Bloodrayne
(Aspyr)

Female half-vampire saves the world from Nazis bent on raising a daemon for their own ends! Good to see the developers went for an original plot with this Max Payne-engined release. If you pay attention, it's easy to see where the plot was pinched from. The game is made up with bits of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Aliens, Vampire: The Masquerade, Tomb Raider and, er Mechwarrior. Despite the choice of games, the plot is still pretty thin and the game nothing special. And, in a fit of guilt, the designers didn't include any Swastikas; in their place is a reverse of the Isle of Man's emblem. (They should sue.)

The plot is, basically, you pay Rayne, who is half-vampire/half-human who works for the Brimstone Society and is battling against evil nasty Nazis (as if there are other types), who wish to use the supernatural to win the war. You chase them across the world to make sure they don't succeed. The story, however, is told in some rather well done cut-scenes. Various clues on how to proceed are told via brief in-game clips.

Performance is lackluster and at times impossible to play. Max Payne lagged occasionally when there was lots of stuff on the screen. Bloodrayne does this much more often, most often at the most deadly of times. You would expect for this you would get some pretty impressive graphics; you would be mistaken. The game is nothing special to look at, and the sound isn't that great, either. It sounds as though Rayne is having an orgasm every time she sucks blood from a baddie, even if they are walking corpses. It seems that the developers spent more time making sure any female breasts bounced properly than whether or not the game ran properly. There are several places where the game has trouble loading, most especially in the transition from Argentina to Germany. However, saying that, the game never actually crashed.

As far as I can tell. someone on staff was tasked with getting the tits right and making sure as much of them was exposed as possible. I am sure any woman going into a combat zone full of machine gun-firing Nazis and alien-possessed corpses would run around exposing as much flesh as possible!