BloodRayne 2 (BR2) is the unimaginatively named sequel to the original BloodRayne (BR), a game which many reviewers gave short shrift in my opinion. I can agree that the control scheme was less than it could have been, a clear console port, and I can agree that there were aspects of BR that were tiresome or repetitive at best. But that's not the central issue in reviewing a game; the central question to be answered is whether it's fun. In that respect, BR was a success far beyond its monetary or critical acclaim. Having said that, the question for today's review is: how does BR2 stack up?
For starters, 'stacked' is a deliberate word choice, because that's exactly what the game's protagonist is. Rayne, a dhampir (a human/vampire hybrid), is all thirty-one flavors of digital sexy, and I mean that both in terms of her visual appearance and the technology that provides it. The original BR had some underwhelming visual elements, most notable among which was the stiffness in some of Rayne's animations. I also commented that Rayne herself was more of a stick figure than a woman. I know "thin is in", but I suspect most men find women with more healthy, "normal" bodies more attractive.
Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks this, for the developers clearly agree. This time around Rayne's animations are far more fluid, and her curves are exactly that, curves, nay, dangerous curves. Frankly, BR2 makes me wonder whether some sort of really advanced digital pornography isn't just around the corner. BR2 isn't there, but it's enough of a harbinger that the kings of the smut industry will likely take notice. Rayne's look has been beefed up considerably, to the point where it's fun simply to watch her move. There's an elegance to her motion, and such a great beauty to her look (albeit haughty and somewhat tawdry), that she truly stands out as a gaming icon. Forget Lara Croft.
I'm happy to report that, with arguably one exception, the rest of the game is just as impressive. The nifty bump mapping of the original has been exceeded in the sequel, as have the texture resolution, object detail, use of specular mapping, and other effects. I personally think everything looks just a bit too shiny, a complaint I find myself making a lot these days with Far Cry, DOOM 3, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, etc., but I'm assuming that's a visual design fad that will eventually be recognized as such. I suspect it's the old we-must-do-it-because-we-can-do-it fallacy at work.
In fact, the only substantive complaint I have against the visuals is that everything is so clearly polygonal. There are lots of objects in the world, virtually all of which are destructible, but so many of them are square or at least rectangular. I know that's a good way to keep the polygon count down, and I realize that the Jigglytech Engine—that's my name for it for obvious and... um... "weighty" reasons—needs those polygons to render Rayne's nubile form, but she's not the only thing in the world that should sport curves.
A more minor complaint is entirely stylistic: I like games that are bloody as much or likely more than most, but the great, gushing, torrential outpourings of blood in BR2 are so over-the-top, so Tarantino-ish, that they border on silliness. The first time I watched Rayne decapitate an enemy, it was as if I were having flashbacks to seeing Kill Bill in the theater. I much prefer the more realistic depiction of gore, for reasons I'll later make clear, as done in Soldier of Fortune 2 and other games. Still, this is a minor complaint, and I'd rather have too much blood than none at all.
As far as performance goes, BR2 is a clear champion. The developers decided to enhance the engine used for the previous game, which has clearly paid off in terms of power and stability. I was able to run the game at 1600 x 1200 x 32 bpp with 4x anti-aliasing and 8x anisotropic filtering without any frame rate issues. At those settings the game looks truly phenomenal. It's graphically stunning and runs well; what's not to like?
The audio is also much improved over the previous game. Not only are the sound effects sharper and better recorded, but, most important, Rayne's dialog is noticeably better. Not only was the voice acting in the original pretty bad, the engine managed to deliver the very stupidest lines at the most inappropriate times. This time around the actress has provided a more convincing performance; Rayne's dialogue has genuine life—ironic for a dhampir—and easily outpaces the dry, flat, pseudo-sexy delivery of the original. I didn't much care for some of the other performances (Kagan is quite a ham), but I was much happier with the quality as well as the implementation.
The music is also much better than the original. It's suitably dark and engaging, but without the synth-heavy techno beat. I would still prefer a more classical feel, largely because I think wonders could have been done with moving cello lines, but I can still enjoy the BR2 soundtrack nevertheless. Perhaps a more classical feel wouldn't suit Rayne's character anyway. I'm not sure. Better take my comments here with more than a few grains of salt.
The only drawback to the audio I've found is that the characters are still pretty limited in their lines. You'll hear the same line from dozens of different foes, which grows old rather quickly. I realize audio too often gets too little attention, but the lack of variety in the taunts, screams, etc., detracts from the overall experience. Oh and I should note for parents that some of the things said by the various blade-fodder enemies aren't exactly PG.
Thankfully, I can also report that the game's audio implementation, unlike some other recent games I could mention—*cough* Battlefield 2 (BF2) *cough*—doesn't suck. Enabling 3D audio gives nice, loud, positional audio cues, along with all the snazzy goodness of EAX. It's fast, clean, crisp, and works nicely without crashing, rebooting, shrinking, stinking, doubling-up, or boiling over. Sorry, but BF2 has been nothing but suffering in this department from day one, and I'm really feeling it of late.
The best compliment I can pay the interface is that it suffers less from console-itis than did the original game, which offered irritating auto-targeting, zero control over Rayne's special attacks, and a substantively awkward feel. Though BR2 is also clearly a console port, the interface is much more usable and much more interesting right out of the box. In fact, it addresses all of my complaints with its predecessor; it's almost as if the developers read my review and listened. If they did, well, then I'm very grateful for it, for it makes the game a lot more fun.
First, as to the auto-targeting complaint, BR2 allows the player to select which target to attack, a feature BR didn't have at all. I would prefer that the "locked" combat mode could be toggled on and off, rather than requiring the Ctrl key to be held, but it is usable nevertheless. It's just a little awkward to hit the Alt key to cycle targets while holding the Ctrl key as well. I think BR2 could be improved by adopting an interface similar to Blade of Darkness (BoD), in which the player can toggle locked combat on or off, then cycle targets using another key, but maybe that's just me.
Where the control over special attacks is concerned, the developers scored big with me. BR2 is exactly like BoD in that the special moves have interesting key sequences and timings to master, all of which are a little different. The various, special moves are interesting, worthwhile, challenge the player, and provide a strong feeling of accomplishment when using them well. That aspect of BoD helped make it my all-time favorite game, and I'm only too pleased that BR2 does as well or better in this regard. No longer is Rayne a silly automaton, executing the same moves in response to my frantic clicking; no, this time around she's a fighter. She moves and attacks intelligently, as long as I'm doing my job at the controls, and that goes a long way toward making the game fun.
And as to the general awkwardness, I did have to turn down the mouse sensitivity a bit, and I did have to remap a couple of controls to make them more comfortable, but this couple of tweaks give the player precise control over Rayne's actions, something badly lacking from the original. Coupled with the improved camera control, this makes the game a lot more intuitively appealing and much more immersive. I salute the developers on all three counts for getting it right this time. I think a wee bit more explanation could help, in terms of how to interpret the combo commands and execute them, but I have to admit it was fun to discover things as I played.
The one, obnoxious bug I've noticed is on the interface page that lists the keys necessary to trigger the various moves. Under the locked combat section the text is somehow messed up. It looks to me as if the text for the left mouse button constantly overwrites the text for the Ctrl key, but I'm not entirely sure what that garbled mess means. I've yet to see a patch for the game, but I suppose I can hope this will get fixed at some point. It's not a show-stopper, thanks to the manual and some guides I've found on-line, but it is annoying.
Be still my beating heart! Seriously, whereas I simply liked the game mechanics of the original game, I absolutely love the mechanics of the sequel. It stands a mere one flaw from perfection, as far as I'm concerned, and I can summarize the reason in one word: synthesis. The original BR was a neat game in that it brought several good elements together: melee weapons, ranged weapons akimbo, special moves, cool vision modes, admittedly weak and platform-esque jumping puzzles, etc. In contrast, BR2 steps forward in at least one huge way by adding Prince of Persia (PoP) style acrobatics to the mix.
You know, after playing BR2, I don't understand why I haven't previously realized this, but here it is: jumping puzzles are downright stupid in contemporary games. They were fine in the days of the side-scrolling, two-dimensional games, but it isn't 1982 anymore, folks. They were even fine in the earliest days of the first, real first-person shooter (FPS) games, but it isn't 1993 anymore either. In my view, the only sort of environmental puzzles that remain compelling in the fully three dimensional game worlds on the PC today are those in PoP and its derivatives. I loved the acrobatic, environmental puzzles in PoP, and I was completely jazzed to see them make it into BR2.
Rayne's repertoire of moves has been greatly expanded to include "grinding" down banisters, pipes, chains, rails, and pretty much anything else onto which she can stomp her spiky boot heels. She is also adept at climbing pipes, columns, and the like, as well as swinging and jumping from poles. She can also use some of these environmental features to launch extra deadly attacks, lopping off heads with abandon, which brings a whole new meaning to the term "pole dancing". In this sense, BR2 melds the very best of both worlds, injecting roughly half the joy of playing PoP into the far more interesting combat system of the Rayne series of games. That's a big win in my book.
The new experience system, vampiric powers, and special combos are also welcome changes. I was a little put off from the "dragons" at first, the guns which Rayne locates at the game's outset, because the idea of guns that feed off blood strikes me as silly. But I suppose if I'm not going to gripe about a world where vampires, dhampir, etc. exist, then how can I possibly object to such odd "bioweapons" with a straight face?
Whatever else one thinks about guns that feed, they have three things going for them: (1) they render the typical problem of finding/managing ammunition nugatory, (2) their different firing modes, which are upgraded/unlocked based on how much they're used and how the game progresses respectively, make up for the lack of different types of guns, and (3) they give the player a whole new host of wicked, meal-ending killing moves! Seriously, watching Rayne harpoon some poor schmuck with those things is as awesome as it is disturbing in its Freudian implications.
The powers add a welcome reward for making use of Rayne's special abilities, though some are clearly more fun than others. I particularly liked the time dilation powers and thought it made a lot more sense that there was a "cost" to using them (unlike BR), and the ghost feeding skill that lets Rayne send a spirit off to catch a quick snack while she's busy kicking ass was a big asset. I definitely didn't make enough use of them during my first run-through of the game, which made my second run-through all the more interesting.
In fact, there are but two complaints I can level, only one of which is substantive. First, the minor gripe: it seems an odd omission, to say the least, that with guns, powers, attacks, health, rage, and pretty much everything else that can be upgraded, Rayne's bread and butter weapons, her melee blades, stay the very same from start to finish. I kept expecting something new and different, but to no avail. Her guns got more powerful. She gained new powers. She acquired new attack combos. She even grew in her capacity for health and rage. But the blades hanging from her arms at the start of the game were the very same blades at the end of the game. That struck me as an obvious omission. I guess I was hoping for an extension to the blades, a damage boost, an alternate attack mode, or something.
But that's a very minor gripe; it's hardly fair to fault the developers for what might have improved the game, when it obviously succeeds in so many other respects. No, the only serious complaint I have is the same big complaint I had with BR: there is no quick-save feature! I just don't get it. Why can't developers get it through their titanium-laced skulls that not all of us can simply hit the pause button, walk away, and come back? When I'm playing a computer game I get interrupted a lot, so it's irritating when I have to exit the game just shy of another save point. I hate that. I can live with it (obviously), but it makes zero sense for a PC game not to provide a save-anytime-save-anywhere feature.
I can also say that some of the new mechanics could stand from a bit more detail. The harpoon, for example, would be more useful if Rayne had some special moves to feed, dice, or gun-feed the hapless foes she pulls toward herself. And while I love the whole idea of carnage points, complete with slow-mo cam for enemies thrown from great heights, I wish it were clearer how they're tracked and what they earn. Finally, there were a couple of killing puzzles that could have been more obvious. Sometimes I got into monstrous, never-ending brawls because I just didn't "get" what I was supposed to do. Oh, and the sequence at the dance club was a serious pain in the neck to get past.
Negative comments aside, though, the game mechanics for BR2 are a big improvement over the original game. They're more flexible, more interesting, and a lot more fun to play.
This time around our hero, Blade, the half-man/half-vampire protagonist, must stop the evil, purebred vampires and their horrific creations from plunging the world into permanent darkness by blotting out the sun and thus enabling their rampage of terror...
Oh wait, that's not right! This time around our hero, Angel, the vampire with a soul, must stop the evil beast and his master from plunging the world into permanent darkness by blotting out the sun and thus enabling their rampage of terror... D'oh! That's not right either!
Once more with feeling! This time around our hero, Rayne, the world's hottest dhampir, must stop the evil Kagan and his horrific creations from plunging the world into permanent darkness by covering the sky with the "shroud" and thus enabling their rampage of terror...
For those of extremely limited attention span let me put it bluntly: the story of BR2 isn't merely derivative, it's practically plagiarism. God alone knows how many times the whole creatures-of-the-night-impose-permanent-night story has been done. I suppose it doesn't bother me all that much, insofar as I only need a game's story to provide me with some interesting twists and tidbits here and there.
Still, it would have been nice if the writers could have put more than two brain cells together to come up with something more original. I say that a lot, and I must admit it's easier to criticize than create—observe the general lameness of news reporting—so let me offer a few ideas to prove it isn't impossibly difficult. Feel free to critique these ideas or tell me why they're derivative; I'm quite interested in knowing whether my suggestions are original or not.
For example, how about a conflict between different sects of vampires ala Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (V:TM-B)? I'm not suggesting the same sort of plagiarism with a different source; no, I'm suggesting the same structure with an altogether different plot line. I can think of plenty of such stories off the top of my mind: open war between the clans over some object/place/principle, thwarting a murky plot to assassinate vampire hero/leader/"peacemaker" only to discover that the assassination was the very best thing to do, going after a "rogue" sect bent on transforming vampire society, hunting down (and ultimately falling in love with and still having to kill) a Van-Helsing-esque human who seeks to lay bare uncomfortable truths of the clans' history/politics, etc. None of these steal completely from V:TM-B or any other such property of which I'm aware, and they took all of sixty seconds to generate.
Or why not try playing to type rather than against it for a change? In other words, why not a story in which Rayne descends into the most savage, animalistic side of her nature, regarding humans generally as mere food and chattel? Eventually she could come to see the error of her ways for whatever reason—she could be stricken with an addictive condition from overly promiscuous feeding, come under attack from more "civilized" vampire society, start losing touch with reality and have to fight insanity, etc.—and learns/grows by the end of the game (warning! actual character development here!).
Seriously, am I being less creative than I think I'm being here, folks? It just seems to me like there are a bazillion good ideas out there for the taking, which makes me wonder why we get stuck with the lowest common denominator rehashed over and over and over and...
In the plus column, BR2 features some interesting environments. The acrobatics in the dilapidated buildings were a load of fun, as were some of the pipe-grinding minigames in the sewers. It wasn't at all clear to me what the set-piece invoked when Rayne would find a hidden vampire lair was all about, but that flowing column of blood in the center of the pool was stylistically nifty. I particularly liked the tower sequence near the end of the game, so high over the city of London, because of all its movement possibilities.
Also in the plus column is the variety of killing puzzles and opportunities for earning carnage bonus. The constant flow of foes can be intimidating at times, but once the player clues into using the environment the game gets a lot easier. I don't even think I can count the number of enemies I harpooned and hurled, kicked, threw, or otherwise dropped from great heights to their deaths. BR2 definitely rewards the player for such ingenuity.
And that's to say nothing of all the goodies in the environment that can be used. I didn't realize it during my first play through, but something really clicked during my second, and I started wailing on the bad guys. I dropped stuff on their heads, blew them up, tossed them into fires, hurled them into exploding propane tanks, and just generally had a great time trashing the enemy.
In the minus column, however, the enemy AI is pretty weak for the most part. The various bosses and mini-bosses are interesting enough, but the basic enemies are about as stupid as they come. They'll charge stupidly into virtually any situation. True, they do sometimes run away when injured badly enough, but they'll typically turn right back around within a few seconds and run stupidly to their doom. They don't use cover, they don't dodge obvious attacks, they'll try shooting through explosives in their path, etc.
Such stupid AI does add a certain amount of humor value at times—I just about laughed myself hysterical when one of the kestrel somehow set off a propane tank and blew herself and her retinue off the platform on which they were standing—but it doesn't provide a challenge. The challenge in BR2 comes from the sheer number of enemies more often than not, and that's fun for a while, but it would have been even better to have at least some enemies with half a wit.
Also, aura vision can be misleading in how it guides the player to advance. In one instance, for example, it pointed me toward a door that I couldn't open until after I had triggered a cut scene, the activation for which was on the other side of the rather large room. Aura vision told me where I would eventually have to go, but it gave me no help as to what I was missing to get there. It's a great feature that guarantees the player useful information as needed, but a bit more careful hinting would help.
Finally, I should mention that BR2 is pretty short, taking me roughly ten hours to finish during my first play through. Some games of that length are easily worth it because of the experience they bring. The Call of Duty series, for example, is even shorter but it's very intense and intricate from start to finish. In contrast, BR2 feels more like an older-school game. It's fairly linear but doesn't feature the kind of gripping scripting we've seen from other games of late. As such, the bulk of the game seems a bit light for straight-up moron-grinding.
Of course this depends greatly on how the player approaches it. If the player simply uses the same attacks over and over on the low-level enemies, then he'll probably grow bored quickly. But that misses the larger point, which is to enjoy the multitude of moves and weapons that Rayne can use to slaughter the bad guys. Against the average human, Rayne is a ridiculously overpowered killing machine, so the fun lies in all the many fighting permutations and not in the mere victories.
Since there is no multi-player aspect to the game, there's little to say. I think it would have been great fun to duel as vampires, but, as I said of the original, I can understand how that would present some serious problems for the developers to solve. Still, BR didn't give any multi-player joy, the multi-player features were cut from V:TM-B before it shipped, and now BR2 disappoints in this respect as well. With as much as I've enjoyed the various vampire themed games I've played in the last few years, I begin to wonder: when are we going to get a game in this genre that outlives its single-player component?
Despite the overwhelmingly positive tone of this review, my overall conclusion isn't so cut and dried. If that seems not to make sense, then let me remind the reader of the one, important fact that prevents me from recommending the game unqualifiedly: I'm biased. GameSpot tries to work this into its reviews with a "Tilt" value, which is intended to factor out the reviewer's unique and personal attraction/revulsion to the game. The point being that someone who's bonkers about, say, The Matrix set of films, will be a lot more likely to give The Matrix Online a better review that someone who isn't. I'm no different; I have my own biases (fair and unfair), just like everyone else.
On that subject, much of BR2's content and philosophy seems practically tailor made for me, which definitely "tilts" my coverage of it in the positive direction. For example, as much as I like FPS games, I like games that feature melee weapons even more. At heart, I never got past the fencing and kendo I did in my youth, so despite my being a crack shot I'd still rather swing a sword. I'm not stupid enough to bring a knife to a gunfight, mind you; I just think that guns, while being the ultimate guarantors of liberty and equality, make combat too clean, too impersonal. And this isn't a silly romance on my part; it's more that if men were forced to experience the blood, pain, and horror of those they kill, up close and personal, the world would have a lot fewer murders.
And since I absolutely hate cartoonish depictions of violence, games like BR2 are near and dear to my heart right from the outset. I would much rather my son learn that violence has terrible consequences, rather than learning that getting shot by a tank results in a bouncing, comical rag-doll. No, I'd much rather have children see blades slice their targets into ragged chunks, blood pouring everywhere in awful clarity. Why? Because that's how things really are, because it should give them a moment of pause before they turn to violence as an option for dealing with conflict. I'm not stupid enough to think that games like DOOM are "murder simulators", as at least one thoughtless boob has suggested, but I do think they ineluctably color and shape our perceptions of events in the real world, and, as such, can help impart valuable lessons.
Ok, I'll step off my soapbox now (grin). The short version is that I know not everyone is going to be as predisposed, as sympathetic, as I am to the whole BR2 vibe. Speaking objectively, the game clearly isn't perfect: its AI is weak, the situations are rather repetitive, its story line isn't exactly deep, etc. But its fun factor is at the very high end of the scale for me. I've already started working through the game a third time, and I'm discovering just how much cool stuff and just how many cool opportunities I missed the first time around. BR2 is a single-player game that has some legs, despite its lack of a multi-player aspect. So for those who are inclined as I am, I'd call it a definite must-buy title. For the rest of you, the more "normal" gamers, I would say it's merely a good game amidst quite a few other good games.
So here's my final suggestion. On the one hand, if you liked the original game in the series, then go buy BR2 immediately; you're going to love it! Yet on the other hand, if you didn't like BR, then you either won't like the sequel or can probably find something else that's more your idea of a good time. Finally, on the gripping hand, if you're one of those who haven't tried either, then I strongly encourage you to download the BR2 demo. It gives a decent taste of what the actual game is like, and you just might find it to be your kind of thing. And if not, well, then you got what you paid for, didn't you? I bought the full game, and I know I did.
07/06/2006