BloodRayne 2 review for the Playstation 2, PS2 (page 2)

Rayne begins the game with twin blades in which to cut down her opponents, you’d think people at the party would wonder why she needed them. Her blades are my favorite weapon, she can dice her enemies into many pieces, very gruesome. Her moves with the blades are very easy to use and she has some great finishing moves. Rayne also comes equipped with a harpoon to snag her enemies that aren’t close enough to her, you’ll often use this to throw the enemies into things. Throughout the game there are many puzzles that must be figured out, usually it consists of throwing enemies into something that will either chop them up or make them explode. They aren’t very hard to figure out and if you use Rayne’s aura vision it usually highlights the items she needs to use to beat the puzzle. Rayne’s aura vision will also lead you to your next target so it is hard to get lost in some of the rather large areas. Rayne feeds the same way in this game as she did in the last, but be careful if the enemy has a weapon you must kick them until you knock it out of their hands or on the ground you go. Her kicks are also a very powerful attack and work great in unison with her blades. It makes it easier to fight the enemies if you target them, the target buttons are the left trigger button for the Xbox console or the L1 button for the Playstation 2 console; these buttons also work for blocking enemy attacks.

As you are fighting your way through the game you will be earning carnage points and weapon experience points that allow you to either upgrade your health and rage bars or upgrade your weaponry. In addition Rayne will earn combo moves that add a little more style to her fighting. From the beginning Rayne has the ability called dilated perception that enables her to perceive time as going really slow this will help her to escape attacks or bullets that are coming her way. On the opposite side of that she will learn super speed that makes her move in her normal speed, but her enemies will be moving like slugs. Other powers that Rayne will develop are ghost feed and blood fury. Blood fury is just an upgrade of blood rage which is a frenzy attack upon her enemies that drain their life much faster than regular attacks. Ghost feed, on the other hand is a completely new idea, it allows Rayne to send a ghostly version of herself to other places in order to feed. BloodRayne 2 has done a lot of expanding onto Rayne’s character since the first game, this makes the game a little more complicated than the first but not less fun.

BloodRayne 2 is a fun beat em’ up with a lot of style, but the game play is lacking in creativity; after awhile it begins to feel repetitive. This game is about as long as the first BloodRayne and it too does not have much replay value so I would recommend renting it or buying it when the price drops really low. Keep in mind that it is a fun action game, but if you want to be challenged look somewhere else. There may be times when an area challenges you to the point that you need to play it a few times over before you get it right, but they are few and far between. So settle down in front of the television, relax, and enjoy kicking butt.

Miranda Stites, HeroesOfGaming.com, 7/06/05

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