This game was very interesting.
whether your a fan of the series or not, you might just wanna add buffy the vampire slayer to your wishlist. Okay, okay, this game may not put the 10 in 10.0 but believe me, its worth it. With the sounds, graphics, and controls, you'll defenitely reconsider your lust for faith. but wait, where is faith? forget her, looks like EA had enough faith to make this game possible. If you know what I mean. I was addicted from the moment I started playing. Yeah I know, that statement sounds kind of redundant and cliche but this is just one of those games where it's neccecary to say that. Buffy on the other hand puts the capitol B in bad-ass. The capitol A in action and the capitol G in game. Hey, L stands for love. Enough with the joking, this game has tons of pros and cons. well I don't know about the haters out there but i'm gonna start with pros. coming from a proffessional. Let's start with the graphics. Buffy of course, who looks exactly like sarah michelle gellar. Did I, mention she's the only playable character. I take that as one of my pros. I appreciate the fact that buffy is the only character your able to play with. Look at the plot of the game. One of buffy's old foes, The master, commonly known as fruit punch mouth, has risen, and plans to open the gates of hell. Well in the episode we last saw him in, which was prophecy girl. It basically was focused around buffy and her problems as the slayer. We didnt really get the perspective from other characters until later on. willow, cordy, xander, giles, and angel's problems didnt really start to matter until later on in the season. This game takes place as a lost episode from the early part of season three of the series. And boy it sure does feel like one. In between the episodes dead mans party, and faith, hope and trick. So let it be, this game is suppose to be as close to the series as possible, and in the series most of episodes were based on buffy's perspective. And the fans liked it that way. So give them what they want.
Lets continue traveling into the wheel of my pros. what was I talking about? oh yeah, the graphics. I said buffy looks exactly like sarah michelle gellar right. good. The monsters, who are not to mention hideous, really do resemble the demons in the show. The zombies, look like real zombies in a disturbing skinless sort of way. whenever buffy kicks one of them their head, arm, leg, or finger goes flying off as strange as that may sound. The enemies. Spike and dru for example. Look very much like...spike and Dru. and for those of you who don't know who dru is...add silla before barrymore.
Buffy friends and allies look very much like they do in the show. Giles looks very much like giles, in a goofy librarian sort of way. The special effects such as fiery explosions and seeing vampires graudually decapitate into brown ashes swept my dust. The environments which defenitly kept me staring at the television were pretty much. And last but not least, the facial expressions...were a classic. I mean, when buffy is fighting her demons you should see her face in 1st person point of view. she looks like king kong banging his chest. While the clouds are shining on his face. And when buffy is at the library meetings she looks so calm and ready to go. And when someone says something to buffy and she doesnt understand it she usually rubs the back of her head. as if, I guess well never know. The graphics were pretty impressive.
now, back to cons, I mean pros. The gameply was very easy to master. It's like learning how to walk. so easy. It took me about 10 minutes to fully master the controls. The moves on this game never become overused. They're just like the moves used on the show. for example, remember the episode primeval, when buffy had a fight with adam, she did the full matrix kick on Adam. You know, when keanu reeves kept snapping his legs at the guy while he was floating up in the air. That one. That move is available in the game. Its called the triple kick. The front snap kick which is the most common move on the game was on the show. remember the time in the episode lovers walk when buffy front snap kicked thr first vampire besides spike that she fought. yeah, that. The roundhouse kick, everyone should be familiar with this one. Buffy has used that kick way to many times in the show. and it is optional in the game. The punches range from all types of blows. jabs, uppercuts, neck snaps, roundhouses etc. You'll love it.
The audio in this game has a ton of fame in its path. Its excellent. Mostly all of the actors and actresses from the show did the voice-over for their character. THe dialogues for characters in the game sound just like what they would say in the show. Sarah michelle gellar on the other hand didnt lend her voice to the game. but thats okay. Because the woman who replaced her sounded exactly like her. I could barely tell the difference. especially the part when buffy says, oh stop it with your bug, sharp pointy thingy. If only she said that slow. That would've been a plus. The music is superb. It is spooky, slow, timid, keeps your mind off-guard and then suddenly, the music bounces into this scary rhythym filled action song. It goes great with the gameplay and sounds just like the music on the show.
Lastly, for my pros, The environments. they matched perfectly with the show's settings. The sunnydale high which I always wanted to explore. No room is missing. It is almost as if they actually went to the real high school and photographed every inch of it, which they didnt. The cemetary's which I find to be the longest levels since so many people died in sunnydale. Even though the cemetary and high school levels are extremely dark that didnt bother me. All you have to do is go to the menu on your television, go to screen options, and make the brightness level more bright. for your TV I'm talking about. I told this to many people and they felt so stupid. angel's mansion, a major plus. The mansion in the game looks so well put together. especially since it takes place as daytime in the mansion level giving you the oppurtunity to throw your opponents into sunlight. vampires beware. The bronze nightclub which I always wanted to no looked like all inside. Well now I got the chance to find out. Though there is no punk rock band, in the mix, heavy metal is played throughout this level. I'm a fan of rock music, so I won't have to plug my MP3 player into this one. objects that are in the average nightclub and be used as objects or set-up areas in the bronze level. such as pool cues, back alleys, etc. The envirionmets were some of the best parts.
now, let's get to the cons. We all no that nothing is perfect, so expect some errors. not that I'm about to dog this game since its my favorite but the fans need to know. The after stake witty-sarcastic dialogue that buffy uses becomes to over-used. Like for instance, when buffy dust a vamp, she will say oh go kiss daylight Or I feel like a new slayer. It sounds funny and okay when she first says it but after a while buffy has turned a good phrase into some played out **** sentence. she had to say oh go kiss daylight at least 20 times in one level. Her redundant dialogues need to go kiss daylight. secondly, buffy's hairsytle. not that its important doesnt buffy change her hairstyle every 10 minutes in the show. In the beginning of the game buffy woke from a nightmare with a dirty blonde pony-tail, and killed the master at the end of the game with the same dirty-blonde pony tail. Thats a negative. another negative is the levels. There are only 13 levels. and they are not that long. The longest levels are the cemetary and high school levels. That's it. and thirdly, the final boss, which was the master was not that hard to beat. I thought i might need to use my unlimited health code while fighting him but that wasnt worth the buttons. He was fairly easy. The hardest bosees I've fought in this game was angellus, scylla, and dark buffy. scylla and dark buffy were the most challenging. These are the only cons I can name for this game. And the good on this game outnumbers the bad so I will give it a passing score. This game was the best game I ever played.