on the show firing which when all of those things land a few direct hits you are generally finished off. But, by destroying enemy ships they drop health and ammo crates thus replenishing your health and ammo levels. The game is pretty straightforward and it is fun to play.

The replay value could be a little bit better. It starts to get a bit monotonous sometimes because a lot of the missions objectives are done over as you progress with just different cosmetic changes. Once you complete it, there really is not anything special that’ll keep one coming back to the game. Every mission you complete unlocks new ships, game modes, and battle arenas for multiplayer. Beyond that there isn’t much to keep you coming back for more other than just to play once in awhile.

To rent or to buy is the question. I think the game makes a better rental than a purchase. As long as you have a bit of free time over a weekend, one can easily finish it in 2-3 days. I really couldn’t, or wouldn’t recommend purchasing it as I don’t feel the replay value is that high after completing the game. It’s a fun game for the moment, but once the initial interest value wears off, there isn’t a whole lot to the game. It’s not deep at all, but it is a unique game which is definite worth the rental if you have an X-Box.

Graphics: 7/10
Sound: 7/10
Control 7/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Replay: 5/10

Overall: 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/20/02, Updated 06/20/02