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Opening with a gorgeous and
bloodthirsty cinematic intro, BloodRayne is a sojourn into the dark and
gothic underworld of monsters, vampires and other creatures of the night.
Make sure you play this one with the lights on. Even though it has severe
shortcomings it still manages to convey a feeling of dread and things that
go bump in the night.
Plot
The plot revolves around the female BloodRayne. BloodRayne is a Dhampir, a
product of her human mother being raped by a male vampire. BloodRayne is
an agent of The Brimstone Society who have a vested interest in guarding
humanity from the forces of any supernatural origin. As mere mortals cannot
deal with these powerful foes, Agent BloodRayne is called in to dispense her
brand of justice.
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Gameplay
Yawwn…oh, excuse me… I'm still waking up from the experience that was BloodRayne.
I'm still left wondering if I did something to someone in a past life to deserve playing
this title. I'll start with all the negatives and finish up, hopefully, with positives so
we're all left with warm and fuzzy feelings inside. The game starts with the option of
playing the game as a third person adventure or in 1st person mode. In all honesty I can't
say that I tried the 1st person mode only the third person option. This review will be
based upon playing the game in third person mode. For a start, the game is incredibly
linear in its approach with next to no opportunity of exploration. You don't really feel
at any time that exploring the levels will yield some bonus weapons or some powerup. The
reason why this feeling is conveyed can probably be put down to the way your radar system
is designed. With other games of this nature, the right way forward is usually down to
exploration. Trial and error also play their fair part in it as well. But you normally
don't have a big blue dot telling you where to go all the time. I mean, did they have to
make it that obvious to the gamer?? What I'm talking about is the game's system for
telling you where to go or what to look for. This is represented by a compass in the
bottom right hand corner. The compass spins around depending on which way you're standing.
There is always one or more blue dots, for multiple objectives, on the radar pointing out
which way to head. The compass also includes your Bloodlust meter and the Enhance Vision
icons. Your Bloodlust is a meter that fills up gradually when you kill enemies. Once the
meter is full, the game prompts you to hit the Y button to enter Bloodrage mode. What this
does is allow your character to enter berserker mode. With this, it enables you to move
that bit faster making you a harder target, it also allows for spectacular kills that
wouldn't otherwise be possible and time slows down for you giving you a speed edge. The
meter drains while it is activated but you can hit Y again to exit the mode and preserve
some for the next time. It also means that your meter will fill up faster as you already
have some in reserve.
The other items on your compass are the Enhanced Vision icons. Each of these are activated
by pressing a different direction on your D-pad. You only begin the game with only one
of these abilities out of a possible three. You start the game with Aura Sense activated by
pressing left on the D-pad. What this does is it allows BloodRayne to see the health and
attitude of an enemy she is stalking. Red indicates that the victim is in a relaxed state
and isn't aware that you're there. The victim's state of health is also shown by how bright
the colour is. If the person isn't aware that you're there, they will glow bright red.
If, however, they suspect something then they will be dim red. So it can come in handy when
choosing an enemy to feed off, a healthy enemy will replenish most of your health as opposed
to a weak foe. Aura Sense also shows you what your next objective is. You also have Extruded
View, which is basically super vision without the binoculars. You are able to zoom in and
out in this mode but you can't walk around. Lastly you have Dilated Perception which allows
BloodRayne to slow down time in order to evade bullets and attacks. In effect what's happening
is that she's processing sensory information around her so quick that everything including her
seems to slow down. Good but it's all been done before and better at that.
That brings me to another point. Level design. What's wrong with wanting to make large levels
full of exploration opportunities? Many a person has agreed with me that level design is dead
important to a game. After all, poor levels equal poor gameplay. They're all very similar
with no incentive to complete them. If a game doesn't interest you enough to complete a
level and go onto the next, what's the point of playing it? Doesn't matter if you have whiz
bang graphics, the latest cel shading technique or A-list actors doing the voiceovers. The
levels are so short with little draw distance meaning that you can't see what's 5 metres
in front of you until you walk right up to an object or to the edge of an island. And what
do the developers use to hide this shortcoming? The ever popular fog technique. I haven't
seen this technique used to such a great extent since the PS1 early days.
Maybe I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. I should say that one of the positives is that the
game starts with the first level being a tutorial between your protagonist and her mentor,
Mynce. Mynce is also a Dhampir with the same abilities as BloodRayne and instructs you in
how to look around your surroundings, how to use weapons, how to feed and how to fight. I
like it when developers take the time to introduce a tutorial built into the game like in
Splinter Cell. Doesn't make you feel so bad for not reading the instruction manual.
Speaking of the aforementioned fighting, when Mynce explains to you how to fight, she makes
it look so cool, pulling moves out of God knows where. When it's your turn when confronted
by an enemy however, a completely different ball game rears its ugly head. Not since probably
Virtua Fighter on the Sega Saturn have I encountered a more dissatisfying method of fighting.
The fighting is controlled by repeatedly squeezing the L trigger and the moves all appear
to be the same! If a blow strikes your enemy and you try and time it to start a flurry of
combos…forget it. Not gonna happen. And really after a while, you'll be making a doctor's
appointment wondering if your finger has dropped off as you can longer feel it. There
are options to change the controller's configuration but either I gave up looking or I
didn't look hard enough cos I couldn't find it.
Something else really annoying is the weapon pickup. The majority of weapons allow you to
walk over them to pick them up. Some weapons however, you have to press the White button.
When you stand over them and repeatedly press the white button, it constantly comes up on
the screen that you're picking it up. But it gets to a point where you don't know if you've
picked up 1 or 5 guns. Get what I'm saying? Speaking of the weapons, there are a quite a few.
In fact, way too many to list here but let's just say in excess of 30.
Clipping is a pain in the butt here as well. Leave a door open and hello…walk right through
it!! Now unless BloodRayne can turn herself into mist like some vamps can do, this isn't
outlined in the book so basically it shouldn't be happening. Not on this platform anyway.
I can accept clipping but it looks like the developers haven't given a stuff about it all.
The controls are very easy to learn as a result as all the "combos" are done by squeezing the
L trigger.
Graphics
Ok…quick checklist. So far, level design is poor and the fighting engine isn't the best.
Now I know great graphics do not make a game great but maybe we'll find some redemption there.
Guess what?? Nope, no such luck either. Well, maybe a bit harsh but by this point I'm beyond
caring what is aesthetically polite. The graphics are fine for PS2 but come on…this is the
Xbox!! Isn't it supposed to have the most advanced graphics chip in it this side of the moon?
You wouldn't think so. The characters are nicely animated in parts but not in a way that held
my interest for too long. Once you see the opening intro cinematic it makes you wonder why
the in game graphics couldn't be a smidge better. The colours are very bland and lack lustre.
Obviously the developers have gone for the spooky, goth atmosphere judging by their colour
scheme but is it pulled off successfully? Nope. The playing area is very boring to look at
with the colours all seeming to merge into a very drab looking palette.
Sound
Sound is on par with what one would expect with games of this nature. Trees rustling wind
blowing and other strange noises that belong to the night. Actually one thing that I actually
liked was the voice acting. It isn't cheesy ala Resident Evil in the past, it's pretty spot
on. The voices carry good emotion in them and are believable. The lip synching however is a
totally different kettle of fish. Not good. Not good at all. The sounds emitted by the
various monsters of the night are pretty spot on as well. Lots of squishy noises whenever
BloodRayne jumps on a victim for a feed. Very satisfying.
Fun Factor
Ok…I'm really at a loss here. Someone throw me a preserver!! I guess at first when I didn't
know what to expect I'll be honest, it was pretty enjoyable. But those niggling little things
that didn't make this fun for me rear their ugly head rather quickly and before you know it,
you're bored out of your skull. You ever go to see a bad movie that can't get out of and
you're forced to watch the whole thing? This is exactly what this is like. Like those painful visits
to Grandma's house. I guess I can't be all negative and say that there are some redeeming
features. Maybe redeeming features is too much. I'll say passable features instead. The
way character models have been done really well. Both BloodRayne and Mynce carry an aura of
S&M if that's your thing. The dynamics and mechanics of their bodies really have to be seen.
With every little move, their breasts jiggle in a way that would make the girls from Dead or
Alive blush. Watching BloodRayne feed was never something that I bored off either.
Overall
In summing up, considering that I paid $4.95 for a three night rental from my local Blockbuster
store, I feel ripped off. Still I guess there are some gamers out there that don't want too
deep a challenge. If this is you, this is your game. I would still recommend to you to rent
before you buy however. It just has enough features to make it enjoyable for younger gamers.
How young is anyone's guess due to some of the content in the game and in the opening cinematic
which features a couple of decapitations. I didn't think it held enough to garner my attention.
After playing it, I personally wouldn't buy it, which is extremely disappointing. I had heard
about this title when it was being developed and high hopes that it would turn out to be one
of the few vampire games that embodied the vampire genre perfectly. Alas…this is not the case
here. The title could have been so much better and even in this state it still offers some
potential of what could have been. When games turn out like this, it's even more frustrating.
I said at the start of the review that I would focus initially on the negatives before turning
to the positives. Couldn't do it…no matter hard I looked I can't leave the reader with the
warm and fuzzy feeling that I said I would. Sorry…don't shoot me. I'm just the messenger.
kreation's Rating:
2.5 out of 5 Planets
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