If you’ve ever loved a game but wished it was made by different people, then you’ll probably be familiar with my reasons for being interested in doing this Blood Reaver preview. I’ve been a fan of Call of Duty: Zombies since World at War, whether that’s because I hate competitive online play, or I just enjoy round-based shooters, so finding an indie game that proports to basically be CoD: Zombies but without the overall control of Activision, my first response was “sign me the hell up!”.
What Is Blood Reaver?
Blood Reaver is a round-based co-op FPS title that operates on basically the exact same mechanics as CoD: Zombies. You and several friends (or randoms) are tasked with shooting the crap out of hordes of enemies, using the points you get for doing it to buy new weapons, upgrades and to unlock more of the map. The key difference here is that you’re shooting demons rather than zombies.
The game is also currently on Steam in Early Access, so there’s only a single map to play on, and a bunch of the features are currently labelled “coming soon”. On the plus side, they’ve already revealed a pretty good roadmap that shows how soon we can expect to get our hands on more game. For now, we’ve at least got the option of playing solo, in private games, and with random people, and the map is decently-sized, so there’s a good number of hours of gameplay available from the get-go.
Shooty, Shooty, Bangy, Bangy
One of the most important aspects of any shooter game, let alone a round-based shooter like Blood Reaver, is the gun-feel. A shocking number of hours goes into developing the way that guns feel to shoot in games like Call of Duty, and the result of that is usually a game that feels satisfying to play. So far, that’s not necessarily the case here. The designs of the actual guns are pretty cool, from the visuals to the names, but they feel a little light when you use them.
There’s just not much punch to most of the weapons in the games. The sound they make is puny, and none of your enemies seem to react until you hit the threshold needed to actually kill them. So, you’ve got no hope of staggering an enemy, no matter how “powerful” your gun supposedly is. Even worse, there is no bullet penetration implemented, so you can’t even use the early stages to generate huge points by peppering the crowd with bullets that go through each enemy. If that wasn’t enough, you’ve also got to be really careful about reloading around new area doors as the amount of time needed to ‘hold’ the button down is very short and a great way of wasting thousands of your points.
Good Times
Complaints aside, it’s not like there isn’t fun to be had here already. The map is pretty sizable and has an interesting enough design to keep you engaged for quite a while, and if you’re already a big fan of CoD: Zombies, then you’ll have a laugh finding out what they swapped out for what; e.g. there are tarot cards instead of Perk-a-Colas, the random nest, rather than the mystery box, etc.
It’s also pretty satisfying to nimbly dodge around your enemies, and they don’t seem to be able to get their grubby hands on you quite as easily as they can in Zombies. There’s also some decent variety to the types of enemies you’re facing, with some really big scary gits showing up by the time you hit round 7+. They help to keep things varied, and there’s also a bunch more planned for future updates if you believe what the devs have been posting.
Performance Problems
So far, Blood Reaver also looks pretty decent, but the performance leaves a bit to be desired. Even on low settings, there’s an occasional frame drop, which can be aggravating during an intense gameplay moment. It’s not the worst in the world, but as performance tweaks are mentioned in the regular updates space on the roadmap, I’m going to assume that the developers are aware that some work needs to be done.
Outside of the minor complaints, I found my time with Blood Reaver promising. The visual design is decent, and the promise of a game that is like CoD: Zombies without having to listen to what Activison wants them to do is stuffed with bags of potential. However, the game needs some serious tweaks before it’s ready, and there’s every chance that a game released this early in its development will fall at the first hurdle. I’ll be keeping my eyes on this one, but I also won’t be holding my breath for the release.
