X-Blades Game Review

At first you are enticed by the visuals, because who doesn’t like looking at cute anime ass? Ayumi has an extremely sexy midriff, and all of her bodily features have been given the physics treatment. Her hair flows around realistically as she moves, and of course attention has been made towards breast physics.

The gameplay is very redundant, really fast, but that’s not necessarially a bad thing. Some people play mindless shooters and hack-and-slashers because they’re like classic video games in a sense. You can pick it up and put it down without investing a lot of time and energy, fulfilling the quick diversion you were looking for. It must be warned that those who do not enjoy mindless shooters will not enjoy this game, either.

To add even more redundancy, many of the creatures don’t differ all that much between arenas. Part of the game is fighting your way through the same levels, but with different lighting, which seems sort of cheap.In typical slasher style, you obtain more magic by defeating enemies with your blades. Once your magic bar fills up, you can unleash some magical attacks. You learn more as you progress, but you can only access four at any one time (which are assigned to some “quick keys” adjacent to the typical WASD). You can mix and match your magical abiilties on-the-fly by pressing the Escape key, and going through the menus to browse your abilities, and then assign them. Honestly, hopping to the menu really interrupts the action.

Yes, there are some gripes, but there is also some genuine enjoyment from the game. Obviously, the graphics are gorgeous, and the engine is fast. Using FRAPS, I was able to pull between 70 to 80 frames per second at 1900×1200 resolution on a Sapphire 4870 Toxic video card (reviewed here). I have read that the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game can have framerate issues, though.

There’s really nothing new presented by X-blades that hasn’t been done before, and probably done better, but it does fill a hole for the gamer that isn’t feeling the Hack-and-Slash love. X-blades can be a fun mindless slasher that can be a bit of fun for a while. Just note that you really need to be a fan of Hack-and-Slash games to really feel like you got your money’s worth.

REPORT CARD : X-Blades for PC

category	rating	comments
Originality	2	There’s nothing here that you haven’t seen before.
Longevity	2	Gameplay gets old really fast, unless your a fanboi
Graphics	5	Some magic effects could be better, but overall very impressive. You know you can stare at dat ass all day.
Sound	4	Surprisingly, the music doesn’t suck.
Fun Factor	3	This must be mentioned a third time: only fanboys will enjoy this for more than 20 minutes.