Slip your head into the antlered skull helm of stab-happy warrior Crom as he carves a swath of blood across the land. While there is no forging, or forgery for that matter, Bloodforge does offer buckets and buckets of blood in a revenge fueled hack and slash adventure.
If you’re looking for a deep narrative, keep looking. Bloodforge offers the bare bones revenge tale of Crom the perpetual yelling barbarian. After a day of hunting in the forest Crom settles in for a little shirtless nap in the snow, he has a strange dream involving some God or another, and when he wakes up his home is on fire! After murdering the crap out of the dudes who presumably burned his house down Crom is tricked into murdering the crap out of his wife. Thus setting in motion a quest to take down not just the one God but all the Gods. Motivations are mostly unclear and things get kind of convoluted, personally I think the whole story is just a hypothermia induced coma dream brought on by that snow siesta.
The brawling hack and slash gameplay that is the heart of Bloodforge is sufficiently gory, satisfying, and fun. Or it would be if it wasn’t so totally broken. The requisite over sized weapons are present along with just two attack buttons and their limited combinations. During your skirmishes you’ll inevitably daze an enemy which brings up Crom’s finishers. Turn a foe into a headless fountain of blood or a writhing legless dying in a pool of his own blood jerk who never should have messed with you in the first place! These execution moves vary based on the weapon in hand and are gruesome… and awesome.
Unfortunately a few key gameplay/design decisions break the goodness. Combat is fast and typically involves multiple opponents, so why with a third person perspective do we have no way to lock on to a single enemy? There isn’t a block function either which leaves Crom with only evasive rolls for defense. These things might be forgiven and mostly ignored if not for the camera exacerbating the problems. This evil creature called “camera” doesn’t pivot right and frequently gets hung up on the environment.
The visuals of Bloodforge are a plus with a gothic style and under saturated palette featuring generous amounts of blood that help set the tone and deepen the mood.
Unfortunately with so many other outstanding Xbox Live Arcade titles it’s hard to give Bloodforge a solid recommendation. With no demo available we’re looking at a buyer beware situation. If you happen to be a big time, BIG TIME, fan of those hack and slash beat ’em up type games go ahead and look into this one. If you’re not however, I hear Trials Evolution is pretty good.
[..YouTube..] sick!!!!!
[..YouTube..] any idea on what date?
[..YouTube..] april 20th
[..YouTube..] Read on IGN that the game had a setting that would make it stand out. Not seeing anything special here tho.
[..YouTube..] Harken to the tale of Fat Neil
[..YouTube..] guys support this game because I would love for them to make a fully-budgeted sequel because for an arcade game this look sick.
[..YouTube..] No, more like Viking: Battle for Asgard
[..YouTube..] This game looks really cool for an arcade game.
[..YouTube..] i thought that, do you think it has the same gameplay mechanics/engine ?
[..YouTube..] Since this is an arcade game and made by different developers, probably not. But it may very well have the same gameplay feel.
[..YouTube..] Base a game on Irish Mythology…. and give them English accents. Good one.
[..YouTube..] Toby Where To Fight the Qu’ran!
[..YouTube..] YOU SHAL GO NO FURTHER!-YOU SHAL NOT PASS!
[..YouTube..] This game will probably be very short.
[..YouTube..] dumb
[..YouTube..] over voice acted
[..YouTube..] utter uselessness
[..YouTube..] they want to make us buy kiddy consoles to play the games. 😀 i will never do that !
[..YouTube..] Meh
[..YouTube..] Just shut up and have sex with your PC or whatever
[..YouTube..] go play PS tripple you noob, with the blurry graphics and upscaled resolutions ! you play it 2000 and late, I play it SLICK ! SLICK MODE.
[..YouTube..] lol I don’t play on PS
[..YouTube..] 360… EVEN WORSE
[..YouTube..] see? you obviously don’t know anything ’bout consoles…
[..YouTube..] You obviously don’t understand what he is saying you dipshit, don’t jump the conversation and change it to make someone look stupid by mentioning a unrelated topic and try to prove him wrong, even though it has NOTHING to do with the current subject at hand. Its pathetic to do something like that.
[..YouTube..] I didn’t change the topic, I just wantex to show him how ridiculous it is that he, who doesn’t have any console wants to tell me that the 360 is “worse” than the PS3, even though I own both
[..YouTube..] doesnt have enough action 😛
[..YouTube..] looks shit
[..YouTube..] lol go play skyrim, this game will probably too hard for you people
[..YouTube..] Isn’t it epic?
[..YouTube..] god of war for Xbox ….micrisoft you silly catfish 😀
[..YouTube..] Pretty poor voice acting… but it still looks fun as hell
[..YouTube..] Is this only xbox 360 or also for pc
???
[..YouTube..] How is this new? It came out in 2005 on the PS2.
[..YouTube..] The place your looking for Cron is in middle east asia.
.
[..YouTube..] Wow nice job Microsoft… Nice job at making a cheap shit knock off of god of war! Wow that is pitiful that they have stooped so low as to start copying games from playstation!!
[..YouTube..] retarded game lol
[..YouTube..] this game is disturbing
[..YouTube..] LOL stop being a little fanboy.
[..YouTube..] Yes because GoW is the only game based on an anti hero bent for revenge…….
OMG the Belmont Family must be coiling their whips right about now !!!
[..YouTube..] did you even play it?
[..YouTube..] guys, I want to get this game but I need to know how long it is, the demo was like five minutes long lol, how long is the actual game? because over the the length the demo is 10/10 for me
[..YouTube..] Pity the poor dumb bastards who bought this game.
[..YouTube..] This game is awesome 8.5/10 only thing holding it back is just the level of difficulty. It is impossible to beat in one sitting its too much to take in.
[..YouTube..] I don’t see why so many people hate this. I just played the demo and it was fun as hell!
[..YouTube..] Nah, just don’t like these kind of games
[..YouTube..] I don’t know exactly how long I’ve played for now, but I think it’s around 5 hours and I think I’m near the end. Not the longest game ever, but then, it is an arcade game and only costs £10. IMO that was £10 well spent, it’s so much fun if you love gorey hack and slash games!