It's raining blood. Hallelujah, it's raining blood.
Gamers who are interested in stories will be practically left in the dark with Betrayal. Not much is told at the onset, and the only trace of any kind of narrative is that there are a group of soldiers wondering why they're working with Rayne. It can only be surmised that Betrayal takes place several years after the second BloodRayne, and Rayne is hunting down her father Lord Kagan. The game takes place across 15 chapters, and the only real character you come across is the mysterious shape shifter Raven who unsurprisingly can transform into a raven. The game's entire storyline is practically nonexistent with no proper opening and an abrupt ending with no closure.
At the start of the game's 15 chapters, Rayne drops down to the ground in a rocket-adapted coffin, kicking the door off like a popped cork if you hit the X button just right. From this point on, the gamer will be moving the dhampir vixen (that's a half-vampire half-human woman for the layman) across the screen slashing and shooting everything in her path. There's a good number of melee attacks and combos at Rayne's disposal, and they're designed to hurt and push away enemies as quickly as possible. The game's very punishing on players with slow reflexes.
To compensate, Rayne can dash forward and become completely invulnerable. She can also grab and feed on stunned enemies to not only regain her lost health, but also provide a quick second or two of invincibility. If the gamer feels greatly overwhelmed (and it will happen frequently), a quick pull of the right trigger will fire her magnum and deal serious damage to the baddies. Perhaps the most useful and viscerally satisfying maneuver is infecting a body and then detonating it in plume of green goo.
Enemies are spread out sporadically in the game, but there are also points in the chapters where they spawn all around you in waves. During these sections, the game has a countdown timer and if you manage to kill all of your foes with time left over, you get a bonus to your score. Every enemy behaves differently, but you're always left with the feeling that game simply doesn't have a large enough roster of enemies to provide you with much variety. One of the highlights of the game are the boss fights, as they are big, deadly, and intimidating, but there's roughly one fight for every three or so chapters. One such boss is even recycled a couple chapters after you fought the initial version. If more boss encounters were available, it would have given the gamer much more to look forward to at the end of each chapter.
The controls take a bit of getting used to. They require a level of finesse and perfect timing rarely used these days. This gives off the illusion that the controls are broken, but if you attack the game with a different mindset, you'll soon realize that it's your own fault for not responding quickly. The antagonist of this situation lies in the fact that you simply can't jump or dash in the middle of attacking. Doing so would make the game far too easy. Instead, you'll need to keep an eye on everything on the screen and anticipate your attackers. It may seem cheap that you're being shot at from across the screen, but it's your own fault for not making that enemy your first priority.
That isn't to say the controls are perfect. Rayne moves with the fluidity of a deadly ballerina, but the range of maneuverability doesn't coincide. For instance, by quickly turning around and jumping, Rayne can perform a backflip of considerable altitude, but the gamer has no control of her once she's airborne. Rayne also cannot double jump, and there are too many instances where she's clearly over a platform but still falls through. This makes many of the platforming segments a bit problematic, and being forced to become adept at hopping off enemies and juggling them in the air with no solid ground below you sadistically cruel. Even the most basic of maneuvers, ducking, is questionably absent. You have to charge up an attack to get her to crouch, but simply pulling the stick down would have made much more sense.
Later on in the game, the avian transformer Raven gives Rayne his powers and she can turn into a raven herself at will. This allows Rayne to fly across gaping chasms and rivers of blood, dart into tight areas and ascend to the upper parts of the level clearly out of her reach. Moving in raven form takes a steady hand, as you have to tap the A button just right to keep a consistent altitude. Rayne as a raven has far too much weight to her, and dropping that fast is very uncharacteristic of a bird. These flying segments break up the pace of the game and add some variety but because of the aforementioned issue, they can become frustrating.
Hidden in every chapter are red skulls for the player to collect. Every time you collect five skulls, the game offers you an upgrade to your health bar or an increase to your ammo capacity. Some of these red skulls are in plain sight, but require some very tricky jumping, while others are hidden usually requiring an unseen path in a wall to be accessed. Only upgrading the health bar and ammo, though, feels like squandered potential. Why not make Rayne stronger, or offer new moves and combos? How about new weapons? Speaking of guns, Rayne is only given one other gun in the entire game.
The standout feature of Betrayal's gameplay is seeing how effectively Rayne renders her enemies apart. The action is gruesome and grizzly, definitely "betraying" the T rating designated by the ESRB. Laugh as you watch the upper part of a man's body crawl away and then giggle as you heel stomp him to a pulp. Turn away in a disgust as you pop the hammer-wielding Blood Balloon like a... well... a blood-filled balloon. See enemies explode as you lure them under rows of spikes and reciprocating saws as the rising blood continues to lift your flotsam platform upward. BloodRayne: Betrayal definitely does blood well.
And it's all thanks largely in part to the game's visual style. Betrayal is a graphic novel in motion. The artwork is clean and sharp and the mix of red on black is bold and striking. Unfortunately, the artwork also tends to get in the way of the action, as the foreground can obscure obstacles or enemies and just a few times, you'll be in pitch black areas expecting to fight unseen enemies. There are also a few times where there's so much chaos going on, you lose track of your character. The animations are very smooth, giving the game a cartoon-like quality. The designs of some of the bosses as well as their special effects are pretty captivating as well. The only real lament is that since Rayne's character is now animated, she's lost a lot of the seductive allure she had in her previous games.
Rayne also flexes her muscle in the audio realm. The sound effects are visceral and violent. Her swords' savagery can easily be heard as they sink their teeth into the flesh of their targets. Explosions are pleasant to the ear, as well as the wet pulpy sounds of newly rendered fodder. The star of the audio is clearly the music, and the soundtrack's inspiration is clearly attributed to the Castlevania games. Pianos and organs and guitars are composed together very well to get the players pulse pounding. The only downside is that the soundtrack needs a few more songs to feel complete.
BloodRayne: Betrayal was an experiment to resurrect a forgotten franchise by bringing back the old-school hardcore feel, but it missed the mark by a considerable margin. It could have been quite a deal longer, more varied in its gameplay, level and enemy design, and had a better focus on its narrative. One flaw in of itself is fine, but when you add a few significant flaws together, it ultimately affects the value of the game. For 15 dollars, many gamers are going to be hard-pressed to pay that price. It's highly recommended you play the demo first.