Import Briefiew – Bloodbath

Now, I’m actually stretching the definition of an import with this game. As this game was released, at least on a physical format, in only two countries (that I know of). That means that the chances that you’ll find this game lying around on a shelf of a regular store will be incredibly small unless you’re from germany or spain so if you want to try it, you’ll have to import it. That being said, I live in spain myself so I didn’t have to actually do that, I just found it on a store and bought it.

Bloodbath is a 3D arena brawler kind of game. From the get go you’ll notice that this game was designed with multiplayer in mind as there are no story to follow nor any progression outside of gaining experience points for your gamer level (which doesn’t really affect your playable character).
The game offers 6 different combatants you can control. Each one has its own array of combos which will be executed with combinations of four presses of the square and triangle buttons and, apart from that that, each one will have a special move which can be “cooked” to deal a stronger blow.
The arenas in which the fighting will take place aren’t very big but they’re varied enough and the maximum number of fighters in them will be 6 players anyway. Some of them will have hazards that will get activated at certain times and help to spice up the encounters.
The game has only four modes and they’re pretty much what you’d expect. A free for all, a team deathmatch, a mode that will have you capturing nodes and the most unique one could be considered to be just a little spin on capture the flag, in which you’ll have to push a cart to the other side of the arena by mashing a button.

In static the game looks okay. Nothing out of the ordinary but it doesn’t strike you as too bad either (for an average ps3 game). The artstyle seems to have been inspired by some mad max kind of post-apocalyptic aesthetic so obviously everything looks dirty and busted but that was intentional. Each character looks unique but that’s all I can to praise. In movement, it’s very aparent that the animations are dated and that makes the whole gory spectacle to look worse.
In the sound department we have some sort of comentator voice over who does its job well. His voice sounds invested without getting annoying. Then there’s the music and the rest of sound effects that, if decent, they’re not remarkable.

Things I liked

• Characters: They’re only half a dozen but they’re all unique with their looks, their own movesets, special habilities and, for the most part, they’re pretty well balanced.

 

Things I didn’t

• Controls: The game breaker. There’s a delay for every attack your character does as if trying to emulate the lag players could experience during online play but it actually affects all of the game, even playing against the bots. It completely ruins the fighting. It doesn’t help either how bad the feedback is from your character because of the wonky animations.
• AI: If there aren’t enough players for an online match, the blank spots will be filled with enemies controlled by the AI, that’s good. Or it would be if the actual AI was any good. During objective-based fights they will completely ignore the objectives which will give you, the player, the dumbest of victories. Also, in team deathmatch, they will often attack their own teammates.
• Barebones: There’s only 6 playable characters, a handful of arenas and four modes. Bloodbath is seriously lacking content.
• Dead Online: There’s nobody playing online and there’s no split screen modes either so you’re stuck with an arena brawler with the dumbest AI possible. What a nightmare.

 

Who’d like this?

Maybe nobody. This could very well be the worst game I’ve played on ps3. Even for the 10 bucks I paid for this game I didn’t feel like I got my money’s worth at all. I didn’t enjoy my time with this game and I fail to see someone who could.

 

<You can check the game in motion here>