A sexy dhampir you goes around killing Nazis and demons, what more could you want? well Quite a bit....
BloodRayne is a third-person action game with red-haired half-vampire (dhampir) Rayne as the main character. The game is a bit deeper then the all flash, no substance style box displays and once the surface is scratched the game is actually quite good. The game requires some patience to reach the good innards as the first few hours are so boring, but hold on for some interesting scenes and gameplay in the later stages of the game. Rayne is a mercenary, of sorts, who is on a mission to track down and kill her vampire father. Thanks to her half-breed status she has many vampiric strengths, but not so many of their weaknesses She's recruited to work for a secret society that wants her help in a crusade to rid the world of corruption caused by black magic. The story is not only ripped off a lot of other games, but is not placed in a position of prominence, therefore much of the game is simply battling your way through levels wrought with enemies.
The game is set in the real world during the 1930s, not long before the outbreak of World War II. It begins in the early 30s in the swamps of Louisiana, and then jumps to five years later where you now have to kick some Nazi ass, who're conveniently mixed up in black magicks and the revival of an evil God.
The gameplay in BloodRayne has certain features not found in your run of the mill 3rd person action game. Take Rayne's ability to see enemies through nearby walls, which can also reveal where she needs to go. This vision ability, along with an ons-creen radar, makes navigating the large environments much easier. Also, being vampiric she has a rage mode which she can enter at will after attacking enemies with her basic attacks; featuring kicks and slashes(these basic moves grow more powerful as the game progresses). Once in this mode she performs a series of moves to devastating effect, these moves are increased as her rage level increases. Later in the game, Rayne learns a new ability that allows her to move faster than her enemies-basically the same idea as the slow-motion "bullet time" mechanic from Max Payne. The one major difference between Rayne's ability and Max Payne's is that here, you aren't restricted to using the slow motion for a limited time. In fact, once Agent Rayne learns the technique, you could conceivably play the entire game in slow motion and take out enemies and dodge bullets as much as you please. The final ability that Agent Rayne learns is an ability that lets you zoom over distance and snipe enemies. What's more, Rayne can pick up the guns which her enemies drop. This is handy as the game has an auto-target feature. Blood Raybe also has a configuration allowing it to play like an FPS.
Blood Rayne can also drain the blood from most of the enemies she encounters, even zombies, allowing Rayne to recover health. At the same time she can also slow down time using bullet mechanics and still fire her guns at the same time. This makes Rayne an unstoppable force. The only thing which compensates the game's general easiness is the difficult boss fights.The action can be fun, but it can also be pretty repetitive.
The game's visuals are great. The character of Agent Rayne herself is particularly well done. Agent Rayne's hair moves realistically as she runs and jumps about, and her animation is very precise and lifelike, when she leaves water she drips. The face's are rather plain and flat, similar to those in Final Fantasy X, but apart from that excellent. The background graphics and foreground environments are also well executed, to give that really dark, menacing feel with the use of pathetic fallacy.
The sound is good too, musically the game fits the gothic theme, and the sound effects, particularly those little things such as the splash of water, and the effective. Feeding sounds. However some of the voice acting needs a little tweaking, such as the very poor sounding German accents.
All in all a good game which could have been a little better. It is perhaps suited for rental or for buying from the bargain bin in your local game shop. Though good there isn't much replay value and the PS2 isn't exactly short on games like it only better.