Majescos
BloodRayne is truly a break-out title. The company has created some
interesting titles in the past, bringing Soldier of Fortune to Dreamcast
and PS2, and has been a major player on the Game Boy Advance with loads
of titles released for the handheld system. But theyve suffered the
same slings and arrows as most new game publishers: lots and lots of
mediocrity. With BloodRayne, Majesco and one of their premiere
developers Terminal Reality (you may know them from hit games like Fly!
and 4x4 Evo) have pulled out all the stops and created a game that
doesnt just put the company on the map, but stakes out a fairly unique
territory.
Lets think
for a minute about what makes a great game. Most reviewers and gamers
will tell you that its innovation doing something new makes that
thing great. However, games like Seaman dont do so well, and if thats
not innovative, what is? It turns out that innovation is something of a
misnomer we want something that feels "new" but also feels
"comfortable" (a euphemism for "old"). I believe that what many gamers
want is a continuing evolution. Developers shouldnt throw out great
gaming elements just because theyve been done before, but they should
evolve those elements. Unfortunately, "evolution" in the game industry
is usually interpreted as "copying," and that doesnt necessarily trip
our triggers. When games come out that feature groundbreaking
innovations, we often see a wave of games afterward that simply
implement these new gameplay elements with little or no thought given to
potential improvements, or evolution of the technique. What does all
this have to do with BloodRayne? Lets see.
BloodRayne
is a third person action game in which you play agent BloodRayne, a
half-human, half-vampire operative working for a secret society between
WWI and WWII. BloodRayne begins her career in the bayous of Lousiana,
but eventually ends up globetrotting through exotic locales like Germany
and Argentina in order to kill Nazis and hunt down the evil Jurgen Wulf,
who is experimenting with turning normal humans into mutated monsters.
BloodRayne is endowed with the abilities and strengths of the vampire as
well as the drawbacks. She must feed on blood and obstacles like water
pose problems. But the strengths more than make up for these small
holdups.
BloodRayne
is always equipped with a pair of blades on her wrists that she can use
to slice up the most mutated baddie. Using the blades enough allows her
to build up her Blood Rage, which she can use to become a whirling
dervish of rampaging vampiress. Over the course of the game she can also
upgrade her blades, but shes by no means restricted to these melee
weapons. She also carries an arsenal of firepower that includes
shotguns, pistols, machine guns, dynamite, and many more. The
combination of melee weapons and missle weapons adds a variety to
BloodRayne that is more than welcome, and the gameplay is designed so
that youll find yourself making strategic decisions about how to fend
off your enemies and you probably wont favor one weapon over all the
others. This is a tough balance to achieve, and it is just the first
place where Terminal Reality got things right.
But
what about that whole evolution versus innovation thing? Heres where it
begins to come into play. BloodRayne is also gifted with four different
modes of sight. She normally sees the world as you would expect, but you
can toggle her into aura vision, retinal zoom, or a slow-mo vision very
similar to the "bullet time" in Max Payne. Games like Max Payne and
Aliens vs. Predator have done a lot of work with multiple modes of
vision, and Terminal Reality is obviously taking a page from the book of
gaming history. But they pull it off so well in BloodRayne that you
cant fault them, and why would you fault them when, ultimately, these
different modes of vision are really cool? They have innovated on how
these modes are implemented and created a unique enough game to prevent
BloodRayne from ever feeling like Max Payne or AvP, so in my book
theyve succeeded at evolving a quality game technique and implementing
it in an original manner.
The loads
of weapons, blood rage, and multiple vision modes help you really feel
like youre controlling a character with vampiric abilities. Add in the
insane jumping ability of BloodRayne and the feel is complete. It is so
cool to jump from a stand still from the ground to a second floor
balcony it really feels like youre swooping down on unsuspecting
baddies with your badass vampire self. But what kind of vampire would
BloodRayne be if she couldnt suck blood? So, of course, she does, and
she does it as much as you want. BloodRayne can either grab the nearest
bloodbag or she can use a type of grappling hook to drag them close.
Although you can get blood from defeated bad guys, the more fun thing is
to grab hold of live enemies and use them as a shield while you drain
their life.
And what
a sight it is to behold: BloodRayne wraps legs and arms around the enemy
torso and lustily sucks out their blood, grinding against them as she
goes. Its all vaguely sexual, and that is no accident. This is a mature
game for mature audiences, and it is obvious that Terminal Reality is
drawing from the tradition of B horror films. Many have compared this
game to a Troma movie (Tromeo and Juliet, Class of Nuke em High,
Toxic Avenger), but it really isnt anything like a Troma movie, and
these reviewers are just showing how they havent watched enough B
horror fare. BloodRayne is much more like a Russ Meyer film (the focus
on breasts and breast physics is more than coincidence), mixed in with
some Herschel Gordon Lewis (all of that blood and gore reminds me of
classics like Blood Feast and Wizard of Gore), and topped
off with a healthy dose of Vampirella and Elvira sort of mixed together.
What you end up with is a campy, overblown story that makes you groan
and laugh more than it makes you jump or scream. For folks like me, who
have obviously spent too much time watching B horror films, this really
makes BloodRayne worth playing. Although the gameplay itself is
enjoyable and the game is well-made, it is this camp focus that really
gives it a zing and makes it more than another action horror title.
The
graphics and visuals are nice slice up a bed in the German U Boat
compound and youll see feathers fly, and you can mark walls to trace
your path but they arent going to win any awards. Likewise, the sound
is good (some of the sound effects are spine tingling and just plain
gross), but nothing to write home about. Overall, this is a tight
package that was created to accommodate a wide range of systems, so
BloodRayne has that generic "next generation" look to it that marks so
many multiplatform releases. Still, the game looks good enough.
The
storyline is engaging, as I spent a lot of time explaining above, but
the pacing is spotty. The opening is very slow and includes some of the
most tedious gameplay in the whole game. Why do we want to work so hard
to walk on wires? There are a couple of other spots where the game just
slows down, you trudge through a fairly boring sequence, and then it
explodes into something really interesting again. It would have been
great to see a more consistent pacing to the story, and that opening is
just inexcusable many gamers will not get past the overly long and
tedious first level, which is unfortunate.
Overall, I recommend BloodRayne to any fan of action games and/or
horror films. The smart and savvy storyline brings everything together,
and the elements borrowed from precursor titles are well integrated and
fresh. The illusion of controlling a half-human, half-vampire character
is conveyed very well, and overall BloodRayne is just a lot of fun. If
you can handle, or even enjoy, some gratuitous gore and sophomoric
sexual humor, then youll really dig this title.