An Awkward Game of Limited Potential

Bood waves is another of the short platinums which have been sitting at the top of my plat list for a very long time. The platinum trophy can be achieved somewhere between 4 hours and 15 hours depending on your patience and, I hate to say it – skill.

Unfortunately I lacked in both patience and skill as I was playing through the game and had to retry a great many times, but I’ll get to that shortly.

The idea of this game is to survive as many waves as you can in a small, circular, enclosed arena against Zombies. You have access to a few upgradeable weapons, a few upgradeable traps and a few upgradeable skills.

90% of the gameplay looks like this. Running away from Zombies and looking behind yourself.

There are 8 weapons available for you to use:

Machete: You start with a machete in your arsenal and it’s your best defense against the hordes in the early stages, but you’ll never use it again once you have decent weaponry and plenty of money for ammo.

You start with a machete in your arsenal and it’s your best defense against the hordes in the early stages, but you’ll never use it again once you have decent weaponry and plenty of money for ammo. Colt: Probably the first gun you’ll get unless you get lucky with cash pick-ups early in the game, it has decent accuracy, a low rate of fire and low damage. But, if you get mostly headshots you should be able to survive a few early rounds with this alone.

Probably the first gun you’ll get unless you get lucky with cash pick-ups early in the game, it has decent accuracy, a low rate of fire and low damage. But, if you get mostly headshots you should be able to survive a few early rounds with this alone. SMG: As you can imagine, it’s got a slightly lower damage than the colt but with it’s massively increased rate of fire you’re likely to do a lot more damage with this one. It’s great for crowd control and you need it for one trophy.

As you can imagine, it’s got a slightly lower damage than the colt but with it’s massively increased rate of fire you’re likely to do a lot more damage with this one. It’s great for crowd control and you need it for one trophy. Shotgun: The best weapon for the early waves, with this bad boy you can take the head of a Zombie clean off with just one shot, you’ll almost certainly use this in the early stages, especially if you use the guide below.

The best weapon for the early waves, with this bad boy you can take the head of a Zombie clean off with just one shot, you’ll almost certainly use this in the early stages, especially if you use the guide below. AK12: A slightly more powerful automatic rifle which has higher damage output than the SMG but a lower rate of fire. I never used it.

A slightly more powerful automatic rifle which has higher damage output than the SMG but a lower rate of fire. I never used it. AWP: The big mac daddy of guns in the game, this beast can take out any zombie with one shot on any body-part. It makes no sense, but it’s crucial to surviving the game’s late stages.

The big mac daddy of guns in the game, this beast can take out any zombie with one shot on any body-part. It makes no sense, but it’s crucial to surviving the game’s late stages. Minigun: Remember the days when every FPS ever had a minigun in there somewhere? And you’d always want to get it and use it, but then it ends up being such an inconvenience you regret it? It’s kind of like that here. The gun slows you down, so you can’t escape the zombies unless you’re running, for which you need a lot of stamina. So, if you end up using this gun (which you will if you want the platinum) you’ll need to constantly be switching guns with and so you can stay mobile.

Remember the days when every FPS ever had a minigun in there somewhere? And you’d always want to get it and use it, but then it ends up being such an inconvenience you regret it? It’s kind of like that here. The gun slows you down, so you can’t escape the zombies unless you’re running, for which you need a lot of stamina. So, if you end up using this gun (which you will if you want the platinum) you’ll need to constantly be switching guns with and so you can stay mobile. RPG: I rarely used this, except at the end of my run when I was trying to spend more money for a certain trophy (it has expensive ammo) and to be honest it’s hugely disappointing. The blast radius is pretty small, the accuracy is hilariously bad and to kill anything with it you’ll need to shoot at the zombie’s feet.

Some weapons have trophies tied to them

As well as those there are 5 traps you can use too. But this doesn’t end the way you think it does. You, stood in a circle of miniguns and flamethrowers doing all the work for you, making you feel like you really achieved something in the game – no – they’re all HEAVILY limited in terms of how many you can use at one time, which is incredibly disappointing and frankly just boring .

The best part about a tower defence game is when you finally become so powerful you break the game, but they don’t want that in Blood Waves. Anyway, here are the traps:

Barricade: These are very cheap at $250 dollars a piece and you can use up to 15 of them. But they are utterly useless, they don’t damage zombies, and they don’t deter zombies. Zombies will run at them and attack them as soon as they’re near one and destroy it in no time at all, even fully upgraded, making it pretty useless defensively but it can have some good uses when paired up with a weapon which can kill them while they attack the barricades.

These are very cheap at $250 dollars a piece and you can use up to 15 of them. But they are utterly useless, they don’t damage zombies, and they don’t deter zombies. Zombies will run at them and attack them as soon as they’re near one and destroy it in no time at all, even fully upgraded, making it pretty useless defensively but it can have some good uses when paired up with a weapon which can kill them while they attack the barricades. Turret: This is yet another useless tool which could have been much better. It does very small damage per second, you might as well be tickling the zombies to death. It also goes down incredibly quick. The only good thing about it is that it explodes when destroyed, and takes one or two zombies down with it. You can have four of these.

This is yet another useless tool which could have been much better. It does very small damage per second, you might as well be tickling the zombies to death. It also goes down incredibly quick. The only good thing about it is that it explodes when destroyed, and takes one or two zombies down with it. You can have four of these. Flamethrower: Personally, I can’t see the difference between this and the turret. It dies easily, explodes on death and does a small amount of damage to zombies, it might as well not exist, plus you can only have two!

Personally, I can’t see the difference between this and the turret. It dies easily, explodes on death and does a small amount of damage to zombies, it might as well not exist, plus you can only have two! Grinder: FINALLY, a useful trap! Sadly you can only have two, but there is a great strategy for the first 20-ish waves which this is great for. They also cannot be hurt by normal zombies, they just chew them up when they get close and release a spray of blood and meat chunks.

FINALLY, a useful trap! Sadly you can only have two, but there is a great strategy for the first 20-ish waves which this is great for. They also cannot be hurt by normal zombies, they just chew them up when they get close and release a spray of blood and meat chunks. Deadly Spinner: This one was my best friend throughout my platinum playthrough, you can only have one, but it chews up and spits out any zombie that gets close except bomber zombies who are the only ones that can destroy it. I would set this in the middle and then bait all zombies into it to have them made into mince-meat.

After each wave you are given access to a back room within which you can buy traps, upgrades, weapons, and skills using the points and money you earn throughout the wave.

You need to spend a lot of money for one of the trophies, so go wild!

Once you’ve managed these things you are able to access a Build Mode by pressing inside the arena. In this mode you can enjoy an awkward and annoyingly slow process of placing traps for 5 minutes in a formation that should only take 2 minutes, but that’s just how it is. You can only rotate an object in a single direction and if you over-rotate you need to rotate a full 360 again, the character’s movements are choppy and imprecise to it’s hard to place the traps precisely and it’s just overall boring and unpleasant.

The build mode is slow and limited.

When you’re ready, you can press to start a wave and hopefully make it through to the end. It is so disgustingly easy to die in this game. You need to keep moving constantly, never stop.

They can walk just about the same speed as you (unless you’re holding a minigun which makes you slower than the Zombies) so as long as you don’t move and don’t make too tight of a turn, the entire pack will follow you anywhere, which is useful for baiting zombies over to traps, but if you stop for any reason or get caught on something you’re almost guaranteed to die with extreme speed.

Almost every single time I took a risk for a screenshot or loot pick-up I died. This was no exception.

Because of how easy it is to die out of nowhere, I highly recommend backing up saves. If you die on a wave you have to start from wave 1 again, no matter what you have achieved. To avoid this, after a successful wave when the game auto-saves, you can jump out to the PS4 dashboard and upload your save data to a USB device or the PSCloud, this way you can always re-download that save if you die and therefore keep your progress.

I did this after every wave. You’re free to do this less as it is a pain in the arse, but everytime I pushed my luck and tried to do 2 or 3 waves without backing up, I’d lose my progress and I don’t have the patience to play multiple waves over and over again, especially not when the game is this buggy and awkward.

Essentially, the majority of your gameplay will be you running away from zombies, looking over your shoulder and trying to gain enough distance to stop and shoot a few. Because of this I highly recommend upping the sensitivity in the settings, because by default it is very slow and difficult to turn around.

Practically the whole game is summed up in this one screenshot.

There are a few types of zombies, but they don’t really bring much to the table, especially if you have a good strategy, here they are:

Normal Zombie: These guys will appear in droves, there’s nothing particularly special about them. They’re just your typical video game zombies who repeat an attack animation which has no bearing on how or when they will hurt you, think Day-Z but even less advanced.

These guys will appear in droves, there’s nothing particularly special about them. They’re just your typical video game zombies who repeat an attack animation which has no bearing on how or when they will hurt you, think Day-Z but even less advanced. Big Zombies: Honestly, it took me a while to realise these were different zombies and the devs hadn’t just lazily randomised zombie height to falsify variety. Their biggest trait is that they hit REALLY hard, so stay away from them.

Honestly, it took me a while to realise these were different zombies and the devs hadn’t just lazily randomised zombie height to falsify variety. Their biggest trait is that they hit REALLY hard, so stay away from them. Acid Zombies: These guys make an irritating vomit sound which never varies and spit fluorescent paint at you. They don’t seem to do much damage but, left unattended, they can deal some serious damage to your traps. Kill them as soon as you see them.

These guys make an irritating vomit sound which never varies and spit fluorescent paint at you. They don’t seem to do much damage but, left unattended, they can deal some serious damage to your traps. Kill them as soon as you see them. Electric Zombies: I mean, really. This uninspired and nonsensical Zombie variety can impart heavy damage upon you and your traps, kill it on sight. They have particularly weak legs, so go for the knees to “Ground” them.

I mean, really. This uninspired and nonsensical Zombie variety can impart heavy damage upon you and your traps, kill it on sight. They have particularly weak legs, so go for the knees to “Ground” them. Bomber Zombies: I don’t know who is going around cutting zombie heads in half and resting cartoon acme bombs inside their skull cavities, but somebody is doing it and it’s bad. The bomber can explode at will or when killed, even if you shoot him nowhere near the bomb. I don’t understand the logistics of it, but I do know he deals devastating damage and you don’t want him anywhere near you or your traps, prioritise him when you see him.

So, if I haven’t put you off this horrible game yet, then I have a decent walk-through, pieced together from other people’s walk-throughs online to give you the perfect method which worked for me, allowing me to plat the game in just one play-through (spread over several days because, damn, this game is bad).

Blood Waves Platinum Trophy Walkthrough

If you follow this wave-by-wave guide for platting the game then you should be able to manage it in just one playthrough.

Remember, you need to reach wave 30 for one of the trophies, but to get the trophy for killing 5,000 zombies you will need to play a little longer than that. Most people claim online you’ll need to reach wave 34, but I pulled it off after wave 31.

Proof! (I almost didn’t make it out alive).

Sadly, I still needed to play a couple more waves to get the trophy for spending $1,000,000 in-game.

Also, don’t forget to back up your saves frequently if you don’t want to restart from the beginning every time. Do this at whatever rate you prefer, 5 waves, 2 waves, or just one wave if you’re impatient like myself.

Waves 1-3

Beat these 3 waves using only your knife. You’re going to struggle a little on the third wave but it’s worth it.

Run circles around the map to gather the horde into one small group and then spin around and cut at as many as you can. Once your health reaches half you want to get away just to be safe. Continue your circuit around the arena, gathering up any newly spawned zombies, and then repeat the process once your health is full again.

As long as you’re careful you’ll be fine, make sure you grab any loot the zombies drop, but it won’t be much at first.

At least the hordes are smaller at first

At the end of each wave do not spend any money or upgrade points, just jump straight into the next wave once your health is full until you complete Wave 3. If you’re really struggling to beat Wave 3 with just a knife, buy a Colt and some ammo but try to save what money you can and definitely don’t buy upgrades or skills.

After wave 3, if you didnt already, buy the colt and ammo and use them to beat Wave 4.

Wave 4: Beat this wave with the Colt. As usual, you want to put some distance between yourself and the zombies and then spin around and get as many headshots as you can before they get close to you. Once they are close, start running again until you have some distance between you. Repeat until you’re victorious.

Once you finish the wave, buy the SMG with ammo. Also buy the “Loot” skill. This will give us more item pick-ups from zombie kills and allow us to earn more money, quickly.

Don’t buy anything else.

The SMG is going to be very important

Waves 6-7

You’re going to start seeing acid Zombies now. They’re easy to spot because they glow a bright green colour. There’s a trophy for killing 20 of these with an SMG, so everytime you see one, pull out your SMG and start laying into them with it.

Other than those guys, you want to use your Shotgun for normal Zombies. There’s a trophy for getting 100 headshots with the Shotgun, so aim for the head each time. If you actually hit them in the head, it will explode killing them instantly.

You’d think the trophy screenshot would actually include a headshot… Oh well, at least that guy back there is missing a noggin.

Keep up this strategy for as many waves as you need to until you get both of these trophies:

Acid Wars Kill 20 Acid Zombies using SMG

Mega Headshot Make 100 Headshots using Shotgun

At the end of these waves, restock your shotgun and SMG ammo but don’t buy anything else until Wave 7. After Wave 7, buy the “Resistance to Explosion” skill.

Waves 8-10

You should be close to having the headshot trophy now, for me it popped in Wave 9. Within these 3 waves, buy the skills “Resistance to Electricity” and “Resistance to Acid”, in that order, as soon as you have the skill points for them.

Buy the Minigun with ammo as soon as you have the money for it, but you won’t really need to use it until you have that headshot trophy, so you could hold out for it until then.

Once you do have that headshot trophy, stop using the shotgun and start every wave with the Minigun. We need to get 1,000 kills with the minigun for a trophy, so just get out the minigun whenever you can, and you should have the trophy sometime before wave 15.

These waves are going to be very annoying because of the minigun, so here is what I recommend:

With the minigun put away, and a lighter gun in your hands, run circles around the arena to get the zombies into one tight group, once this is the case, sprint from one end of the arena to the other and quickly spin around, pull out the minigun with [d-pad] and then mow as many of them down as you can with it. Once they get a little close to you, use to switch to a lighter weapon and then start the process again.

If you keep this up for the foreseeable future, you’ll have a fairly easy time getting the trophy.

As usual, don’t buy any weapon upgrades during these waves.

Wave 11

Wave 11 is the first major milestone and you’re going to pop a lot of trophies here. As soon as you finish Wave 11, back up your save and then go and buy as many weapon upgrades as you can, you should pop a few trophies. Then, re-download your backup and buy as many other weapon upgrades as you can, popping a few more trophies. Repeat this process until you have the trophies for all of the weapon and trap upgrades.

Once you’ve finished that process, reload your save one last time, this time buy the AWP and the weapon upgrades for both the Minigun and the AWP.

Get used to the AWP because you’re going to be using it a lot.

Wave 11 – Wave 34

Now it’s time to get serious.

From here on out you can buy traps and start using them. There are a few trap-related trophies for placing a certain number of each trap in one game, this is easily cheatable. When in built mode, position your trap in a way the game doesn’t like (the projection will turn red) and then mash [X] like your life depends on it. The game wiill stupidly register these attempts to place a trap as placed traps allowing you to pop all of these trophies with this one simple method.

You can now also buy upgrades as much as you like, but don’t waste your upgrade points on weapon upgrades. Once the Minigun and AWP are fully upgraded you don’t need to use any of the other weapons so spend the points on upgrading traps.

You’re going to want to spend as much money as you can, so after every wave buy the traps and ammo you need and then spend any surplus money anywhere you can to avoid needing to play longer at the end of the game like I did.

Also be mindful of the SMG, Minigun and Shotgun trophies, if you still haven’t got those yet just ensure you’re doing what you can each wave to fulfil those requirements.

Note that at around wave 17 you should be able to afford most Skills in the game. Backup your save data at this time and use the same method we used for weapon upgrades to unlock every skill-related trophy in the game. After that you should be able to just make a straight run for the platinum with a few backed up saves in-between.

All of the skill trophy screenshots look like this, in case you were wondering.

I have a couple of good methods for surviving the game.

The first method is better earlier on when you don’t have a ton of money to burn, simply buy two Zombie Grinders and position them in the outer ring of the arena, against one of the dividing walls, just by one of the openings at either the angel statue or the large door to avoid special zombies seeing them on spawn and attacking them immediately. These grinders can only be destroyed by Acid, Electric and Bomber zombies, so we want to keep them away.

As you’ve probably noticed by now, each wave has a maximum number of zombies that can enter the arena at once, and no more will be spawned until you kill some. Start each wave by running laps of the inner circle of the arena, gathering up a group of zombies. You then want to switch to the AWP and pick off any Acid, Electric or bomber zombies you see.

Once you’ve cleared them away, continue your laps for a little while to see if any more spawn and continue this method until the group following you consists of only normal zombies. Now, run into the outer circle with the horde in tow, and head towards one of your grinders and if they’re positioned correctly you should be able to hook around the side of one and head directly towards the center of the arena. The zombies will try to take a shortcut around the corner straight into the grinder. If you do this right, the whole horde will become mincemeat and you can proceed to repeat the process.

It doesn’t hurt to let the grinders take a little damage so that you can repair them for this trophy.

The next strategy is better a little later on because you’re going to want the very expensive Deadly Spinner. You could also buy all the other traps to full capacity and build something like what I describe below, but it’s not necessary.

I like to start by placing a Deadly Spinner right in the center of the arena. If you look after this right and keep the Bomber zombies away, it will last you a few waves without ever needing to be replaced. Around this, I place 4 turrets, 2 flamethrowers, 2 grinders, 15 barricades and a partridge in a pear tree.

The barricades will encapsulate the entire set-up, keeping zombies at bay long enough for the turrets and flamethrowers to pick a few off. Once the barricades go, the zombies head towards the guns to take them out, with most of them falling prey to the spinner and the grinders. Plus once the guns are destroyed they will explode, killing off many of the zombies.

This is the layout I went with in the end.

Then you just have the grinders and the spinner left. If you run a tight circle around this, the majority of the zombies will get decimated and you can just focus on the electric and acid zombies who stop to attack the grinders.

Once the grinders are all gone, you have the Deadly Spinner. If you run a tight circle around this you can trick every zombie except a Bomber into getting caught up in it. This is essentially all you need, but the other stuff is a bit of fun and spices up the waves a little.

Just remember to be extra vigilant for bombers, they will destroy your spinner in one hit and then you’re left using your weapons to kill zombies, which is just boring.

Quite handily, I discovered you can place anything INSIDE a spinner, too. So you could put a barricade or two inside a spinner to trick zombies into coming over to attack the barricade and then ending up getting caught in the spinner.

Clearly a bug, but it comes in handy.

Follow everything you see in the guide above and you should have a fairly reasonable time getting the platinum, so long as you can commit to the horrible game with it’s horrible mechanics and boring gameplay.