PS2
9 hours 39 minutes
Hey there, kids, do you you like any of the following:
- Vampires
- Needless violence
- Explosions
- Gigantic blades
- Sassy take-no-crap-from anyone chicks
- Red hair
You do? Then mister, have I got the game for you! Allow me to introduce you all to Rayne. She's a dhampir (half-human, half-vampire) who works for the Brimstone Organisation, a group dedicated to the eradication of all supernatural nasties. In the last game, she wiped out half the Nazi war machine single-handed, all in a quest to find her father who had killed her mother, blah blah blah. Let's face it, the plot is irrelevant here. All that really matters is that she's hot, she dresses in skin-tight leather and kicks more ass than a mechanical ass-kicking machine set to full-auto, right? Fuck yeah, I'm right!
In all honesty, it's easy to be cynical about the Bloodrayne games. They feel like they were designed by writing up a checklist - probably one not too far off the mark from that one up there - and trying to hit as many points as possible. They're shallow, bug-ridden and reek of early 2000's marketing zeitgeist. But stab me with a mythical weapon and drain me of all my blood if they aren't fun as hell!
First thing you'll notice is the camera. Actually, that'll be the second thing you notice, first is Rayne herself, striding out into battle in a black PVC dress and hair that I last saw in a bottle marked 'haemorrhage red'. By herself, she's interesting to look at, in all the various costumes you can eventually deck her out in, but her voice actress, Laura Bailey (better known for Fruits Basket, of all things) manages to make the whole thing that little bit more interesting, somehow being able to redeem even the most facepalmable one-liner. Its her that makes the character, and, if we're being honest, probably a large portion of the game.
But back to the camera. The camera in this game has four main aims: focussing on Rayne's cleavage; focussing on Rayne's ass; trying to focus on both Rayne's cleavage and ass at the same time; and pissing you off when you least want it to. And in all these respects, it succeeds admirably, zooming in on her butt when you're surrounded by about a dozen mooks, giving you a pristine shot of her rack when you're failing to make a jump for the Nth time, and making you wonder if they really did spend more time on giving her standard outfit just the right amount of sheen than tightening up the controls just a little more (the correct answer is, of course, 'yes'). Once you get to grips with the beast, it becomes a lot more manageable, and being able to
The camera isn't the only thing that makes combat fraught with danger, as enemies hace a nasty habit of corner-trapping you, repeatedly pummelling you to within an inch of your life. It's not uncommon to be pinballed from one foe to another, resulting in large chunks of your life vanishing before you can even catch a glimpse of Rayne's Peak District. Your main weapons consist of two giant blades strapped to your arms, with pointy bits on the obligatory high heeled shoes for good measure. When you kill certain enemies, you'll receive extra attacks, or extensions to your basic combo. Most of the time, you won't use them though, as your feed attack trumps pretty much everything. Don't forget, Rayne is part vampire, and that makes almost every enemy you see a health pack on legs. While feeding, you can rotate yourself and your victim (which is impressive considering she usually wraps her legs fully around the poor/lucky bastard she's nomming at the time, moaning suggestively all the while) to shield yourself from further attacks, healing yourself and protecting you from further damage. It doesn't work on everyone - some enemies are armed with melee weapons and can fend you off (knocking you to the ground and hitting you square in the groin. Each and every time), and some are just too big, being hideous mutants or incorporeal humanoids formed out of bugs. In the case of the former, you can either knock their weapons out their hands, if they're standard mooks, or just get behind them and start chowing down that way.
Your other main weapon is your harpoon, which is mainly used in the 'puzzle' elements of the game. I use the term loosely because virtually every puzzle involves using the harpoon to launch a hapless minion into some pointy bit of furniture, a fan, a printing press, or in one memorable moment, the blades of a downed helicopter. Doing this for pure giggles isn't exactly frowned upon, however, as it nets you Carnage Points. Keen to prove it's not just another mindless hack-and-slash, you can increase your health and rage meters by ripping people to shreds in the most creative means possible, be it tossing them off a roof, hurling them into electric fences or executing them while feeding. It doesn't add too much to the basic gameplay, but it gives you a valid reason to brutalize your foes beyond 'what, that stuffed rhino head was just looking bare without a flunky bleeding on top of it'.
And finally, because there clearly wasn't enough blood in the game, you've got your guns. At the end of the first batch of stages, you come across the Carpathian Dragons, vampyric weapons that - get this - run on blood! Yes, while feeding, you can plunge them into your human lunchbox and suck out their blood, then fire it back at their friends! They're the only firearms you'll acquire throughout the game (which will piss you off no end when you encounter enemies running around with Pancor Jackhammers. It starts off as a piddly little peashooter, but along the way, you unlock other modes that fill in the traditional shotgun/machine gun/rocket launcher roles. The guns can also level up, increasing their destructive capabilities and ammo counts, but unless you make an effort to use them at every opportunity (which is pointless when the feed attack is a confirmed kill, health up and human shield all in one) you'll only use them for one or two bosses at most.
It's impressive that a game this shallow still manages to be such fun. It's the gaming equivalent of the brain-dead action movie, pure and simple. There's no deep meaning to be found, no important lessons to be delivered, just endless action from one end of the game to the other, all delivered in a black Japanese schoolgirl outfit which, of course, shows plenty of fanservice (one of about a dozen or so outfits unlocked when you complete the game, and no, I'm not making this up - you can't say Terminal Velocity doesn't know their audience). It shouldn't succeed as much as it does, and often doesn't, being needlessly frustrating at times. But it manages to retain that certain something that keeps you playing in spite of yourself, and that deserves some respect.
The ending of the game promises an all-out war between Rayne, the Brimstone Society and the remaining vampires. but so far, we've seen nothing, probably because of Uwe Boll. Allowing him to
Thanks, Uwe.r
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