The
original BloodRayne provided an interesting character and a piss poor game. However, it was successful enough to give Terminal Reality the greenlight to make another one. BloodRayne 2 did fix a lot of the problems the first game had. It's certainly a better game than the first one, but Rayne is still far from the A-list status of Castlevania or Legacy of Kain.
Those looking forward to sucking blood from the throats of Nazis again would be disappointed. The game picks up in the present day. Rayne is still giving her services to the Brimstone Society but only out of convenience. Her mission is more personal. After defeating her vampire father Kagan in the first game, a cult built up around him with Rayne's half-siblings as figureheads. Rayne's mission is to bring down the cult. While the plot is simpler and more generic than in the first game, the writing and dialog have improved. Rayne cuts loose with wisecracks almost as much as Spider-Man, but they never became annoying. The villains and side characters are also more fleshed out, though their voice work is still rather poor.
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The gameplay has been dramatically improved over the first game. Movement is much more natural. Rayne now has acrobatics to use for movement like wall bounds and pole swinging. While the levels can provide a little bit of "where do I go?" confusion, movement is nowhere near as robotic as in the first game, making traversal relatively easy. The combat has been overhauled. Rayne has an array of moves and combos with her swords. Her harpoon doesn't just draw enemies into her fangs anymore. It can yank weapons out of enemies' hands, throw enemies off ledges, and, even better, fling them into environmental hazards. The point where I got to fling foes into spinning fan blades was just awesome! Instead of picking up firearms from enemies, Rayne gets vampiric weapons early on. They need to feed on blood just like Rayne does. They can still fire after running out of blood projectiles, but they'll take Rayne's health in the process, a neat bit of risk and reward. However, the game still doesn't have manual targeting which means plenty of wasted shots. There is a Z-targeting kind of lock-on available now with the left trigger, but it can lose its lock at random times. That gets very irritating during boss fights. While feeding can still make some fights too easy, enemies can beat you out of it, keeping battles from being the cakewalks they were before.
The visuals are much improved. The architecture isn't as boxy as before, and the textures are much sharper. No more distance fog, either. While the game does still try to speak to adolescents with scanty outfits and lame boob jiggle, the rest of the game still looks a lot better than before. Unfortunately, the aura vision which is used to see hidden objects is a bit too bright, making navigation a bit harder with it on.
BloodRayne 2 is a far better game than the first one. While the story is more run-of-the-mill, the gameplay enhancements clearly make this one much less of a chore to play. There are still some issues that keep this from getting up to the heights of other horror action games of the time, but it can still entertain for a few hours. If only Terminal Reality had the chance to try again ...
(That
downloadable game on Xbox 360 doesn't count.)
