Blood Wake, WTF?
Yesterday, I had the honor and privilege of playing the best aweful game I’ve ever played: “Blood Wake” for the XBox.
To begin with, we were unable to play with the full complement of ships, as Eric has gotten no further in the campaign than the first mission. Thus, our choices were limited to the Sampan (oh Jesus, not the Sampan!), the Large Sampan (or something very much like it), the PT Boat, the Devil Boat, and some other kind of fast boat. The major flaw I saw with the ship-selection system is that one class of boat is clearly superior to another. There is little/no balance; a Sampan cannot defeat a Devil Boat.
The terrain is…well, water. But for some reason our arena was a lake completely surrounded by giant cliffs, obviating the need for the artists to render anything resembling the world. The lake had no inlet or outlet! Are we to believe that it is fed entirely by rainwater? [Caveat: I only saw one map, the same map, both days I played. There may be some good ones.]
Physics were good but not great. The Mighty Devil Boat ^(TM) bounced off the waves like it was a jetski, and at one point became lodged, vertically, on the cliffs. This mightly beat also bounced on top of the smaller boats, and while it realistically damaged it, it didn’t realisticaly snap the damn thing in two.
Speaking of damaging ships, the combat was rather…boring. Left Trigger was some sort of machine gun that I can only suppose is effective either a) in the campaign or b) against the Sampan. The whole thing degenerated into a melee, with the two ships chasing each other in as tight a circle as possible, rendering most of the map superfluous.
I’m done typing now. Don’t play “Blood Wake.”