Blood Waves review for PS4, Xbox One, Switch

Platform: PS4
Also On: PC, Xbox One, Switch
Publisher: Sometimes You
Developer: Light Road Games
Medium: Digital
Players: 1
Online: No
ESRB: M

Don?t be fooled by the Lara Croft-looking heroine that adorns Blood Waves? page in its various online storefronts: while this game?s hero bears more than a passing resemblance to that venerable gaming icon, that?s literally the only thing this game has going for it. In every other respect, it makes a strong argument for being the worst game of the year.

A big part of why Blood Waves is so terrible is exemplified by the way it so lazily lifts its heroine?s assets from Tomb Raider. Rather than making even the token effort of creating something new, the simply steals another game?s main character, and calls it a day. You can see the same laziness everywhere else (which, as I?ll explain in a moment, doesn?t amount to that many places), in that the zombies attacking you are mostly carbon copies of each other. Make it in a little further and you?ll eventually find yourself facing off with, say, electrical zombies, but those are the same character models, only with blue lines all around them.

This lack of creativity permeates the game. It?s an arena shooter, except there?s only a single, dull-looking dungeon. Once you clear a wave of zombies you go to the back and get access to a weapon room. That?s literally all there is to do here. You clear wave after wave, and once you die, your reward is to go all the way back to the beginning and do it again from scratch, without any of the barebones upgrades the game offers you.

This will come as no surprise, but the combat in Blood Waves is as uninspired as everything else. You get a few guns, you get a machete, and you can run or roll. If you want anything more, you won?t find it here. You?ll spend pretty much all your time here running backwards and shooting, so…have fun with that?

I kid, of course: there?s no way anyone could ever have fun with Blood Waves. It?s an abysmal game, entirely lacking in creativity or inspiration, and beyond the fact it runs without crashing, it has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Sometimes You provided us with a Blood Waves PS4 code for review purposes.

Grade: D-