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Blood Rayne

BloodRayne is an over-the-shoulder viewpoint game where you take the role of a sexy half human, half vampire. The emphasis is more on hand-to-hand combat than on guns, although there are still some very impressive ranged weapons available. Since you are a supernatural being, you have some pretty spectacular powers that develop and become available to you as the game progresses, such as some very acrobatic attack moves and additional vision modes (ala Alien versus Predator). Your primary weapons are the hinged blades attached to your wrists, which can result in some impressively gory dismemberment as you become more proficient in their usage.

The levels are very impressive looking, with good usage of fog and lighting to create some very appropriate atmospheres, from a dank, wet Louisiana swamp to a Nazi stronghold in Germany. Your superhuman strength and jumping abilities allow for some non-linear level designs, such as entry to buildings via chimneys or through breakable wall sections, requiring some creative thinking and spot hidden skills to get to certain areas.

Since you are a half vampire after all, the ability to suck blood to regain life is a must have, and has not been left out. When you are close enough to a victim, you can jump on them and suck them dry, gaining life as you listen to them screaming for you to get off. You can even rotate their bodies to give you protection from the bullets that his friends are sending your way. If you don't feel like getting close, you have access to a harpoon on a chain, that you can use to drag your victims to you, kick them to the ground and then suck away.

The game is very fast, perhaps a little too fast, until you receive one of the vision modes - Dilated view. What this does is dilate time, giving you a Bullet Time type effect, where everything is in slow motion. This is a really cool looking mode as well, since everything not in the centre of your vision is blurry, getting moreso the further away from the centre it is. It is the ultimate fighting view mode, and almost allows you to dodge bullets. It is a very necessary mode tho. I attempted a fight late in the game without using it, and was almost overwhelmed by the sheer speed. It does slow the game play down a lot, obviously, so it is very important to get used to switching between this and normal vision.

The standard level of dismemberment was obviously not enough for the game developers. Every time you kill something, your Blood Rage meter goes up. Once it is full, you can activate it to frenzy, allowing you access to a host of especially powerful moves that will leave your enemies as piles of hands, heads and torso segments, and also ups your damage a lot. Unfortunately this counts as a vision mode, and so disables your time dilation ability.

The game doesn't have the pace and action of FPSes ?, so it may be a little slow for some peoples' tastes. If you have the patience however, it is an amazing game, full of stunning visual effects and cool moves, that will keep you entertained for ages.

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