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Bloodrayne 2 - custom javascript
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What is BloodRayne? BloodRayne is a series infamous for its seductive main character with gruesome battle tactics. Published by Majesco Games, the vampire huntress will battle her way through waves and waves of minions by shooting, stabbing, kicking, and maiming her opponents by any means necessary. Every now and then, there’ll be an environmental obstacle that needs to be overcome, but for the most part, you can expect a straightforward massacre with any game that bears the BloodRayne title. Technical Standpoint The minimum requirements for BloodRayne 2 on the PC are as follows: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP The system requirements, as you can see, are very low to begin with. What makes it even better is that it doesn’t take top of the line equipment to play on near-max settings. Any decent 128mb video card with 1GB of RAM will allow you to fully enjoy the gut wrenching title that is BloodRayne.
Blood, blood, and more blood Visually speaking, BloodRayne 2 is hardly comparable to titles such as Half Life 2 or Battlefield 2, but it isn’t necessarily ugly. The character models are for the most part, rather bland and uninspiring, but with blood spurting out of the dismembered corpses, you aren’t left with too much to complain about. Decapitating, maiming, and sucking the blood right out of your victims will always result in blood pouring out of the corpse and making quite the mess. If you thought chopping off limbs was nice, then you’ll surely love the fully destructible environment. Chairs, pianos, statues, and anything else imaginable will crumble with just a few blade slashes. In addition, using ‘special powers’ will encompass the screen in one of several auras, and whether you’re slowing down time or building up rage, the overall effect is dramatic. If you can look past the amateurish character modeling, BloodRayne 2 is an above average game in the visuals department. Cry of the Vampires The audio department could stand to use a fresh coat of paint, but some of the sound effects will get your lust for blood boiling. During battle, your foes will reiterate the same phrases over and over again, and quite frankly, they get extremely annoying after the first few levels. Also, the same slashing and gashing effects are constantly being overused, and this combined with the repetitive vampire yelps isn’t exactly desirable. Still, annihilating endless waves of enemies with an upbeat techno tune is sufficient enough to get you in the gaming mood.
Now for the Smack down BloodRayne is a dhampir; she was born with the powers of a vampire, but also with an unquenchable thirst for blood. On a quest for revenge, she must take out other vampires within the root of her family. Luckily, she has more than just her trusty fangs to defeat those who stand in her way. To start off, BloodRayne carries two blades with her wherever she goes. Clicking the left mouse button in succession can unleash lethal combos effortlessly, but luckily there is much more depth than the trusty left-click. By tapping the ‘E’ key, BloodRayne will lunge on to the nearest foe and sink her teeth right into their juicy, blood-filled neck. Sucking the vital fluids out of her enemies will restore BloodRayne’s health, and even though it looks like she is getting intimate with her enemies, she will actually build her up her rage meter in the process. Once filled, the rage can be released to give BloodRayne’s blades increased speed and a lot more damage, making even the toughest of foes in a lot of trouble. This deadly vampire also comes fully loaded with 12 fatality moves, so if you ever need a change from sucking on some baddies, you can impale them, maim them, decapitate them, and anything else imaginable. BloodRayne has hundreds of melee, air, long range, and counterattack combos that will keep hardcore gamers always looking for a new move to uncover. Once a combo is correctly performed, it will be added to a references database in the menu for later access. As previously mentioned above, the environment is highly destructible and likewise, it is very interactive. BloodRayne has a whole load of new acrobatic movies, allowing her to swing from poles and much more. When grinding down rails, she can slash enemies who get to close, and if the situation calls for it, she can fire her blood-powered gun as well. This firearm uses a reservoir of blood for ammunition, and once the reservoir runs dry, it will start to feed off of your health. At this point, you must find prey to feed on or be left without a valuable weapon. If you ever find yourself low on ammunition, BloodRayne also comes equipped with a grapple hook that is also quite deadly. With a range of about 40 feet, the grapple hook can attach itself to enemies, at which point she will be able to throw them clear across the room. Special rage bonuses can be earned by utilizing the environment; the rage meter will fill quickly if baddies fly into a fireplace or are tossed off a two story balcony. Encouraging violent behavior is always a nice feature, especially in a game as gruesome as BloodRayne 2. In addition to the typical melee attacks that can be found in any button masher, BloodRayne 2 attempted to improve the tireless gameplay with a few new innovations. By pressing ‘1’, the aforementioned Rage mode will be enabled, further increasing the killing possibilities. Pressing ‘2’ will enable a vampire aura that will make enemies appear in blood red, as well as slightly slowing down the flow of time. Pressing ‘3’ invokes a much more dramatic time change, easily allowing for bullets to be dodged and attacks to be avoided. Any of these special features can be cancelled by pressing ‘4’, and only by using them at the appropriate times will they actually prove to be useful. Aside from all of the fancy combos and different weapons, the flow of battle throughout the single player campaign of BloodRayne can easily become repetitive after the first few missions. Sure, ripping vampires in half, sucking human necks for blood, and decapitating people along the way is fun at first, but after a while you’ll really be left looking for something new. The levels all follow the same progression; kill a room full of bad guys, walk up a flight of stairs, kill some more guys, do a few acrobatic moves, and then defeat some generic vampire boss. Even with different combos and battle styles available to you, slashing endless waves of identical monsters over and over can get tiresome after a few hours. The gameplay isn’t intuitive at all, so towards the end of the game, left clicking, right clicking, or using special powers has all been done before. A lack of characteristic development or any type of other gameplay additions along the way make the latter part of the game not worth your time.
The future of BloodRayne This isn’t the first BloodRayne to hit the market, and we’ve already seen some improvements since the first release. The fully destructible environments, new combo moves and the addition of special auras were all moves in the right direction, but there is still room for improvement. With some work on level designs, a variety of different foes to face, and maybe some new weapons, BloodRayne 3 has the potential to be an invigorating experience.
Conclusion Overall, BloodRayne 2 isn’t terrible as far as button mashers go. While the latter part of the game doesn’t offer much change from the first few levels, it’s still quite possible to squeeze some enjoyment while slaying, slicing and dicing endless waves of monsters. BloodRayne 2 is certainly a fun game if you’re looking for something out of the ordinary, but if you consider yourself a hardcore gamer you should look elsewhere.
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