Those with enough patience to get past the first horribly ugly level will find a decent experience in Bloodrayne.
User Rating: 6.7 | BloodRayne PS2
Ok let's just get this over with. I really... BADLY wanted to love this game and while the game IS good, it doesn't exactly give a good first impression. Anybody who's been following my reviews knows i'm a cheap skate. I either get my games as gifts or I buy them dirt cheap from the bargain bin. I saw this one sitting there, the only copy there for $9.99 Canadian which is practically free in any other country so i had to get it. I've wanted this game ever since I laid eyes on the very sexy Agent Rayne. I love the whole vampire chick scenario so you know I love the Underworld movies but this isn't quite what i was hoping for. The game starts off in a hideously ugly environment, the swaps of Louisiana where some wierd virus is litterally melting the brains out of the Hicks living there and has apparently spawned some wierd biomasses which appear in the form of giant spider like creatures. This entire level is muddy, dark and... brown... very VERY ugly. Then you come to the first boss fight of the game... a giant queen biomass... type.. thing that is seemingly impossible to kill because guns don't affect it and blades do next to nothing and two swipes from the queens claws spell death for Rayne soooo what does this mean? It means the game is only fun if your cheating. I reccomend using the decapitation cheat because it does justice for Rayne's razor sharp blades which otherwise don't do much. Even with this cheat activated, Rayne just can't seem to kill the bosses fast enough and she gets her ass handed to her... all the bosses are next to invincible so you'll have to use god mode in order to hope to get through them. All that aside, you'll quickly get out of the marshes and into Nazi bases which are alot more pleasing to the eyes and actually shed some light on what your doing. Hacking and slashing their limbs off is alot more realistic then just cutting them, hearing them go OW and then keep shooting at you so using the decapitation cheat helps make the game experience a little more interesting and a little less tedious... note the word LITTLE used in that sentance. The gameplay does have some variations with different vision modes but the worst thing is the repetitive combat which is just tapping the same button over and over until your enemy is dead. There aren't any combos or anything in the game but the massive amount of guns helps freshen things up as you move up to bigger and heavier artillery. The story doesn't make alot of sence and it's a good thing there are subtitles in the game because all the characters are pretty soft spoken and are often drowned out by the games ambience which is actually pretty good. Basically, centuries ago, a demon betrayed some other ancient demon or god or something and then demon was ripped into pieces and the pieces were scattered across the earth and for some reason the nazis want these pieces for themselves so they can either awaken the demon or just control the various powers each piece posesses. None of the characters have time to develop at all except Rayne who's just out to assassinate nazi leaders for her organization which isn't explained or shown in any way. Your basically thrown the stories and characters outlines and the fleshy parts are left to your imagination, as if we were supposed to know who everyone is and what their objectives are. The story then ends rather abruptly without explaining what the hell just happened and doesn't link into the sequel at all. But I'll get into that with my next review. All in all... the game is alright, nothing fancy or generally eye pleasing but it's worth a bargain price or rental if you just want a quick bloody fix with some sex appeal.
