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23-03-2006, 05:31 PM
Ahhh Vampires, one of the most used concepts in gaming. With so many "vampiric" titles out there, the competition to be more then average is fierce. If a title fails to meet up to a gamers expectations then it will quickly fall into obscurity and disrepute.
BloodRayne balances along this tightrope much more often than expected. Yet, when one finally gets annoyed and starts to shake the wire a bit, BloodRayne will always fall down on the side of obscurity and below average gaming. It is a sad state of affairs as BloodRayne has quite a bit going for it. It has very nicely developed CG cut scenes, it has an astounding movement system and most importantly, it has one of the best hack and slash gaming experiences around.
You play the role of Rayne, a half-human vampire looking for her father. You get recruited into an elite hunting outfit and spend some jolly times ripping up everyone in sight. But wait, there is a twist, you're doing all this during World War 2!
GRAPHICS Score:74%
The graphics in this game are good, but nothing really spectacular arises. At certain points in the game, the graphics end up looking very dull and uninspired. For example, the swamps are all grey green, the water has very little reflections in it (most of the time there are none), and the textures in this game are horrible.
The biggest gripe though is the lack of anything to see. There are a few trees here and there, a few crumbling buildings, some phone lines and maybe some grave markings on the ground. Some levels look really bad because of this lack of detail and visual richness.
The enemies and Rayne are detailed very nicely though, with great animations that seem very realistic. But it does seem to be at odds with an environment that is so empty and lifeless.
The CG cut-scenes are very nice and it is easy to see that much time has been spent on them. The beginning sequence is also quite long, as Terminal Reality has concentrated quite a bit of effort here.
SOUND/MUSIC Score:68%
Much human ripping, splattering, and crunching sound effects in this game. The screams of the Germans are great to listen to, and the vocalisations they make when you latch onto them and start to suck their blood is funny as hell. Rayne also seems to get some sexual pleasure out of sucking blood as indicated by the moaning sounds she makes. The programmers of this game really need to get out into "sunlight" and the real world some more as I felt a bit dirty that this little vixen was having so much fun draining people of their blood.
Music was weird as it cuts out at some points and is really not even noticeable sometimes. But then again, that can be the hallmark of good gaming music, when you stop noticing it's there.
MULTIPLAYER Score:N/A
What's multiplayer? Is that when everyone sits around and watches me play?
(RE)PLAYABILITY Score:42%
This is where the game really falls down, but also comes into it's own. Firstly, the game is repetitive and there is no challenge in it whatsoever. You can go into a room with 100+ soldiers, and simply press the "suck blood" button, which will make you latch onto the nearest soldier and suck out his blood. You gain health, and all the shots that hurt you are countered. Then when the soldier dies, you press "suck blood" again, and the cycle continues. No challenge, even on the hardest difficulty.
However, if you're having a bad day and want to watch some people getting hacked up into tiny bits, then this game will amuse you for a long time to come. There has been so much detail put into the dismemberment of enemies in this game. You can actually "scalp" people, and watch them run for a little while, screaming in agony, finally collapsing on the ground quite dead. Awesome! And, if you watch it with your vampiric sight, you can see them dying as the blood pours out of them!
You can cut off arms and legs, you can slice and you can dice! You can de-capitate victims; you can even do manoeuvres with Rayne that cause enemies to explode with body bits flying everywhere! There are certain enemies that prey on each other and you can watch the regular soldier panic and try pathetically to fight them off.
For example, there are these snake-like demons in the game, which lunge at soldiers, burrow through their mouths and into their chests. The human dies in agony, but gets back up like a zombie as the demon uses the body for a host. When you switch to vampiric sight mode, you can see the human body, almost dead, with the demon inside in full health.
The detail Terminal Reality put into the gore factor here is astounding.
CONTROLS Score:72%
Rayne is very easy to control, and by that I mean killing and dismemberment is very easy to accomplish. There are many different control methods you could use to control her and her bag of butchering tricks. Strafing with dual guns is also very easy and selecting between weapons is smooth and very easy to do.
The biggest problem here lies in the camera. Even though you can control it yourself, there are quite a few bugs in it, with the camera getting stuck at some points. You will also have to constantly move the camera around because the tracking can become really bad at times.
Too much time has to be spent moving the camera around to get a better view of your enemies.
The score went down somewhat because of the horrible saving system which will prompt you to save a new file each time you enter the save screen. Now, for someone like me who loves to "button mash", this can be easily fixed by deleting old save games. However, at no point in this game does it give you the option of deleting old saves. Now, I know that you can just go into the GameCube System manager and delete them yourself, but it still annoys me that I have to do it this way because it takes much longer and you have to reset to do it. Also, once in there, you have no way of telling the saves apart. You just have to delete one, and hope for the best.
ATMOSPHERE Score:34%
I could never really get into this game because of its simplicity, graphical flaws and silly contradictions. For example, the game is set around the time of World War 2, and correct me if I am wrong, but there were no mobile phones in the 1940's. Also, women (and I lump female vampires into this category because I'm obviously a sexist pig) did not go around swearing the way Rayne does. These inconsistencies ruin the setting.
There were some other major inconsistencies that can be forgiven very easily, like the Nazi's developing massive battle mechs, because you get to pilot them for a very short time.
I can easily understand Terminal Realitys' viewpoint in trying to make the main character really tough and X-TREME taking no crap from anyone! But, please, for the future, the marketing department should have no say in the creative design of a game. They are there to promote a FINISHED product, not develop some stupid buzzword induced, steaming pile of dog turd game concept.
Now, other than that, this game really didn't appeal for any other reason than the gore factor. The change of gameplay where you get to control a massive battle robot is awesome and really perked my interest in this game, however they only left it for one level and for a really short time on that level. What a massive waste of potential, and also a huge let down.
WEB INTEGRATION Score:75% (no effect on final score)
I don't like to rate this for GameCube games, as the Nintendo GameCube really doesn't do much with online gaming. However, the website does exist and it looks nice and slick.
Trying to get some screenshots for this game was an utter pain. Go to the screenshots section of the official site, you will see what I mean.
OVERALL Score:58%
BloodRayne is really a title that you can easily afford to miss. It really doesn't stack up against some of the other really great vampiric titles out on the market already.
The only reason to really get this game is if you're really into blood, killing and dismemberment, as that's all this game really has to offer.
EDIT: Recently, I found out that they are making a movie about this god-awful game. I look forward to reviewing it for Zfilm!!
BloodRayne balances along this tightrope much more often than expected. Yet, when one finally gets annoyed and starts to shake the wire a bit, BloodRayne will always fall down on the side of obscurity and below average gaming. It is a sad state of affairs as BloodRayne has quite a bit going for it. It has very nicely developed CG cut scenes, it has an astounding movement system and most importantly, it has one of the best hack and slash gaming experiences around.
You play the role of Rayne, a half-human vampire looking for her father. You get recruited into an elite hunting outfit and spend some jolly times ripping up everyone in sight. But wait, there is a twist, you're doing all this during World War 2!
GRAPHICS Score:74%
The graphics in this game are good, but nothing really spectacular arises. At certain points in the game, the graphics end up looking very dull and uninspired. For example, the swamps are all grey green, the water has very little reflections in it (most of the time there are none), and the textures in this game are horrible.
The biggest gripe though is the lack of anything to see. There are a few trees here and there, a few crumbling buildings, some phone lines and maybe some grave markings on the ground. Some levels look really bad because of this lack of detail and visual richness.
The enemies and Rayne are detailed very nicely though, with great animations that seem very realistic. But it does seem to be at odds with an environment that is so empty and lifeless.
The CG cut-scenes are very nice and it is easy to see that much time has been spent on them. The beginning sequence is also quite long, as Terminal Reality has concentrated quite a bit of effort here.
SOUND/MUSIC Score:68%
Much human ripping, splattering, and crunching sound effects in this game. The screams of the Germans are great to listen to, and the vocalisations they make when you latch onto them and start to suck their blood is funny as hell. Rayne also seems to get some sexual pleasure out of sucking blood as indicated by the moaning sounds she makes. The programmers of this game really need to get out into "sunlight" and the real world some more as I felt a bit dirty that this little vixen was having so much fun draining people of their blood.
Music was weird as it cuts out at some points and is really not even noticeable sometimes. But then again, that can be the hallmark of good gaming music, when you stop noticing it's there.
MULTIPLAYER Score:N/A
What's multiplayer? Is that when everyone sits around and watches me play?
(RE)PLAYABILITY Score:42%
This is where the game really falls down, but also comes into it's own. Firstly, the game is repetitive and there is no challenge in it whatsoever. You can go into a room with 100+ soldiers, and simply press the "suck blood" button, which will make you latch onto the nearest soldier and suck out his blood. You gain health, and all the shots that hurt you are countered. Then when the soldier dies, you press "suck blood" again, and the cycle continues. No challenge, even on the hardest difficulty.
However, if you're having a bad day and want to watch some people getting hacked up into tiny bits, then this game will amuse you for a long time to come. There has been so much detail put into the dismemberment of enemies in this game. You can actually "scalp" people, and watch them run for a little while, screaming in agony, finally collapsing on the ground quite dead. Awesome! And, if you watch it with your vampiric sight, you can see them dying as the blood pours out of them!
You can cut off arms and legs, you can slice and you can dice! You can de-capitate victims; you can even do manoeuvres with Rayne that cause enemies to explode with body bits flying everywhere! There are certain enemies that prey on each other and you can watch the regular soldier panic and try pathetically to fight them off.
For example, there are these snake-like demons in the game, which lunge at soldiers, burrow through their mouths and into their chests. The human dies in agony, but gets back up like a zombie as the demon uses the body for a host. When you switch to vampiric sight mode, you can see the human body, almost dead, with the demon inside in full health.
The detail Terminal Reality put into the gore factor here is astounding.
CONTROLS Score:72%
Rayne is very easy to control, and by that I mean killing and dismemberment is very easy to accomplish. There are many different control methods you could use to control her and her bag of butchering tricks. Strafing with dual guns is also very easy and selecting between weapons is smooth and very easy to do.
The biggest problem here lies in the camera. Even though you can control it yourself, there are quite a few bugs in it, with the camera getting stuck at some points. You will also have to constantly move the camera around because the tracking can become really bad at times.
Too much time has to be spent moving the camera around to get a better view of your enemies.
The score went down somewhat because of the horrible saving system which will prompt you to save a new file each time you enter the save screen. Now, for someone like me who loves to "button mash", this can be easily fixed by deleting old save games. However, at no point in this game does it give you the option of deleting old saves. Now, I know that you can just go into the GameCube System manager and delete them yourself, but it still annoys me that I have to do it this way because it takes much longer and you have to reset to do it. Also, once in there, you have no way of telling the saves apart. You just have to delete one, and hope for the best.
ATMOSPHERE Score:34%
I could never really get into this game because of its simplicity, graphical flaws and silly contradictions. For example, the game is set around the time of World War 2, and correct me if I am wrong, but there were no mobile phones in the 1940's. Also, women (and I lump female vampires into this category because I'm obviously a sexist pig) did not go around swearing the way Rayne does. These inconsistencies ruin the setting.
There were some other major inconsistencies that can be forgiven very easily, like the Nazi's developing massive battle mechs, because you get to pilot them for a very short time.
I can easily understand Terminal Realitys' viewpoint in trying to make the main character really tough and X-TREME taking no crap from anyone! But, please, for the future, the marketing department should have no say in the creative design of a game. They are there to promote a FINISHED product, not develop some stupid buzzword induced, steaming pile of dog turd game concept.
Now, other than that, this game really didn't appeal for any other reason than the gore factor. The change of gameplay where you get to control a massive battle robot is awesome and really perked my interest in this game, however they only left it for one level and for a really short time on that level. What a massive waste of potential, and also a huge let down.
WEB INTEGRATION Score:75% (no effect on final score)
I don't like to rate this for GameCube games, as the Nintendo GameCube really doesn't do much with online gaming. However, the website does exist and it looks nice and slick.
Trying to get some screenshots for this game was an utter pain. Go to the screenshots section of the official site, you will see what I mean.
OVERALL Score:58%
BloodRayne is really a title that you can easily afford to miss. It really doesn't stack up against some of the other really great vampiric titles out on the market already.
The only reason to really get this game is if you're really into blood, killing and dismemberment, as that's all this game really has to offer.
EDIT: Recently, I found out that they are making a movie about this god-awful game. I look forward to reviewing it for Zfilm!!