Vampire Rain (Xbox 360)

CNET editors' rating: 1.5 stars Poor
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Overall score: 3.5 (1.5 stars)
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Gamespot editors' review

• Reviewed by: Brett Todd
• Reviewed on: 07/23/2007
• Released on: 07/03/2007

Playing Splinter Cell with vampires isn't as cool in reality as it is on paper. Despite an absolutely fantastic concept that transforms Sam Fisher's spies and saboteurs into postmodern bloodsuckers called Nightwalkers, insta-death difficulty and confusing level design make Vampire Rain nearly unplayable. Developer Artoon hits some high notes with guts and gore, but the frustration factor kills whatever pluses the game has going for it.

About the only good thing about this game is that it doesn't waste your time; it broadcasts its awfulness right from the very start. The campaign story tells the ludicrous tale of John Lloyd, member of a team of plucky commandos fighting a secret war against vampires that are somehow taking over America and will outnumber regular citizens with pulses in precisely 908 days (vampires must be really good at mailing in their census forms). It's never explained exactly how this is happening, though. Even though the game is loaded with nonstop cutscenes, virtually all of the leaden, comic-book exposition is devoted to the repetitive explanation of mundane mission goals. Average folks are still walking the streets at night without a care in the world, too, so it's tough to worry about the undead swarming in to take American jobs or whatever.

Aside from some gory moments like this innovative use of a stop sign, there isn't much horror in Vampire Rain.

Even with the vampire plague left unexplained, Artoon could still have built a creepy atmosphere. You don't need context to send chills up spines when hunting vampires in the dark, after all. But the developer doesn't do anything with the horror-movie vibe aside from throwing in the odd cutscene featuring a--wait for it--creepy little girl with stringy hair and buckets of gore (including one memorable moment where you discover that a few of your buddies have been turned into bloody performance art courtesy of some stop-sign poles). Lloyd looks exactly like Sam Fisher, right down to his black spandex Underoos and night-vision goggles. Mission objectives are straight from the Third Echelon playbook. You get a lot of high-tech scavenger hunts in alleys, office buildings, underground parking garages, and warehouses, and goals like taking down cell-phone towers, recovering electronic data, and shooting baddies with sniper rifles.

So aside from fanged foes ripping your throat out when you lose, there aren't any serious differences between Vampire Rain and a typical espionage-style sneaker. Gameplay certainly mirrors Splinter Cell and its clones. The basic structure of the game is identical in that you creep through alleyways, climb ladders, slide down wires and poles, and do all sorts of odd creeping around in a desperate attempt to avoid the vision cones of patrolling bad guys displayed on your minimap. Still, this isn't exactly a by the numbers stealth game, as Artoon introduces new ideas in almost every area, all of which do nothing but mess up what should have been a pretty straightforward game design.

First of all, Nightwalker vision cones are only a rough approximation of what the beasties can actually see. This seems realistic, as the distance is never beyond the realm of possibility and the vampires do have to be looking right at you. Shadows are more authentic zones of darkness here, not the magic cloaking fields seen in the Splinter Cell and Thief games. A good rule of thumb is that if you can see them, they can see you, which seems pretty fair. But even though you get used to this over time, not being able to trust the vision cones forces you into a lot of tedious trial and error, as you never know what you can get away with. Sometimes you'll go to great lengths to get around a sentry that you're positive will be able to easily spot you, only to eventually give up on alternate routes and discover that you can dart around it unseen. Other times you'll try to walk by a guard well out of his range of sight and be picked up immediately. To make everything even more annoying, you can't even activate vision cones on your minimap without identifying passersby as bloodsuckers with the necroscope function of your goggles.

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• 1.5 stars

  "Truly crappy in all respects"

  by kenmil01 on May 17, 2008

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