G4TV

Hey! Splinter Cell was a cool game, right?

And Dead Rising? Xbox 360 owners love fighting the undead!

If we were to mix those two, we’d have a surefire hit.

And so went the development meeting at Artoon (makers of games like Blinx on the Xbox and Pinobee on the GBA), except it was spoken in Japanese and likely went  nothing like that at all. But the point remains the same – Vampire Rain is an attempt to mix the sneaking action of a Splinter Cell with the survival-horror aspect of something like DeadRising. You’re a top-secret operative…who hunts vampires. Oh, and there’s rain. Lots and lots of rain.

Sam Fisher meets Simon Belmont

The idea is a solid one. And the game actually controls decently as well. As you creep around this vampire-infested town (why do normal people continue to live here, anyway?) you’re able to enter buildings, shimmy across ledges, and perform all sorts of impressive acrobatic feats. You can even get one of your buddies to help you reach otherwise unreachable heights.

And the gadgets? Oh boy have you got gadgets. Along with an assortment of firearms (which get much better as the game goes on), you have something called “necrovision.” Scan everyone you see with this device to tell whether they’re a human or one of the “nightwalkers” you’re hunting. Scan a nightwalker and they remain on your radar, complete with a cone of vision and everything.

So far so good, right?

Wussy the Vampire Slayer

Maybe not. Early on in the game, the biggest problem is that none of your pathetic little girly weapons are any sort of match for a nightwalker. If one sees you, and you don’t get out of sight quickly enough (these vampires seem to have some short-term memory issues), prepare to reload your level. They will catch you and you will die.

But that’s kind of the way it should be. These are vampires for chrissakes.

The bigger problem rears its ugly head as you work deeper into the game and realize each and every level has pretty much one particular path to success. Sure, you can move around to different areas and try to find your own way, but this generally results in a frustrating dead end. Oh, and if you die? Prepare to start the whole thing over again.

It completely kills the fun in an already mediocre game. Sluggish controls, low-budget visuals and frustrating trial-and-error game play all combine to kill what was a great idea faster than a nightwalker’s kiss.

Undead On Arrival

The one shining moment through all this is the decent online multiplayer mode included. It’s pretty vanilla, but it runs great. Plus it’s possible to turn into a nightwalker should you be a bit too slow on the draw. It’s a very cool feature.

Otherwise, Vampire Rain doesn’t deliver at all. Even with most of the aforementioned problems fixed, the game would be average at best. But with all the issues it suffers, it’s not even worth a look.

Article by: Greg Sewart