Wild Blood Game Review
Although GooglePlay lists Wild Blood in the “Arcade and Action” category gamers will know it better as a single-player action RPG. In the typical sword and sorcery setting players gear up as Sir Lancelot and attempt to save Guinevere from, surprisingly, King Arthur. The king is under a magic spell and, as usual, is pissed off at his wife.
- Developer: Gameloft
- Category: Arcade & Action
- OS: Android 2.3+ or iOS 4.3+.
- Rated: 9+ Medium Maturity
- Requires 2GB free space to install
Fortunately Wild Blood is not about the story. I say fortunately because the story is bad. Not boring bad, but ridiculous and loony bad. King Arthur has flipped out over Guinevere’s extramarital affair and, while under some spell apparently, joined forces with his half-sister Morgana in order to open the gates of hell. With the Hellgate open Arthur will be able to do something that becomes increasingly unclear, but whatever it is it’s going to take a lot of monsters. I thought Arthur just wanted to kill Lancelot for sleeping with his wife, but honestly if it takes this many demons I wouldn’t get involved. I will give Arthur the benefit of the doubt and assume he can use all these demons for something else as well.
If you’re thinking that this doesn’t sound like King Arthur you’re not the only one. As Lancelot you must save Guinevere from Arthur and not get pulled into the gates of hell and whatnot. Honestly none of this really matters. What you need to do is get a better sword and kill a bigger monster.
Gameplay
If you move past the story as quickly as possible and focus on the gameplay you’ll be happier. The controls are very simple and include buttons for dodge, attack, and special abilities as well as a joypad for movement. Movement and animations are smooth for the most part as should be expected from the unreal engine and many times while playing this I had to remind myself that the game was on a phone.
The usual RPG fare is all here including barrel smashing, mini quests, and the constant search for loot. You collect coins in the game that you will use to upgrade your weapons, which is another RPG aspect everyone is horribly familiar with. If you’ve played World of Warcraft or Guild Wars 2 you won’t be surprised when you have to take control of a siege weapon and defend your location from hordes of enemies. As per the previously mentioned 2 MMO’s you’ll also rescue hostages, escort NPCs, and solve puzzles. None of these were particularly engaging in and of themselves but the combat sure was.
Another RPG staple that made it into Wild Blood is character building. Everything your character has can be improved from magic, armor, weapons, and stats. As you rampage through the game world you’ll find fountains that serve as waypoints. Here you can save your progress and spend some of your hard-earned loot by training your weapon skills. These skills are simplistic compared to console or PC games not being more than damage bonuses of various types such as ice, fire, and others.
As you probably just noticed I once again compared Wild Blood to a console or PC game. It just looks so great it’s hard not to.
It appears every game must be multiplayer these days and this one is no different. Wild Blood has a deathmatch option where you and your team of four Lancelots try to stab the other team of four Lancelots in the face until they die. That would how you win a deathmatch and while it is overly simplistic it is silly and chaotic enough to be very fun. This is not a game of chess but if you’re looking for a little mindless diversion and a good laugh this might be up your alley.
The World of Wild Blood
The Unreal engine once again shines in the beautiful world of Wild Blood. Levels are detailed and enormous with various mini-quests and tricks to keep one interested. Just when you think you’re done with a particular area it opens up and there is something more. The different types of terrain range from a cloud city, a truly sinister forest, and even layers of hell. This game is all over the place and by the time you get through it you need to play it again to remember where you started. The game will set this up for you as you will see.
Environmental effects are organic and beautiful. As the sun rises over the trees I guarantee you’ll stop what you’re doing for a minute and just look around. Crawl through and get lost in an underground series of caverns and the shadows will freak you out a little bit. It just looks great.
The Bad
If there was one thing about Wild Blood I could fix it would most certainly be camera tracking. In fact I would like to have a meeting with whoever worked on that at Gameloft and have words. Any game of fast action combat with multiple enemy targets in a richly detailed world doesn’t need a camera that flies all over the place and focuses on random objects. I’ve lost more than one fight because I was looking at a tree or a nice rock while I got the crap beat out of me. Not good.
The smooth controls that I enjoyed earlier can occasionally go wonky in a big fight. I’m not sure if they were too responsive or not responsive enough but there were intermittent control issues. Honestly I thought the camera was so bad I was imagining the control problem but I’m fairly certain it was a little of both.
Final Thoughts
Wild Blood is a derivative rehash of 50 different games I’ve played before. There was nothing about it that was particularly inspired and there were no new trails blazed. At least when they started borrowing ideas for Wild Blood they decided to borrow at least one idea from every game they’d ever heard of. Also it’s a lot of fun. Forget about the story and try to wrangle in the crazy camera and you will have fun playing this game.
Wild Blood is available for Android and iOS devices and is listed for $.99. This price is apparently for a limited time only so grab a fun game for about a buck and enjoy.
