Woo-hoo. Zombie Studios made an FPS for Microsoft’s Kinect on Xbox 360. It’s entitled Blackwater and yeah it’s named after a real-life (albeit the names have been changed – PR stunt much?) private military or guns-for-hire group. Now they are known as ‘Xe Services’… if you’re looking to commit some genocide (secretly pointing at rich people and Beber fans). Well I’m going to head off and play this bad boy but I’m sure it’s gonna be awesome – I mean come on Zombie + Kinect + FPS = (has to be 360 degrees of awesome worthy of high 505’s all round right?)… famous last words.
In the meantime…
Developer: Zombie Studios
Publisher: 505 Games
Distributor: Apex Interactive
For fans of: Kinect; Time Crisis; Cheesy Scripting & Kicking your toe against your coffee table.
Reviewed on: Xbox 360 Kinect (exclusive)
If we had to give it a numerical score: 5.5 out of 10
What I liked
- Close-quarter shotgun sequences
- Marvelling at yesteryear’s graphics
- Switching arms in a gun fight
- Kicking enemies
- Throwing grenades
- Switching to my handgun to bust some caps!
Not so much
- Repetitive – oh so repetitive.
- Having to restart sections
- Klunky motion capturing
- Rehashed dialogue scenes… with rehashed dialogue that they kept repeating at different times to say the same thing but make it seem like they were saying more, when they really didn’t. I think the word here is redundant and overused.
So I’m back and phew my arms are sore (thank the Guardians of Owa I read the hint to switch arms during play to avoid tiring one because now they’re equally @£$%ed).
Blackwater is an on-the-rails-shooter that essentially follows four ficticious and specially trained soldiers from an actual military organization into a ficticious area of Africa, where you have to kill ficticious enemy. Truth is… well who cares man, even Time Crisis and CoD ripped off cheap narratives of world domination and kidnapped victims (Mario much?). Basically you play as each character (close-quarters, mid-range, gunner and sniper classes) to move through sections.
The graphics are fairly poor throughout the game, not quite previous generation but rather Modern Warfare 1 or even before. The script of repetitive and recycled mini-scenes became abundantly annoying. My largest complaint however is the massive space between save points, leaving you to rehash 10 minutes or more of game time just to try out a new section… bleh!
That being said I think the real question is how it plays and more so how it plays with kinect? Thankfully they ommitted the Ghost recon ‘open-your-hand-everytime-you-want-to-fire and say hello to arthritis’ motion and replaced it with a hover-over-your-target till the circle is complete and watch them die movement… logical… strange at first but you kinda get use to it.
What really does keep the game interesting here though is the extra movements. Firstly there are cover options (lean left, right and duck to enter cover) that work quite well especially if you’re handy at switching aiming hands. Then there are the awesome (frustrating at first) grenade options which have you flinging satisfactory hell all over your enemies. Sure you get to climb through windows, jump gaps etc too but you can even switch weapons. Switch to your pistol for a cool headshot if you run out of ammo or just wanna look eh… cool but then again this is kinect so you’ll mostly look like a penguin on acid flailing his flippers (so much for diving behind your couch right? –damn marketing gimmicks!).
If you really want to, you can switch to your controller but it’s still a rail shooter and not as much fun.
The storyline isn’t that long but as I mentioned, the length between save points will keep you playing for ages, while the arcade/time trial and score-based play will give you tons of oppertunities to watch your friends look like morons while you take the time to master the art of looking like a Navy Seal… uhm penguin.
Final Thoughts
It’s definitely worth a buy if you’re a huge kinect fan and loved Time Crisis but I’d say rent it or loan it from a buddy for a day before you commit. See you on the leaderboards but until then I gotta check out my guns in the mirror – tight!
Zombiegamer Rating:
