[Games4Fun]

Blackwater

• Official site link
• Developer: 505 Games
• Genre: First Person Shooter
• Alternative game name: [European/Japanese game name
• Players: 1-2 Kinect Version
• Xbox Live supported?: yes - leaderboards only
• Uses avatars?: no
• Age group: Teen - Adult
  

Blackwater - The good

• Has a nice campaign mode that is simple to follow
• Controls are easy to use, even if you've never played a first person shooter game before
• There are a lot of achievements to get!
• Not too graphic
  

Blackwater - The not so good

• Not as complex as other first person shooter games
• Must complete the entire level before it saves progress
• No online multiplayer
  

Blackwater - Story
Is there a story mode? What is the story like: entertaining, boring, etc?

There is a decent story in campaign mode where the other characters describe the mission and say encouraging "go getter" words to get the player pumped up. There are missions where you kill enemies and collect items. The story also serves as a bit of a break from the missions.

Blackwater - Kinect experience

What makes this game fun is that you don't have to use a controller! You use naturally feeling moves to navigate through the levels and kill the enemies. Whether you're holding out your arm, throwing a grenade or kicking down a door, you get some variety in your actions. After a while my arm got tired playing, but the game allows you to switch arms whenever you need. The Kinect sensor is comparable to other Kinect games.

Blackwater - Graphics

The graphics compare to other Kinect games. You can get a sense of the 3-D space quite easily. Enemies that are further away are less clear, and the visuals resulting from shooting aren't over-the-top.

Blackwater - Gameplay

The game controls are fairly simple to use and fun for people who like the idea of shooting and fighting. You hold out your arm to aim/shoot, can throw grenades with the opposite hand, and move side to side and duck to take cover during combat scenes. Then during transitions the game prompts you to kick down doors, jump over barriers, and repel down buildings. There was enough variation in the type of shooting it kept me entertained. Also, there is a little problem solving you need to do when faced with multiple enemies. You shoot the guys who are closest and when there is a lot of enemies, you can throw a grenade.

Like many games, you have to complete the level without dying for it to save your progress. The amount of damage you can sustain before dying depends on the difficulty level chosen.

Blackwater - Multiplayer options

The multiplayer was limited to taking turns to compete against another person in the room. If playing with the controller, there are more local multiplayer options; however, I have not yet played with the controller. There is no online multiplayer for Blackwater, as stated on the game's box. There are leaderboards through xbox live though.

Blackwater - Achievements

From the xbox website, 48 achievements with a total of 1000 points are listed.

Sort:
Welcome to Harri 5
Complete Mission 1 (1)
Alamo Compound 5
Complete Mission 2
The Bridge 5
Complete Mission 3
The Exiled Leader 5
Complete Mission 4
Rescue Dila 10
Complete Mission 5
The Long Way Back 20
Complete Mission 6
Over Easy 20
Complete all missions on Easy
Just Normal 40
Complete all missions on Normal
Nothing's Too Hard 60
Complete all missions on Hard
Tight-Aim 10
Get 50 headshots
Sir, You Forgot Your Hat 20
Get 200 headshots
Here, Hold This… 10
Get 50 grenade kills
Grenade! 20
Get 200 grenade kills
Hat-Trick 5
Kill 3 enemies with one grenade
No Mercenaries 10
Kill 5 Foreign Fighters
Best in Town 60
Kill all 6 Foreign Fighters on each difficulty
Cut the Chatter 10
Find 5 Death Radios
Off the Air 20
Find all Death Radios
Figure It Out 10
Find 5 Limbano Lions
Lion's Den 20
Find all Limbano Lions
Propaganda 10
Find 5 Graffiti
Stop This Madness 20
Find all Graffiti
Bravo! 20
Get over 100% accuracy in a combat arena
Plan B 5
Get 5 kills with the pistol
Quick Draw 20
Get 200 kills with the pistol
Going Pro 10
Get Pro time in a combat arena
Elite Club 5
Get Veteran time in a combat arena
This Ain't Your Daddy's Shotgun! 20
Kill 6 enemies with the shotgun without reloading
What Time? Can't Tell. 40
Get at least 7,000 points in a combat arena
No Score in Sight 5
Get less than 2,000 points in a combat arena
Foot First 5
Complete 100 kick quick-time events
Jumping Jack 5
Complete 100 jump quick-time events
Don't Cross This Line 10
Kill 25 melee attackers before they strike
Recon Recruit 10
Discover all paths in a combat arena
Recon Expert 20
Discover 50% of the paths in all combat arenas
Recon Master 60
Discover ALL of the paths in the game
Brought to You By... 5
Watch the credits from begining to end
Nothing Thrown 5
Complete a combat arena without using grenades
The Red Barrel 5
Blow up 50 red barrels
Recruit 5
Complete the training map
Party Time 5
Complete a competition map with 8 players
After Party 5
Complete all competition maps with 8 players
Blackwater Operator 60
Reach experience level 56
The Right Person 60
Fully upgrade Baird
Spray and Pray 40
Fully upgrade Devon
Riding Shotgun 60
Fully upgrade Smash
Overwatch 60
Fully upgrade Eddi (1)
Tired Yet? 60
Complete 1,000 quick-time events

Conclusion

For those of you who play every new big-named first person shooter game that comes out on the market, Blackwater might be a disappointment. There isn't the same level of problem solving and complexity involved as controller games, such as Call of Duty and Battlefield. However, I do think it deserves a better rating than the 2.5/10 rating found on other review sites.

If you love the Kinect and playing games with you as the controller, it's worth picking up a copy! It's a nice addition to a Kinect game library for something different from the dance, sports, acting and adventure type games.

[witzkeyman]

KinectAddict on youtube says this is one of the best. hmmmm

[slappycider]

(12-13-2011 04:56 PM)witzkeyman Wrote:  KinectAddict on youtube says this is one of the best. hmmmm

KinectAddict is an awesome guy to talk too and everything, and he is a really good player at Kinect. But I feel he is very biased when it comes to Kinect as mostly EVERYTHING that comes out for Kinect is great to him. I guess he just enjoys the little things in life, which is pretty great, but doesn't come in handy during reviews.

Like, for Rise of Nightmares, I asked him how the voice acting was. He replied "What are you talking about? Does that matter?". I think he just focuses on fun.

[dirtyvu]

yikes! and I thought Zee was harsh on games.

to me, a 3 means the game is horribly bad and unplayable. I don't know how to correlate a 3 with "it's worth picking up a copy! It's a nice addition to a Kinect game library"

thanks for taking the time to write a review! kudos!

[Corellianrogue]

(12-16-2011 12:43 AM)dirtyvu Wrote:  yikes! and I thought Zee was harsh on games.

to me, a 3 means the game is horribly bad and unplayable. I don't know how to correlate a 3 with "it's worth picking up a copy! It's a nice addition to a Kinect game library"

thanks for taking the time to write a review! kudos!

I'm sure the reviewer must have typed the wrong score as the review itself doesn't sound anything like a 3 out of 10 as it sounds quite positive! Maybe they were thinking 3 out of 5 or something while typing?

[Games4Fun]

to me, a 3 means the game is horribly bad and unplayable. I don't know how to correlate a 3 with "it's worth picking up a copy! It's a nice addition to a Kinect game library"

I did make a mistake in my review!! I don't know why I put 3 - it definitely deserves a 7 and that is based on my experience with other kinect games as well. So I changed it! Thanks to dirtyvu for pointing out the mistake. Other game review sites gave it a 2.5 and I completely disagree with that - it is a great game.

Also - kinectaddict on You Tube is awesome - I go to his site for his reviews, tips and tutorials. He is into playing for fun, but he is committed to learning as much as possible about kinect games and trying them out.

---

(12-17-2011 09:54 PM)Corellianrogue Wrote:  

(12-16-2011 12:43 AM)dirtyvu Wrote:  yikes! and I thought Zee was harsh on games.

to me, a 3 means the game is horribly bad and unplayable. I don't know how to correlate a 3 with "it's worth picking up a copy! It's a nice addition to a Kinect game library"

thanks for taking the time to write a review! kudos!

I'm sure the reviewer must have typed the wrong score as the review itself doesn't sound anything like a 3 out of 10 as it sounds quite positive! Maybe they were thinking 3 out of 5 or something while typing?

Yes - I definitely made a mistake ! Blackwater gets a 7/10! I was trying so hard to follow the format that I overlooked the obvious. This is the first game review I've ever done because I don't typically think I'm qualified to make a review. But there were not any Blackwater reviews on this site and so far other sites have given it horrible ratings. So I wanted to give this game a thumbs up! It's not a perfect game and it doesn't compare to the complex controller games - but it is a lot of fun for us kinect fanatics! Thanks for pointing out the mistake.