BloodRayne - forgotten bloody gem
BloodRayne
Let's just close our eyes and say it out loud: It's a game about a hot red-headed vampire chick, in leather, with two huge blades attached to her wrists, who is a member of a secret society dealing with the paranormal and who infiltrates into the 3rd Reich, killing all the genetically enhanced commanding officers of a secret anti-ghost group, trying to stop Hitler from collecting demonic artifacts and becoming Mega Hitler. I used to practice lucid dreaming back in the day, so my dreams are usually very vivid and very weird. This feels like one of those dreams. Not gonna lie, if I were a game publisher and some guys ran into my office, waving a desdoc in front of my face while screaming that they've got the best idea in the world, I would probably get security or a loony bin. But after I would actually read it, I would throw my money into them and ask them to create a game that would be released to mixed reviews, fall into obscurity after a questionable sequel, get not 1, not 2, but 3 shitty movies made based on it, obtain a cult classic for a small group of people, and then get resurfaced so that people can say, "Hey, I remember that game. 2002 was wild, man." And that game is, of course, BloodRayne.
Before making BloodRayne, Terminal Reality had already had six years of experience developing videogames. Which was mostly flying simulators and racing games. Before dipping their toes into the horror genre with Nocturne in 1999 and Blair Witch in 2000. Pretty much everyone was praising those games for their atmosphere and story, calling them one of the scariest games they have ever played. But both were heavily criticized for their controls and cameras. Which is unfortunate because combat is not something you can ignore in those games. I have a feeling that it is almost a requirement for a survival horror game to have bad controls. Nocturne was actually awarded multiple times for being one of the best-looking games of '99, and, according to Terminal Reality itself, it became a cult classic already on release. Since it was really demanding on your computer, I have no idea how many people actually played it. There were talks about a comic being made based on it and a movie, and they even began making a sequel, but it seems like it didn't go anywhere. A fun fact about the unreleased Nocturne movie is that it was supposed to be made by Collision Entertainment, who are famous for their horrendous Max Payne adaptation. Collision supposedly also had rights for the American McGee's Alice. With how Max Payne turned out to be, I think it's safe to say that it might've been for the best that we didn't see those two being made.
Opinions were different, but most people agreed on certain things: they said that it was too cliche and heavily used other IPs like Blade, The Matrix, Indiana Jones, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein; there was not enough variety in level design, which was also confusing sometimes; it was very demanding on your PC, so framerate would drop often; controls and camera were sloppy; audio for the dialogues were horribly recorded; animations are atrocious, etc.
But most agreed that the sexiness of Rayne and her over-the-top bloody action were fun. Even though the action system is not the best.
So yeah, actually, that fever dream of a premise is true. We play as Rayne, a half-vampire on the hunt for her father. Who did... something? Don't worry, he's not important. They only mention him in the opening and closing cinematics. There, she is minding her own business when she gets an invitation to the Brimstone Society. What is Brimstone society? They don't really explain it, and my best guess is that they are a secret organization dealing with the occult and paranormal.
They pair us up with Lucy Liu—I mean, Mynce—and send us to the asscrack of this world, Louisiana. Mynce is our vampire teacher and mentor, who will be assisting us on this mission. She is basically a walking encyclopedia, telling us which buttons to press, where to go, and what to do. It serves as a tutorial level in a way, except you can actually choose to play a tutorial level in the main menu, so I don't know. Basically, there are some huge man-eating spiders terrorizing the villagers, and we have to investigate it, save the citizens, stop the spread, and don't let it get out of the village walls. We go around doing such when we learn that there was a Nazi officer talking to a local Voodoo priestess here about doing a ritual of some sort. That ritual is awakening the queen of the underworld. Who might it be if, at the whole level, we were dealing with huge spiders? Yes, my friends, your guess is correct—an even bigger spider. We quickly spray it with bug repellent, and it goes back to where it came from. We find that it is somehow growing ribs and decide to put one inside of us when the main villain appears—Adolf Hit—Yurgen Wolf, actually. He says that he is a collector of such things and takes them away from us, and the level thankfully ends.
So the goal of our game is as follows: Jurgen Wolf is the founder and commanding officer of a G.G.G. - gegengeist (anti-ghost) group. They are all genetically enhanced and modified soldiers whose goal is to find and collect demonic artifacts to help Hitler win the war. Our mission, on the other hand, is to find and kill them all. They give us a list of like 15 of those guys (plus 15 more later) and send us to the coast of Argentina. Now, you might be asking: "Will all of those guys be a separate boss fights?". Well, kind of. All their genetic enchancing means they can block our attacks. That's it. But there are some officers who you can call real bosses, and the cast is quite colorful as well. We've got (play the "Friends" music):
Von Blut, a Thulean priest who rides his armored preaching podium with a mounted machine gun on it;
Kommando, a mysterious, silent, or just mute guy who thows flashbangs and teleports all over the arena;
Bathory Mengele, the butcheress and direct descendent of Elizabeth Bathory;
D. Mauler, a cybernetically enhanced big muscular dude with swastica tattoos all over his body;
G. Gosler, the mecha unit commander;
The Doppelganger twins, who feel each other's pain,
Jurgen Wolf is the supreme commander himself.
And shoutout to my boy, Hedrox. He's the infinite vampire, not the G.G.G. member, but he's cool as hell.
So what are those artifacts they are hunting for? Basically, there was this guy called Beliar who was the ruler of the Atlantis, which is, according to Von Blut, the superior and Aryan race. Some people believe that he is THE devil, and after Lucifer was exiled from the sky, they had a fight, but Beliar is basically immortal, so Lucifer had to rip him into a thousand pieces and scatter them all over the world. Naturally. So G.G.G. is looking for his pieces. They've already got his eyes, teeth, and hand. Brimstone is afraid that if they find his black, seething heart, he will be awakened, and we will all have a bad time.
Of course, digging the artifacts means that foolish mortals dug too deep and found something that they shouldn't have found, and you know where this is going.
There are basically only 3 big locations in this game (excluding Louisiana): the military base in Argentina, the mines, and the castle in Germany. In 90% of the game, you are locating and eliminating your targets. Sometimes you will need to find a keycard or some explosives to clear the passage to your next target. You will be seeing the same interiors and fighting the same type of enemies. So there are not a lot of original situations over here. Except for once, where the game lets you control a giant machine-gun-shooting, grenade-throwing, rocket-launching mecha. And it sucks and is the worst part of the game arguably. This thing controls horribly, and of course you would have to try it yourself to understand it, but trust me on this one. You get attacked constantly by other mechas, almost without any means of defending yourself. You can try hiding behind columns, but they will be demolished by the enemy's projectiles rather quickly. And don't forget that you have no means of healing yourself. What were you planning to drink inside a mecha? Machine oil? So all you have to do is pray and hope that you can do more damage to them than they can do to you. Oh, and there will be plenty of stiff platforming, and it is also not the best. Rayne's jumps are so high and far that you will have hard times measuring them, and more often than not, you will be over- or undershooting your marks. Still, the game is rather short, so you will not get tired of the core gameplay, and that's a good thing. The game knows that it doesn't have much to offer, so its length is perfect.
Louisiana is actually not that bad in terms of the atmosphere: bayou in the middle of the Voodoo Creole country, local citizens are turning into hideous zombies, fog everywhere, empty churches and cemeteries—it works quite well, actually. Of course, you will never be scared in this game because you can kill literally anything, and nothing causes any threat to you (except maybe rocket launchers). But sometimes it is very relaxing to just stop at the top of some old building, catch your breath, and watch at how a mutated villager is shooting his double-barelled shotgun at a humongous man-eating spider.
Argentina is fairly plain. It's just a huge bunker, basically. Grey corridors, barracks, werehouses, garages, and rooms with Nazi symbols and posters everywhere. It's all very industrial, and you will be hearing Rayne's metal spike shoe heels clank on the metal surface all the time. Some of the corridors look almost identical, and you will be questioning whether you are going in the right direction or not from time to time.
Castle is like my personal Bermuda Triangle; I've beaten this game, like, six times, and each time I manage to get lost in that place. This time wasn't an exception, but I did remember one part that was causing me the most trouble back when I was much younger and much thinner. It's not really a castle; it's more like castle ruins, so a lot of the doors are locked or blocked by rocks and wooden planks, so you will have to find a way around it or find a hole in the ceiling to get to your targets. But it's a good change to be in the fresh air, painting peacefully falling snow with the blood of your enemies.
Most of the time, you will be hearing some edm playing in the background or a subtle ambient, but it will be so low that all you will be hearing are Rayne's footsteps, the screams of your enemies, and the slashing of your blades. Although sometimes Rayne will spout some one-liners, her voice is actually great. Laura Bailey did a fantastic job. She gave me the impression that she knows how powerful and beautiful she is, so she can play with you, like a cat plays with its prey before the kill. She is very confident, sarcastic in a way, and even indifferent sometimes. You are way out of her league, and she will show you that with her voice, but she will be sweet with you just enough so that you get an idea to try and chase after her. Although her human nature can show at moments when something unordinary (by this game's standards) happens and emotions take over her tranquil nature,.
Overall, the atmosphere reminds me of some grindhouse movies. Sexy main character, tons of blood, tons of violence, over-the-top action, and character design. You don't expect to have a great story or some eye-opening, mind-bending, reality-transcending experience, no. You are expecting to have fun, and I did have a lot of fun playing it.
The combat system is as simple as a cucumber: one button for attacking, one button for shooting, one button for feeding, one button for jumping, and one button for harpooning. That's it. Well, there are some buttons to activate different things, but a bit later. Now, a lot of people may be concerned: "Why is there only one attack button in an action game?". Do you need more? You won't be juggling enemies in the air, switching styles, and combining weapon attacks over here. The combat is all about the damage system. Yes, that's right—your blades do physical damage to the enemy. Let me explain. The most basic attack can either do nothing or take a limb from your opponent. As you go through the game, with each boss you kill, you unlock new attacks, each more devastating than the last. So soon you will reign hell on your enemies, cutting off their hands, arms, heads, scalps, torsos, or everything else at the same time. There is a problem with the one-button system, though. You cannot really predict which attack will come next, and some animations take a long time to play—2–3 seconds sometimes. And it is annoying, especially when you only need a quick little cut to kill.
The damage model is impressive for its time, and it makes BloodRayne one of the bloodiest games that I've ever played. C'mon, the word blood is literally in the title. The damage does not only apply to human (and non-human) enemies but also to the environment itself. There are a bunch of destructible objects around you, mostly made of wood, such as tables, desks, chairs, boards, and crates. So when you are in the middle of the fight, everything gets blown into pieces.
Enemies are not the brightest ones, but they feel human. They can get scared if they see you do something gory; try to run away from you if they are low on health; and call a medic if you chop something off of them. A lot of enemies are wearing helmets, so when a hit chops someone's head off, it will take off the helmet, making the owner of it stand in disbelief. Until you take his head off with the next hit. Some enemies even fight each other, giving you some time to breathe while admiring the view. Anyway, just treat them as walking health potions that decided to riot against you. Sometimes it's much easier to just press one button and drink all the blood until the guy is dead rather than running around or after him trying to slice a piece of his ass. There's also a nice detail: the more damage you inflict on the enemy, the less of his blood you can drink.
The nature of the combat system makes the game very unpredictable and chaotic. You cannot plan your next encounter because you do not know how many hits it will take to kill the first enemy before you run towards the other one. So to be good at this game, you need not to think. Sounds paradoxical. What I mean is: don't try and think about a plan or how to maneuver around in order to take down the enemies; just run into the room, turn your worries off, and just do it. Adapt to whatever is happening currently and make the best of your situation.
And this will make you want to take a breather sometimes. The game is very fast. Rayne runs around like crazy and jumps like she's on a trampoline. I cannot remember if it was in the original game, but now there is an option to disable always running. Actual enemies cannot keep up with her. It is so easy to just run around them, avoiding any actual damage. More often than not, my tactics would be getting behind the enemy's back and just staying there, taking cheap shots at them. What helps with Rayne's F1 car speed is the bullet time you get right at the beginning of the second act. Back then, I would never turn it off and run around mesmerized by the blood drops gracefully flying through the air. Playing on hard these days, I found it used in a more practical way. Sometimes there are just way too many bullets flying around your head for you not to take any damage, and bullet time becomes a must. So most of the fights will follow either of these two scenarios: 1) you activate bullet time and get behind your enemy's back, or 2) you activate blood rage.
Ah, yes, the blood rage. You can also call it the "Screw Everything" mode because once you activate it, nothing leaves alive or in one piece. It doesn't matter if you can or cannot block, if you are a Nazi officer, a big mutant spider, or a vampire—all are equal in front of two big, sharp blades. Blood rage alters your attack animations and buffs the damage and probability of you cutting something off of your enemies. In fact, the buff is so strong that you will have a harder time not dividing your enemies by zero. Very useful, very pretty, very bloody—great. There's also something called a rage attack, where you press the blood rage button and attack button, and Rayne performs a powerful attack by consuming your rage meter. I have never used it and have not experienced any troubles because of it. I swear, after all these years, I do not even know how the animations for these attacks look.
There's also a harpoon, which can only be used for one thing: getting your target over here and sucking his blood. It's not a weapon. Most of the time, it's useless because, as I've said, Rayne is so fast that it is actually quicker to just run to your enemy than to wait for the harpoon animation to play. In the middle of the game, you will learn how to use the harpoon mid-air, which is also absolutely useless.
And the last (I promise) useless thing in this game is the sniper mode. In the last act of the game, you will learn how to use Beliar's eye for manual aiming, and it destroys the shooting system completely. Basically, Rayne shoots weapons akimbo style, and you can choose what she will use: light weapons like pistols and SMGs, heavy weapons like machine guns, grenades, or special weapons like shotguns, heavy rifles, and LMGs. For every single one of them, she will auto-aim at your enemies. And sniper mode doesn't auto-aim. So it is useless.
As you can see, the combat system is there. That's the best way I can describe it. It is unique, no doubt, and I bet it would not work in other games, but here somehow it feels authentic and in the right place.
That's the best way to describe this game, actually. Authentic. Everything, every single little detail here, feels in the right place, no matter how broken or useless it may seem. Nothing is out of style or out of line, or you feel like it needs to be removed. Everything is in the right place, even if something doesn't seem to be doing anything. It is a small part of this huge thing called BloodRayne.
I have no idea why I like it so much. There's something about it. It's soulful. You can see in every pixel that the authors enjoyed working on this game and wanted to make it as good as they could deliver to people and to the fans. And they did. In a way, BloodRayne is a perfect game. It doesn't falsely advertise anything to you. Rayne is very simple—you get what you see. It knows what it is trying to do and does it well. It's one of the games that definitely shaped me as a gamer back in 2004, and 20 years later, I'm happy to say that it still holds up, still warms my heart, and still makes me enjoy gaming as a whole. Some people will look at it and think of it as junk, not worth anything, but others will think of it as a real treasure, a reminder of simpler times. When game studios were not afraid of experimenting, they were not afraid to try something new, to develop and improve their own game engines, and to work with what they felt comfortable with. Games were then created by fans and enthusiasts and were treated as passion projects, not by guys in suits sitting in a conference room thinking about what would bring them the most money, how not to get cancelled, what minority group to add to show that you are inclusive, and thinking about their fans at the very end. You are not fans of them; you are consumers. They don't want to please and satisfy you; they want your money. And anything made for money loses its soul. BloodRayne should always be an example of how following your vision can create something magical. Just because it doesn't appeal to a wider audience doesn't make it bad. It managed to captivate me and transfer me into its world, making me almost forget about everything else. And that's worth a lot. I wish more games were like this: simple, open, and honest. It was created just for one thing: to entertain. Because that's what videogames are supposed to do. And it does it exceptionally well.
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