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The water effects are lovely too; waving and reflecting its surroundings like a dull mirror. The particle-system used for dripping and running water worked pretty well with it. With water, covering up to your waist, you get a mixed feeling: you're amazed by the reflections and rippling in the water while having a creepy feeling that something just might be under the surface, waiting to drag you under. Having said this, I don't have a clue whether there are any enemies that dwell at the bottom of the ponds. I got safe out of them all, in a relief of having both my legs still attached.

I found the use of colors very satisfying; good saturations and balance in colors make every parts of the scene harmonize. It also strengthen the use of contrasts when needed, like clearly marking boundaries between light and shadows, the shimmer of burning flames and tearing magical light or other special effects. As a conclusion, all the graphical elements were very well balanced.

Animations
The animation is excellent and really brings the characters to life. They look very realistic and fluid. Most animations are edited from motion-captured data and they are many and varied. This applies to both the playing-characters and your enemies. The animations are very different for the four characters you get to choose from. The Knight is moving and fighting like an ordinary medieval soldier, while the Barbarian's style is more like William Wallace in Braveheart. The Dwarf is just hilarious, especially when running and jumping and as for the Amazon, she is light on her feet and very agile. Enemy animations differ a lot too and suit the race they represent perfectly.

One thing I'd like to see though, is a few animation frames, that fill in the little gap between certain actions; like when you are walking and start running, or walk up to an edge and jump up to climb it. I don't know of any games that have this and perhaps it would only jeopardize the gameplay or defect the respond feeling of the controls.

The animations during combat are superb. It's like you feel every hit you take and you can really feel the power of the combos. It's a very dynamic and intense experience, and the animations used to represent this hit the bull's-eye right on! The trail-effects, which are visible when you swing a weapon, are good indicators of the direction and power of the attack. Besides from that, it's also damn cool looking!

The death animations are a pleasure to watch; you can clearly see the life drain out of the poor, sagged body. They are different depending on where your mortal blow hit, and the force of it. A powerful swing to the side makes the body twist and fall like a sack to the ground. Combined with a mutilation or two, the fun is complete! I remember hitting a traitor knight at the left side of his neck, and literally cut the poor bastard in half as the blade exited underneath his right arm. The pulsing fountain of blood made a mess all over as the remaining parts of his body fell to the ground, in its own blood-pool. The mutilated parts fall in a natural way, determined by the engine's powerful physics. Very satisfying! I know it may sound sick and worrying to some, but in the game - as realistic it may look - it's just plain fun and amusing. There is an option to turn of blood and mutilations, but…well…I never tried this and most likely never will.

Gameplay
No matter how good the graphics are in a game, the game won't be worth crap without a decent gameplay. Blade is, as you know it, a 3d action hack'n'slash game with adventure and RPG elements. I'll start with the last part. The RPG elements in Blade are focused on gaining experience points, basically by killing enemies, in order to move up in levels. As you gain a new level, you learn new attack combos and you'll be able to make higher-powered attacks as well as expand in health. The adventure part will put a meaning to all the hacking and slashing. However, I did not see much of these elements, as I was jumping from section to section in the game. On the other hand, the part I did see quite a bit of though, was the action, hacking and slashing.

There are different 3rd person camera views to toggle in between. In the normal view you see the back of your character, at a distance far enough to get a good overview of the environment. You can move closer to the character with a second camera view and there's a view, which moves the camera further towards the character, looking over the right shoulder. The 1st person view brings the camera to the character's eyes. In this view, you can look down on your character's arms and lower parts of the body. There were a few problems with this though, but if they work them out it will be a pretty cool twist. There was also a free camera view, which enables you to pan the camera around the character. Hopefully this will remain in the game, as looking at the character from different angles was pretty damn sweet.

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-Rebel Act Studios
-Codemasters
-Friendware Europe
-Blade street team