It's hard to know where BloodRayne stops and Underworld starts. For instance, in BloodRayne, the eponymous Blood is a sexy Dhampir (a sort of slightly soggy vampire, we think) who runs around killing people while wearing sexy clothes. In Underworld, Kate Beckinsale is a sexy 'Death Dealer' who runs around killing people while wearing extremely sexy clothes, the light glistening on which shows off the curve of her arse to perfection. In Underworld Two, sorry, Underworld Evolution, Kate has to turn her deathly skills on Vampires due to some turgid plot development that we were too bored to pay attention to in the first movie, despite it being rammed home with the subtlety of a sledghammer to the forehead in the second one. In BloodRayne Evolution, sorry - BloodRayne 2, Blood has to (and we're reading off the back of the box here) stalk her own flesh and blood through a city under seige. Her malicious siblings have united to create a new era of vampire supremacy... wait, are we talking about BloodRayne or Underworld now? See what we mean?
Of course, the two aren't exactly the same. While Godber's daughter likes to carry two semi-automatic weapons, which she lifts gangsta stylee, Blood prances around with two of the biggest blades you ever saw. In fact, if she had interjected in that famous scene in Crocodile Dundee where Paul Hogan says, "Call that a knife?... That's a knife" she would have undoubtedly come up trumps, before decapitating Paul and sucking the blood directly from his jugular vein, then impaling Linda Kozlowski on her twin prongs and rendering her asunder like a rag doll full of redcurrant juice.
And while Ms Beckinsale favours clothes of the tight latex and leather persuasion, the other delectable Ms B prefers the kind of long, flowing gothy dresses that would cause maximum leg tangle-age in a tense melée combat situation. While Kate chooses her clothes to accentuate the lovely curve of her buttocks, Blood's clothes are designed to draw ones eyes to her impressive flesh-melons. But unlike Katy, Bloody does change her garb now and then, but only if you proceed far enough into the game to unlock her other outfits... and to be honest, you're going to have to be one tough cookie, or particularly gifted at this roaming beat-and-adventure-'em-up type of game to do that.
The other thing that Underworld and BloodRayne have in common of course, is piss-poor movies. Underworld was bad, and Underworld Evolution was worse despite it featuring a tempting but ultimately unsatisfying amount of Beckinsale-flesh. But BloodRayne looks set to outdo both Underworld debacles at being bottom of the pile, with the 2005 movie, starring Terminator 3 robo-babe Kristanna Loken currently rocking a 2.2 score to put it in IMDB's all time bottom 100!!! Neck and neck with Alone in the Dark and just ahead of House of the Dead, games-turned-into-bad-movies fact fans.
Of course, Underworld was a poor movie turned into a terrible game, so the parallels persist.
Just before we picked up BloodRayne, SPOnG was having a blast on Aeon Flux, and enjoying it greatly. We were immediately struck by the similarity in the two games. Both feature unconventionally sexy heroines with a wealth of fighting moves and a fluid animation style. It comes as no surprise, therefore, to see that both come from Dallas-based codesters, Terminal Reality. But then, their other famous title is Monster Truck Madness, so no-one's accusing them of being one trick ponies.
But enough of the movie banter, we're not Jonathan Woss and you're not interested. As a game, BloodRayne 2 builds on the legacy of its 2003 prequel. And this time, the game has upped the ante considerably: not only is it better looking, but the fighting aspects, and BloodRayne's movements and animations are more sophisticated.
It's still a fairly simple game mechanic: Rayne wanders around a twilight world of castles and industrial installations, looking ravishing, and beating the living poo out of anything that moves. Said beatings are administered either by slashing and stabbing enemies with her blades, or by kicking them (often in the head). Either manouevre will frequently result in dismemberment or decapitation, and then the red stuff flows with the abandon usually seen in Hong Kong action flicks. BloodRayne certainly knows how to paint the town red. She can perform high and low attacks, and combination attacks. There's an element of puzzling to the game, but it is not a major part of the gameplay, and the puzzles are few and simple. Much more challenging is discovering how to deal with each of the many bosses, each of whom can require a very different approach to defeat them.
