For a long while gamers were convinced that the original Xbox had Halo and little much else to offer. Because they launched with such a generation defining title a lot of other software was quickly forgotten. Today I’m here to talk about one of these such games; Blood Wake. It released within the launch window, and was unique in that it was a ship based action game wherein you play as a pirate gunning down enemies. Back then there weren’t a lot of titles like it. Today I decided to give it another go and see how it holds up. I was pleased to discover that Blood Wake still holds up.
In Blood Wake you play as a young naval commander in the Pacific named Kai. He is one day betrayed by his brother Lung who seizes power among the ranks and sets out with his merry band of sailors to take over the world. Kai is taken in by a league of pirates, moves up their ranks, and the game begins with him setting out to defeat his brother. It’s a pretty unique scenario in that not a lot of video games explore the modern pirate theme. The execution is kind of lame; the voice overs are laughably bad and the story isn’t great. Either way, let’s dive in to this beast.
You spend the entirety of your time with Blood Wake within your ship. You maneuver around land masses on the open seas and view the action from behind your boat (or first person view if you so choose). The game is divided up into missions that vary in setting and objective. Sometimes your goal is just to destroy all the enemy vessels, various structures, collect treasure scattered on the map, or escort other ships to safety. While completing these tasks you’re going to be constantly accosted by enemies whose goal will be to whittle down your life bar. Thankfully you’re not defenseless. Far from it, actually.
Blood Wake gives you both a primary weapon as well as several different secondary types. By default you’ve got a chain gun with rapid fire. Unfortunately this can overheat if used constantly and will need some cooldown time after a while. The good news is that it has unlimited ammunition. The secondary weapons you acquire as you progress in the game, and each one is more powerful than the chain gun. These include a rocket launcher, torpedoes, mines, and more. You also have a few more unique secondaries such as the wave gun which creates disturbances in the water and an electromagnetic shock at short range. There’s an on-screen reticule to show where your shots are going to go, and a light auto-targeting mechanic which makes things a bit easier.
You’re going to be hit constantly by a barrage of enemy bullets. The only way to recover your health is by collecting health crates. These are dropped by defeated enemies. They’ll also drop weapon crates the replenish your ammunition for the secondary weapons. What’s interesting is that on top of aquatic targets you’ll also battle land foes as well. These are entirely stationary but by default are a little out of reach. You can actually beach your ship and slide it back into the sea. This is kind of interesting but the mechanic isn’t really used in an inventive way. In one mission you have to collect treasure and can use this in a limited fashion, but other than that it has been largely ignored.
I wasn’t completely sold on the premise of Blood Wake. A game like this can be bad if the developers don’t nail the controls, but in this case they absolutely did. Zipping around each stage is a blast and there’s an amazing sense of speed at play here. The way your ship plays off of the waves feels surprisingly realistic. The handling is also on point, and that’s saying a lot for a speed boat based game. You would have expect the controls to be floaty, but you can whip around with relative ease. The auto-targeting system makes combat a breeze, and the mini-map takes all the guess work out of the equation. Blood Wake is a really easy game to learn, and it’s solid nautical fun.
The campaign takes a few hours to complete and Blood Wake manages to stay fun start to finish. Despite all being based on the high seas the stages have their share of inlets, islands, etc, such that they’re all a treat to explore. As you play new boats are unlocked and they have their own handling characteristics which is a pretty good reason to replay the game. Once you’ve had your fill of the single player experience you can jump into deathmatches with up to a total of four players. These are fun and frantic, and in my opinion represents some of the best multiplayer experiences on the console from it’s launch window. I’m surprised Blood Wake wasn’t more popular because of it. If you have three other gamer friends this would be a great way to spend a Friday evening.
Blood Wake is a pretty game for its time. The water looks great with some nice ripple effects and fantastic physics on the waves. The scenery is a little bland, but the ocean and particles from it more than make up for this discrepancy. The explosions also look pretty wonderful and have some nice smoke effects behind them. The framerate manages to stay steady despite all of the chaos going on in nearly every scene. If there’s one thing I didn’t like in terms of aesthetics it’s the audio. The hum of your boat sounds great as does the realistic gunfire. My problem is with the voice overs which are exaggerated and annoying. I could have done without them. Additionally the music is okay, but it’s really nothing special. The sound effects kind of overshadow the soundtrack.
