Written By Shaun McCracken
Majesco never really stood out as a really good game publisher in the past.
They started out as a redistributor of SNES, Geneisis and Game Boy games in the
mid 90's. Eventually, the started publishing games such as Rainbow Six for the
Dreamcast. Further along Majesco's lifespan, they became a more formidable company,
and Bloodrayne may be one of the best games they have published. Though not the
best game around, Bloodrayne is suprisngly entertaining in it's own right, which
is one thing that counts in a video game.
Bloodrayne is a game that has a title that can best be described as "truth in
labeling". The amounts of blood in this game is pretty plentiful. You pretty
much slice, dice, shoot, blow up and even suck the blood of your enemies. Of course,
this is just a video game, but it's still pretty graphic in terms of bloodshed.
To compliment the pervasive violence is pervasive language. While not exactly Die
Hard Vendetta, there's still some F-words to be heard. And it's funny too, in
an accidental kind of way. The voice acting is kind of low key, espeically from
the person who voices Bloodrayne. When you hear her say "What the f**k?", you
can't help but to laugh because of the delivery. Everything in Bloodrayne is
not taken too seriously, and tends to have a tounge-in-cheeck attitude at times.
Perhaps this is one reason why I found this game enjoyable.
The story behind this game is about someone from the pre-Nazi regime (they
weren't as much of a prevalent force in Germany at the time this game takes place)
wan't this artifact that enables him to rule the world. But, you as Bloodrayne
must stop this man from taking over, as a part of this vampire militant group
of some sort. For vampires, they seem pretty nice to normal people, as you'll see
during the Lousiana stage. When you first start out, you fight against strange
mutations in the swamps of Lousiana in the earlier 20th century. I can't remember
if this had to do with the Nazi guy, but why else would you be there? And if you
haven't realized by now, I can't tell the plot of a game well. Check the game's
website or visit an online retailer for more info.
The game design seems rather basic. In a way, it's kind of like a mix of Syphon
Filter, Nightmare Creatures and elements pretty much ripped off from the Matrix.
But then there are a couple of elements that make this game seem like it's own.
First, there's the blood sucking. I'm not sure how often this was done before,
but in the case of this game, it's benefical. Sucking blood from enemies can
replenish your health, as well as finish them off. There's also another function
called the "Aural Sense", in which the world turns blue, and your objective as
well as enemies are shaded in a different color. Sometimes it's helpful, but
it doesn't always point you out in the right direction. You pretty much go
through the stages, trying to complete a stated objective or just try to find your way
to the other side. And it does prove to be challenging, but like I said, everything
felt so standard about the gameplay design.
Keeping up with the theme of being "standard" is the graphics. Not highly
impressive, but not awful. The textures are adequate, the player models are fine,
but the framerate is inconsistent at times. The indoor stages have a better framerate
than the outdoor ones, and I think the reason why the framerate goes a little
haywire at times is because of a lot of effects. The swamps stages have a lot of fog,
and there is some decent lighting effects. But for a GCN game, I think the game
could have functioned smoothly without framerate hiccups. It doesn't hinder the
gameplay, but it is noticeable.
The sound is fairly good. The voice acting is kind of funny, wheteher it was
intentional or not. Also, the voice overs were played at a rather low volume.
The sound effects are pretty basic, with the hacking and slashing sounds, as
well as gunfire and explosions. There is a little popping in the sound, but
it didn't occur too often.
Overall, Bloodrayne, while bowing down to many of it's standard design issues,
is still a pretty fun game. At times, the action seems mindless, but hacking
Nazis are pretty fun. It's something you weren't able to do in the Medal Of Honor
games. Perhaps if there was a little more innovation infused into the design, the
game would be even better. As it is, it won't throw Metroid Prime or Halo off
the action throne, but I did find it more entertaining than Enter The Matrix.
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Bloodrayne
