Bloodrayne 2 is so different from the first game. The first game was a very loose third-person action game, played with FPS controls. Rayne was completely overpowering to 90% of the enemies in that game, meaning that she could toy with whole squads at her leisure, absorbing untold bullets as she blitzed from soldier to soldier. The first game had few attacks, adding to your arsenal only extended versions of your base and rage combos, the base animating so fast that you never noticed what you were doing. There was no lock-on, Rayne would do her best to attack whoever was closest to her when you mashed the left trigger and would systematically cycle her guns to kill everyone in the room when you held the right trigger. The game required little explicit direction from you, and Rayne were only in danger while fighting bosses, or when she really overextended herself.
Bloodrayne 2 is plays very, very different. I cannot stress enough the parallels to the fighting system from Buffy, right down to the little slo-mos when you combo an enemy to the ground. The new game has typical third-person controls, with the left stick controlling Rayne in an eight way run and the right stick swinging the camera all around, again, just like Buffy. The melee system is now a two button affair, slash and kick, the latter being useful for knocking enemies down and disarming them. The combat looks infinitely better then the melee from the first game, and although you can modify what combo you are doing via the left stick, your choices are pathetically meager compared to Buffy.
As with many games, the lock-on system works very well when fighting only one enemy, but is nearly useless when you are surrounded. The lock-on can be used to have Rayne dodge around or flip over her prey, ending with unique moves that seems to dismember more often. Flipping over a foe with a club of some kind is a necessity because such armed foes will throw Rayne off if she tries to feed from the front. Ive earned two 360 degree moves at this point, but getting them off in combat has proven nearly futile.
Rayne is dramatically less overpowering to the enemies this time around, the average street trash being able to knock her down and half her life if shes not careful. Overextending yourself in the first game meant you just found the nearest enemy and fed from him, here the enemies must very often be disarmed first. This is a game where you fear the guys with table legs much more than the guys with shotguns.
Besides replenishing life, feeding also leads to the
sigh, fatalities, which themselves replenish her rage bar and look really badassed. Your rage bar lets you enter the bullet time and Blood Rage from the first game. Its good to see that in Bloodrayne 2, the bullet time is not unlimited and is upgradeable. You can also cancel your feed at anytime in order to draw blood to your guns as well. These guns only hold 40 rounds at this point, after which they will fire while drawing from your life bar. Seeing Rayne flip behind a guy and stick the needles from her pistols into his back while handing underneath him hasnt gotten old yet.
But I expect it will, because just like the first game, every thug that runs up to you can be dispatched the same way. Now in the first game it was just feed, feed, feed through twenty guys if you wanted to. Here its a bit harder, but you can still harpoon them and knock them down, then impale them on the ground. Very few enemies are able to counter your harpoon. So really, its on the player to not kill every guy the same way; and the developers has given you choices, but theyve not made you use them, as in Buffy. Im hoping that the enemies keep developing to keep me on my toes, but I highly doubt that they will, at least to the point where one strategy cannot be counted on time and again.
The touted acrobatics is nothing more than stealing from Prince to work in the platforming elements that we saw lightly dispersed in the first and third act of the first game. Ill say this though, I like Bloodraynes pole swinging animation more than the Princes. In fact, save for her pole climbing animation, all of Bloodraynes animations are really good. Bloodrayne walk animation is my favorite since Dantes from the original Devil May Cry; it seems to have perfectly proper weight to it.
Like the first game, Bloodrayne 2s strongest feature is character appeal, which makes the camera so irksome to me. Its bad enough that the camera goes nuts in close quarters like so many others weve seen, but in my opinion it keeps Rayne too far away. These guys put a lot of work in making Rayne look really damn good. I defy you not to be impressed by the way her leather shines from light sources. I cant be sure, but I think her eyes have been made to glow like a cats in low light. I would not be surprised if her pupils dilated, but Ill have to check. She generally just looks super cool and the camera pisses me off by never getting in close. Were talking some choice silhouettes here. I touched upon the jaggies in my earlier post, and this game is a clear case of details lost in low resolution. The ribbons in Raynes hair might as well not be there, for all you see them.
I am disappointed in how the limb cutting in base combat has been toned down. In the first game, one out of every three guys lost at least one arm or leg, or had his head sliced in half. Dismemberments happen here, often with proper verbal responses from Rayne and the enemy, but comparatively rarely. Rage mode in the first game meant Rayne was a real blender, limbs flying everywhere in slow motion. A favorite memory from the first game was when the first soldier in a group went down having both legs cut off at the knees. While I dispatched the rest of his squad, he pulled himself along with his arms, screaming in German agony, and leaving big blood trails behind him before finally passing out. It was really something. In Bloodrayne 2, Ive chopped a girls leg off and seen her try and hop away, but outside of
sigh, fatalities, thats about all that stood out.
I also lament about how the intro to the game turned out. Ive been following Bloodrayne 2 since the very first media, and the same scene kept turning up. Ive got an amount of Bloodrayne artwork, all official by the way, and there are several concept drawing of Rayne entering a manor party via a grand staircase, trailing a long crimson cape which she releases to reveal herself to the stunned onlookers in a super slinky black dress. This same scene was rendered in the first CG teaser released. They even put Rayne in the dress on the cover. Now I can understand this entire obsession. They wanted to start the game having Rayne make a real entrance, impressing all with even more class and confidence than shed shown before, simultaneously looking even more the sex object, if possible.
So the new game does indeed open with this sequence, and it looks awful. Its jaggy, its poorly animated, directed, and voiced. The cape is gone. Most of the party goers dont seem to notice her. What the hell happened? If they couldnt pull I off in-game, then they could have used the damn CG scene they had already done. Holy hell; what a let down. Undoubtedly responsible for my concentration on (deserved) negative comments in my earlier post.
The first Bloodrayne deserved to be called a good game. Not great, or excellent, or innovative, or a must have. It was simply a game in which the good, just barely, managed to outweigh the negatives. It showed real promise as a games series. Rayne, of course, showed real promise as a marketable franchise. Now, Ive still got lots to see in this new game. Im aware of better vampire powers that I need to earn. But I knew Id be enjoying this title pretty much since the ending of the first game last-minute hinted at the sequel, in rather bad taste I might add. Theres a lot of new good in Bloodrayne 2, with most of the old bad addressed and not much new bad added. Fans will love it, some h8trs might be won over; but I dont think that this game has yet gone beyond merely earning good. Ill keep at her.
Current Score: Shes still got it
Uwe mustve signed a blood pact with the devil or something...it makes no sense