Could have been a lot better. Character and Concept tied to a weak game
User Rating: 7 | BloodRayne 2 XBOX
Gameplay: The gameplay was Tomb Raider meets vampire. That is not bad, it is just what it is. But the game play as executed was uneven and at times boring. The jumping and harpooning was fun, but there was not enough of that it turns out in retrospect. For fighting, it was repetative and I learned one move that was good enough to beat all the normal enemies and some sub bosses. What you did was jump over then feed on the person from behind. The odd thing was that there was this big list of combos that did not factor into the game. Why would you try all these combos and take damage when the whole game rewarded feeding? Because you could not feed on a dead body, you were given the choice between fighting and feeding. And feeding rewarded your health. It was really not well thought out. The game felt very disconnected in that way. Also it took a long time to regenerate your rage for special abilities so you had to conserve that. So you never used your special abilities very much at all in the game. These were very cool but were almost excluded from gameplay until the sub boss fights. For sub bosses, you put on blood fury and button mashed. This is basically what every faq tells you to do. Fun. Then the bosses had a kind of skill based solution to them that you had to learn by timing. These were actually more interesting in the long run. Once I figured out a solution, it all made sense. I was so frustrated at one point at this part with pumps but I figured out the method and it all made sense. That actually worked. The character was cool and fun to play. I mean, I way hot vampire in some leather get up is going to strike a cord with heterosexual men with a pulse. Lets face it. She was also a wisecracking tough girl on a revenge mission. But the plot was weak and basically there to hang some action on. It also did not work into the revenge much. Grade c horror stuff. Graphic: Nice but repetative. There was a lot of fun kills and blood. It was all dark shaded stuff so there was not much variety.
Sound. Good enough. The character could have been more flushed out.
Value: I bought it for less than $10 so I did not worry about this. At full price it is not a good value. Tilt: Very average. The game had great components that were not strung together to make a coherent package. It could have been fun but the game rewarded behavior that conflicted with the game play attributes. I basically got bored with the game and gave up about 2/3 way through. It just seemed to not be worth it.
