It took them a couple of years since they announced it was happening, but did Gameloft did alright with their first ever Unreal Engine game?

Wild Blood (Universal: $6.99) 

“King Arthur has gone mad, fueled by his jealousy toward Lancelot for romancing his wife, Queen Guinevere. In his desperation, Arthur has been tricked by his sister, the all-powerful sorceress Morgana Le Fey, to open the Hellgate and allow all forms of demons to enter the world. Meanwhile, Morgana has captured Guinevere and holds her hostage on the magical island of Avalon.”

Presentation

One of the reasons we were particularly excited for this game is because it is the first game that Gameloft is pumping out using the Unreal Engine. We were already used to making their games look better and better, but the Unreal Engine is the final piece in the jigsaw, giving us a glimpse at what’s to come.

The quality is maintained from the characters to the environments. When you’re focusing on the characters, they’re quite something to look at, fluid and well textured. Needless to say, this makes for some pretty awesome boss fights.

When you look at the environments, it has the visual effects we’ve come to expect from the game: sun glare, waterfalls, and that’s not to mention the landscapes that Gameloft has designed. Visually, it’s a treat.

Controls

As you already know from Gameloft games, the game uses a virtual joystick and buttons to control your character. If there’s one thing about the controls that irritated me a bit while playing are the camera controls, which would get in the way sometimes while I played. Other than that, I didn’t really have problems with the controls.

Gameplay

One of the first things you’ll notice is that compared to most Gameloft games, Wild Blood feels like an original IP. Bravo, Gameloft. Wild Blood comes with two game modes: single player and multiplayer. Let’s start off with the campaign. The game is set back in the King Arthur day’s, with you controlling Lancelot, who was having an affair with King Arthur’s wife.

All mad and stuff (can you blame the guy?), Arthur teams up with an evil sorceress, who later ends up filling the entire kingdom in black magic. So you come in and slay everything in your way. Sound simple? Good, because the game is mostly what you expect: hack n slash. Where things get interesting is the multiplayer. The multiplayer uses some of the weapons from the game to bring FPS like modes, such as Team Deathmatch or Capture the Flag, to the game.

If you only want to play multiplayer don’t worry, all players start from scratch, so what you did on the campaign is irrelevant online. That being said, I will admit, while fun and interesting, don’t expect Wild Blood to be the next multiplayer hit like NOVA is.

Conclusion

It’s nice to see something fresh coming out of Gameloft, and more importantly a multiplayer mode that isn’t your typical shooter. And as far as presentation goes, for Gameloft’s first Unreal powered game, they hit it out of the park. I recommend you pick up Wild Blood.