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Thanks a lot, Anne Rice.  The enormous popularity of your Vampire Chronicles has created a cottage industry for stories about modern vampire societies.  Now we’ve got Lestat, the White Wolf pen and paper RPGs, Buffy, Blade, Underworld, Forever Knight, and a couple dozen other vampire mythologies to sort through.  We also have BloodRayne. She’s kind of like a female Blade, but it's doubtful anyone at Majesco will own up to it.  Hey, at least she’s a lot easier on the eyes than Wesley Snipes.

Mistress of the Dark

For her second outing, Rayne steps into modern times.  Continuing on her quest to wipe out ubervamp Kagan’s entire family line, Rayne stumbles upon a plot that would allow vampires to walk in daylight. So we’ve got shades of Blade and Underworld here. But it doesn’t matter; you’ll invest about as much effort in the storyline here as Rayne does in negotiation.  This game is all about killing.

From a technical standpoint, BloodRayne 2 is vastly superior to the original.  Graphics are cleaner and sharper. Environments still tend to be a bit too dark, however.  We had to turn up the brightness just to see where we were going.  Animations are also a lot smoother.  The game incorporates rag doll style physics which allow the enemies to tumble and crumple in all kinds of painful looking ways.

Show Me Your Moves

In terms of game design, BloodRayne 2 appears to be dramatically better than the first.  Rayne’s list of combat moves is impressively large and it rivals that of many fighting games.  She also has a pair of vampiric pistols that use blood as ammo. The harpoon returns, but this time you can control where you fling the bad guys. There is also a smattering of Prince of Persia style acrobatics that let Rayne jump and swing on poles.

This roster of weapons and moves gives Rayne a lot of latitude in deciding just how to deal with her foes.  Another nice feature is that there’s no item collecting in the game.  The only resource is blood.  Feeding on the bad guys will replenish Rayne’s health, or reload her pistols.  Simple button presses will execute a grim fatality during feeding which charges up Rayne’s rage meter. This fuels her special vampire powers, which include the ability to manipulate time, feed from a distance, entrance the enemy, and boost your offense and defense.

It’s all in your Mind

It’s a shame that most of Rayne’s moves are useless.  To be more accurate, they’re unnecessary because the default slash, slash, slash or kick, kick, kick gets the job done every time. Oddly enough, the kicks appear even more powerful than her giant arm blades.  Maybe she’s wearing poison stilettos.

Even the more powerful bosses and sub bosses succumb to this simple combo providing you boost your attack and defense levels during the battle.  You can dispatch pretty much every foe this way.  For all the effort that went into creating Rayne’s list of moves, there’s not much need for them.

It’s Raining Blood

This is not to say that BloodRayne 2 doesn’t have a few inspired moments.  The harpoon is loads of fun thanks to the newfound interactivity in the environments.  Toss bad guys in the direction of a sharp object and they’ll become impaled on it.  There are also several areas and bosses that require you to use your harpoon in a more creative fashion.

And then there’s the blood. It’s everywhere.  Bad guys appear to be filled with several thousand gallons of the stuff, and Rayne’s isn’t afraid to spill it.  The fatalities are gruesome.  Rayne will gleefully gut, decapitate, and slice up anyone she gets her hands on.  Even in basic combat, you’ll see your fair share of limbs go flying every which way.  Accompanying all of this is a spattering and spraying of red stuff that covers the floors and walls.  On the gore scale, BloodRayne 2 outdoes Mortal Kombat. In terms of pure visceral appeal, you really can’t go wrong here.

Bloody Good Time

And that really sums up the experience.  The attempt to add depth to the game hasn’t really succeeded, but the combat still feels fun.  If you’re willing to branch out and try some of the more complex moves, you’ll no doubt be impressed with how it all looks on screen.  It’s just that the game never really asks that much of you. For an action game, BloodRayne 2 is pretty long, but because there isn’t a lot of finesse to the combat, it can also get repetitive.  But taken in short spurts, BloodRayne 2 delivers solid, visceral action and looks good doing it.