Those who crave fun, action-packed, and downright sexy gameplay will enjoy this vampire thriller from Terminal Reality.

BloodRayne, the latest release from developer Terminal Reality, follows the exploits of a sword wielding, machine gun toting, thong-wearing vixen of a vampire on the hunt for Nazi occultists in pre-war Europe.

BloodRayne, or Rayne as the game refers to her, is a kind of rogue assassin at the start of the game, hunting a vampire ghetto for the clues that can lead her to her long lost father. See, Rayne is the product of a rape by a vampire, making her half vampire, much like the comic book character Blade. This means that she possesses all the strengths of vampires and very few of their weaknesses.

As the story progresses, Rayne finds herself recruited into a secret organization called the Brimstone Society, a group tasked to seek out and eliminate certain paranormal threats that spring up anywhere on Earth.

Rayne’s first assignment as a member of this secretive society is to investigate some strange goings on in a small Louisiana town where bizarre spider-like creatures are infecting local town’s people with a strange disease.

Through the course of this first part of the game, Rayne learns of a plot by Nazi occultist Jurgen Wolf to acquire all sorts of mystical relics in an attempt to make the Third Reich the ultimate power on Earth. It then becomes, as you might expect, Rayne’s job to stop these nefarious Nazis from completing their plans.

The game starts slowly, with Rayne finding herself under the tutelage of Mynce, a fellow vampire, Brotherhood member, and scantily clad honey. Together they work their way deep inside the various bogs and shantytowns of the Louisiana bayou, searching for the source of the phenomenon that is transforming the locals into bizarre creatures.

BloodRayne’s most deadly weakness is water, or more precisely contact with water. This weakness forces players through an annoying procession of dreaded jumping puzzles across large bodies of water throughout most of this first part of the game. Yes, these puzzles do get very annoying, yet don’t despair too much. Things do steadily improve as the game goes on. In fact, BloodRayne’s game play element is what really makes it fun.

Through the course of the game, Rayne will come up against huge numbers of Nazi infantry, elite Special Forces operatives, and the toughest of Nazi head honchos. To counter this onslaught, Rayne possesses a variety of skills with weapons, acrobatic jumps, spins, and twirls, as well as the singularly vampiric ability to leap onto almost anything for a refreshing drink of blood. Yet her most valuable tool is her proficiency with her wrist blades.

Attacks with these deadly devices consist of a series of martial art style moves, each one unlocked after successfully defeating one of several mini-bosses throughout the game. These moves blend together to form a deadly combo attack that will pretty much decimate weaker enemies and do some serious damage to tougher foes. To make these weapons even more powerful, wrist blade attacks will steadily fill Rayne’s blood rage meter. This meter, when full, will allow Rayne to enter into a frenzied wrist blade attack, doing some destructive damage to any enemy unfortunate enough to be in proximity to her.

Rayne can also pick up a large arsenal of traditional weaponry from fallen enemies. These weapons vary in range from small handguns, several different types of machine guns, high-powered rifles, shotguns, and even Panzerschrek grenade launchers. These weapons come in handy against all the enemies you encounter in the game and do plenty of damage to even the strongest bosses.

To supplement her blades and guns, Rayne has a small set of special abilities allowing her to do things such as locating objectives, zooming in on far away targets, and even slowing down time. The later ability is quite useful as a means of taking out large groups of enemies or even the toughest of bosses. Unlike similar moves in games such as Max Payne, BloodRayne’s bullet time system is without limit, meaning that one could conceivably play through the entire game with bullet time on continuously.

This option might actually be preferable for some players early on, since BloodRayne’s pace takes a bit of getting used to. Things are often happening almost too quickly at times, especially when large numbers of enemies are attacking. This reviewer often found that a combination of regular time, mixed with bullet time for large enemy groups, is the best way to avoid becoming overwhelmed by the quick pace, or bored to death waiting for Rayne to get to her objectives under bullet time.

Powered by Terminal Reality’s Infernal game engine, BloodRayne’s PC graphics present themselves as a nice surprise over the limited console versions of the game. The Infernal engine produces some very cool effects like explosions, smoke trails, tracer rounds streaking into the distance, sparks flying off Rayne’s blades, and many other particle effects. Yet the most prominent of the Infernal engine’s numerous graphical abilities centers on the rather bloody and gruesome dismembering abilities Rayne’s blades can deliver.

Pretty much every part of most NPC bodies can be hacked off quite effectively, eliciting large quantities of bloody discharge splattering about everywhere and sending body parts bouncing and flying around in all directions. Entire rooms will at times be filled ankle deep with the mutilated remains of fallen enemies, with some unfortunate victims running or crawling around clutching their bloody nubs in a panic before succumbing to death.

Yes, this game is not for the faint of heart!

The grim torture of Nazi henchmen aside, BloodRayne is, at times, a nice looking game. Many objects and characters feature a good amount of bump-mapping. For those unfamiliar with this graphical feature, bump-mapping is a method of placing features on objects in a game so that they appear to have certain surface imperfections like pock marks, dents, or bumps. BloodRayne uses bump-mapping to replicate things like the wrinkles on Rayne’s outfit, small protuberances on a brick wall, or various imperfections on the skin of a mutated beast. While not present on everything, the use of bump-mapping on Rayne and certain other detailed creatures and surfaces makes them seem much more detailed and realistic.

The rest of BloodRayne’s graphics do have a tendency to become rather bland in some places. Throughout the middle portion of the game Rayne must move her way through various Nazi sub bays, bunkers, and installations. Most of these levels are large, dull-looking constructions, with little in the way of intrinsic detail, and containing large groups of Nazi thugs who are themselves rather uninteresting and forgettable. The graphics do pick up in later levels, however, where alien looking caverns, ruined castle battlements, and ornate palace interiors abound.

Sound aspects in BloodRayne are, much like the graphics, good and bad. Voiceovers are rather weak. Rayne’s voice work is often flat, as are many other characters allied with Rayne. The stereotypical German accents are there in abundance, as one would expect in a game with Nazis. They are also overdone, again, like most games with Nazis.

Beyond the voice over work, the game’s sound effects are where things pick up. Explosions, breaks, clangs, pops, slices, ricochets, and the rest of the sound effects that make up most action games are quite well done and effectively set the mood for the events in the game. There is even a nice little distortion effect when entering bullet time or any of the other vision modes, where voices and sounds tend to draw out like a record played at low RPMs.

To go along with the carnage of dismembered limbs and broken corpses, you will hear the cries of soldiers panicking after finding themselves minus one or both arms and legs, or the frantic pleas and whimpers of panicked victims calling for help as Rayne sucks the last of the vital blood from their bodies. A provocative sucking sound and the sensual moans of Rayne as she delights in her meal seem to add to the somewhat unsettling sexual themes and overtones repeated throughout the game.

Did I mention this game is not for kids?

By and large, one gets a mixed feeling at the conclusion of BloodRayne. On one hand, there’s the great action and addictive game play. On the other hand, are the disappointing and almost absent storyline, as well as the often dull and repetitive level design and voice over work. These positive and negative features can cancel each other out in one instance, or become a serious impedance to the game’s overall mood in other.

In the end, it’s really up to personal taste as to how good or bad BloodRayne is. Those who crave bleeding edge graphics, great sound, or a complicated storyline will most likely not find favor with this game. Yet those seeking out some fun, action packed, and downright sexy game play should find some things to enjoy in BloodRayne.


Review by Kevin Blanchard.