GENRE
	Action
	DEVELOPER
	Terminal Reality
	PUBLISHER
	Majesco
	WI-FI ENHANCED
	no
	WII EXCLUSIVE
	gcn
	EXPECTED RELEASE DATE
	BUY NOW AT

Intro
This multi-platform action-adventure will try to arouse you and tickle your gag reflex with the antics of its sexy headlining star, the vampire halfling Bloodrayne. While the storyline is admittedly, at its core, Indiana Jones, the dynamic gameplay makes this title worth the ride.

Impressions
The opening cinema that plays before Bloodrayne’s title screen has to be seen to understand where this bloody game is coming from. A seductive caress, the slicing off of an ear. Matrix-like acrobatics, the shooting of a harpoon into a guard’s throat and dragging him across the room while ensnared. Really, it has to be seen a couple times to get your brain around it, and perhaps the first reaction you’ll have is either "gross" or "cool." It’s both, in fact, with a touch of sexuality thrown in for good measure. Bloodrayne is not your typical GameCube game.

What it is, however, is a title that’s coming to all three next-gen consoles, and, sadly, the visuals of GameCube’s BloodRayne are reminiscent of the PS1-N64 days. Basically, the Xbox has the crispest visuals, which isn’t surprising given the DVD disc medium and the more powerful hardware. The PS2 has relatively sharp textures, but they appeared pixelated. The GameCube’s textures weren’t pixelated, but they were muddy and blurry, just as the N64 ports used to stack up against PS1 titles years ago. Worse yet, the smaller size of the GCN disc obviously takes a toll on the opening movie, as well, which clearly suffers from artifacting (JPG-like blurring): problems the PS2 and Xbox versions (presumably on DVDs) simply don’t have.

Thankfully, these visual shortcomings don’t affect the gameplay offerings. Bloodrayne can perform acrobatic flips, gun firing, slick hack and slash slaughtering with her forearm-mounted blades, and, last but not least, the infamous harpooning and sucking action. There’s something to be said for the last action mentioned. It’s not only great that Bloodrayne’s life can be replenished by drinking from human-based victims, but the process also doubles as soft porn.

Seeing Bloodrayne aggressively yank a chest-harpooned Nazi toward her, swing kick him in the head with her leather knee-high heels so he hits the floor, and then straddle him to suck his blood, will make you look around and wonder if anyone under 14 (or worse yet, your parents) is watching. Conversely, she can also "surprise" a nearby Nazi by just jumping right on him and going for the neck. She’s quite naughty.

Yet for all this indirect sensuality, there is quite a degree of camp to it, primarily in the fact that when she’s "feeding" upon some poor fool, she proceeds to do what appears to be erratic, lunging "air bites" at the man’s neck while the man looks up to the ceiling in horror, with his mouth hanging open. Nope, she's not actually biting him. For maximum hilarity, commit your feeding acts in the game’s nicely implemented "dilated" vision (slow-motion).

Now that I’ve gotten past the sexual portion, I’ll seriously assess this game’s gameplay. Really, the concept is solid. Bloodrayne gives Devil May Cry’s Dante competition for style by her movement and attacking. Frosting on the cake is enacting the aforementioned dilated vision, which slows things down to Max Payne-like slow motion, yet, unlike Max Payne, has no time limit. While "dilated," Bloodrayne is able to dodge oncoming bullets and move like a Cirque du Soleil performer through the air-- although such high-flying precision definitely takes some practice.

The "Damphire" also has a couple other vision modes to enhance gameplay, all of which are activated by pushing a certain direction on the GCN’s D-pad. One mode allows for super-zoomed in sniper vision, while the other, dubbed "Aura Vision," provides Predator-like infrared vision that enables Bloodrayne to separate the living from the dead, as well as notice the level’s current objectives or action points.

While all of these moves are relatively easy to carry out, the decision to place Bloodrayne’s main "action/fight/bite" moves on the analog shoulder buttons seems misguided. Having to squeeeeeeeeze-click over and over to just shoot a gun or hack away at a very near insectoid-monster proves tiresome and ineffective quickly. Hopefully, alternative control schemes will be included in the game’s final release.

Game levels are open and relatively non-linear, although a main, overriding objective does lay out the primary path. Nonetheless, going around and being able to explore buildings and locations as you like was refreshing.

Despite all the style and great backstory (see "From the Horse’s Mouth" below) this game has, the sample levels of Bloodrayne did seem to indicate little more than Indiana Jones-wannabe. Each level was basically, "Oh no, the Nazis are about to discover/unleash this horrible monster/super weapon/secret artifact. Stop (or clean up after) them." Surely, however, the game’s backstory indicates a richer depth than what we saw.

Word on the Street
There are quite a few bloodthirsty fans already for this game, and with good reason. Who wouldn’t want to play around with Bloodrayne? If the snag-and-suck action doesn’t get you, perhaps the severing of body parts and slicing heads in half will.

From the Horse’s Mouth
In 1932 an American teenage girl was apprehended in Europe after carving a path of destruction trying to track down and kill her biological father. The girl's name was Rayne and she claimed the people she killed, and her father who was still at large, were vampires.

Before more information was attained, the girl disappeared.

That girl is a Damphir; a product of her human mother's rape by her vampire father. Born with powers of a vampire without all of the weaknesses. She was taken in by an underground organization calling themselves the Brimstone Society-- a top-secret fraternity that hunts down and destroys supernatural threats. Agent BloodRayne, as she is now known, protects humanity from things that ordinary people shouldn't have to deal with.

In the years between the World Wars, Agent BloodRayne works as a killing machine for The Brimstone Society. Two missions, five years apart, turn out to be connected by one man. For years, this man has been searching the world for powerful occult relics to bring Germany into a new age of domination. Agent BloodRayne must face this man's elite Nazi army to prevent them from releasing creatures of unfathomable terror onto the world in their unwavering quest for the artifacts.

Conclusion
While it’s disappointing that yet again the GameCube version of a multiplatform title is getting the short end of the stick, if only visually, gamers thirsting for a mature, bloody, and sexy adventure need look no further than Majesco’s redhead. If the visuals and control scheme get ironed out prior to the title’s release, then there’s all the more reason to get bloody.

media

impressions

word on the street

press release notes

overall