Vampire's Rain

Vampire Rain has to be one of the most under appreciated games on the Xbox 360. For what it is, it's a stealth-based game, and a rather enjoyable one at that. Although I wouldn't quite rank it up as high as Metal Gear Solid 1, it's still a fun game to play, and if you're really into stealth-based games, you'll really be able to sink your teeth into this one. However, if you're not into stealth games, I still recommend giving this a chance. The controls and gameplay may feel weird at first, but after some time, you'll adjust. I know because aside from the first three Metal Gear Solid games, I haven't played too many stealth games. It took a couple of missions and about 20 or so deaths per level to get adjusted to the style and I ended up having a blast with it! Among awesome gameplay and fluid controls, the graphics look gritty and the soundtrack accompanies it very well, being all eerie and such. Obviously, the paid reviewers and the sheeple would disagree, but I say screw them, they don't know much about fun (they'd rather play Final Fantasy VII over Legend Of Legaia, 'nuff said). In short, Vampire Rain is a cleverly designed game with very few flaws.

The plot of Vampire Rain is that civilians are mysteriously disappearing because vampires (or Nightwalkers) are abducting them. The American Information Bureau raises a black ops special forces unit which is deployed to the streets of Los Angeles, California, where it was raining, because apparently, rain hampers the Nightwalkers' vampiric abilities. It starts out like your typical survival horror storyline, but after a bit, it turns out that the Nightwalkers are looking for their genesis while biting humans, while the American Information Bureau try to create a war between humans and Nightwalkers. Unfortunately, the game takes it time to reveal the saucier portion of the plotline, so if you're someone who gets his/her first impression from the first few minutes of gameplay, you're not going to be pleased. I advise you play further and further, just to get some satisfaction out of it. It's full of tension, suspense, murder and some sweet vampire action; you'd be missing out on a lot if you don't play past the first few minutes.

Now, if you already got the impression that this is basically Splinter Cell with vampires, you're half right. Yes, it's a stealth-based game involving weaponry in a dark setting. But there aren't a whole lot of moments where you can go batshit crazy with a machine gun and expect to get anywhere. You know what the kicker of this is? Vampire Rain... is mostly stealth driven. You heard me right; you'll be sneaking around much more than you would be shooting up the place, otherwise, you will get raped very, very quickly by Nightwalkers. Using the elements and any objects around you at your disposal, you'll need to sneak past the Nightwalkers, or else, you'll be killed, as one or two hits will kill you. This game doesn't *bleep* around. Either master these skills, or get left behind.

To begin explaining the gameplay without having the masses scream in agony "no your wrong", the stealth-driven gameplay keeps it as such throughout... Well, the entire game, unless you have a certain gun or you're with your team of fighters. If you're alone without a shotgun, you're going to have to find ways to avoid Nightwalkers. This means having to find alternate paths to get to Point B than the one that is laid out in front of you. In other words, you're required to think outside the box, which indicates clever design that requires experimentation in order to find. And by alternate paths, I do mean find alternate paths. If you run into any Nightcrawlers, there is no chance to hide from them, as they will hunt you down, kill you, rape you and use your head as a trophy.

You'll be doing everything this game has to offer you in a city, which has been designed beautifully. Many things in a city you'd think of using as a means of transportation, you can use in this game. Things like climbing rooftops, sliding down ziplines and other stuff, it's all here! You even climb ladders and stuff! Another clever design that gets put is the fact that, although you think you're safe climbing up that ladder or going down that zipline, once you get to the end... BAM! CLAWED! That's when you look around the city for an alternate route in order to clear the mission. The game has a whole trial-and-error feel to it, like if you take a wrong path or go the right way at the wrong time, you're dead, and I like that in a game.

So... yeah, the AI has intelligence. Just enough to spot you, chase you and kill you. In a fight, they're...kind of fun to fight. If you're without a weapon, you're screwed, you may as well let that Nightwalker suck your blood and wear your skin! With a gun, however...oh yes, they do fight back, and it takes a decent amount of bullets to the vampiric skull to kill them, depending on what weapon you have. In other words, the Nightwalkers' AI is intelligent enough to be a big threat. But what of your squad? Well, they're about the same. They are intelligent enough to fight off Nightwalkers.

So what about the weapons themselves? You have a nice array of weapons, like pistols, sub-machine guns, high-powered rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles and an ultra violet knife. The variety isn't huge, but it's enough to keep you shooting, provided its a good time to do such. It is unwise to go around, shooting Nightwalkers close up with a pistol, especially since a hit or two is instant death on your part. Unless you have a shotgun, you're better off doing this from a distance. Now, you can keep guessing what the best weapon is, but you're probably wrong. Surprisingly enough (or not surprisingly, who knows), the knife is the strongest, as one stab of this towards any Nightcrawler will kill it instantly. Hey, it's ultra violet, it comes from the sun, Nightcrawlers are a species of vampire, and vampires hate the sun, what would you expect? The vampires from Twilight? I don't think so!

Now, you're probably thinking "hey theres no vampires, VERGIL YOU LIED TO ME!" Relax. The game gives you some device known as Necrovision, which allows you to scan for Nightcrawlers within ordinary people...yes, the Nightcrawlers assume the form of humans.. This is kind of clever, except for the fact that there aren't that many humans out there who aren't a part of your squad. But hey, now I'm nitpicking, but you know what? I love this game, what do you expect?

Progression through the game comes in via missions which you must complete in order to allow the story to progress. Missions will range from killing vampires to getting to certain places, but ultimately, you're just going from Point A to Point B, which is nice. An open-ended sort would be awesome, but I don't mind this setup either, as stealth games of this caliber would just get frustrating for the average gamer if the paths were open-ended. Yes, you are taking alternate paths in order to accomplish your missions (and avoid getting killed), allowing for some more trial-and-error and forcing some memorization, but in the end, it all feels natural. And hey, if you want to increase replay value, then listen up - there are ranks you get for performance in a mission. They range from S, A, B, C and D, with S being the best and D being the worst. If you want a sense of accomplishment, you'd go and S rank all of the missions!

As far as the controls go, they are absolutely brilliant, though it takes some time to get used to the button layout. Once you have the button layout in the back of your mind, you'll realize just how smooth these controls are and how awesome they feel. Some aspects are a little questionable, such as when you're trying to jump across a ledge, yet you're hanging off that ledge. Well, when you get close to a ledge, the game automatically has the guy dropping down to hang on to that ledge. I guess this is supposed to make edge-shimmying easier and hassle-free, but now the jumping has a few hiccups. Oh well. As for the camera controls, even they are good. About 75% of third person shooters (whether they involve stealth or not) have a fairly bad cameraman, like a gorilla was operating the camera. In Vampire Rain, we have a competent cameraman, and he controls well enough.

In short, the game plays and controls very well. The only problem (or is it?) I see is that run of the mill gamers and people who aren't all that familiar with stealth games will feel a little strange when the guns aren't killing the enemy, or when the enemy totally dominates us. It takes time to get used to. The difficulty is fairly high, too. But here's the bullshit part - there are moments in the game that feel cheap, as opposed to just difficult. Remember when I said it requires trial-and-error? Trust me, there's going to be a fair amount of times where that is a requirement, and memorisation too. I wouldn't mind if it was challenging, but having to die just because we didn't know what was coming and only having about a second (or not even that) to respond... Damn, that's cheap!

You know what else is cheap? Graphics texture and voice acting budget. The graphics (as far as the game's textures go anyway) look like something out of a 2002 PS2 title. There are objects which lack textures and don't feel all too gritty at all. Hell, some buildings lack texture! However, I will go as far as saying that everything else looks rather nice. The aura effect may be done to death, but it still looks awesome, especially around the Nightwalkers. The character models look decent. Whether it be up close or from afar, they look decently detailed and like they should, so..I dunno, more power to them I guess. But the part that stands out has to be the rain effects, which is probably where all the texture budget went, as the rain itself looks so intricately detailed, while it feels and looks awesome (and realistic) when it hits the characters! So.. A mixed bag, really.

What of the audio aspect of the game? Two things stand out here - the eerie atmospheric soundtrack, and the cruddy voice acting. While the soundtrack gives off a sort of scary vibe through the use of ambiance, it still sounds really cool and stands as one of the better horror-themed soundtracks used in a game. However, it's about as good as the voice acting is bad. This isn't campy bad either; this is just bad. Not quite "I want to rip my ears out" bad, more below-average, but bordering on bad. I've heard much worse voice acting *coughjetthehawkcough*, but I couldn't stand to hear them after some time, and these guys, at times, just don't shut up. At times, they don't talk, they just focus on the mission and speak maybe once in a while, and then you have the torture moments, where they won't shut up! But as I said, there is worse voice acting out there *cough4kidsrougethebatcough*, so let's move on.

All in all, Vampire Rain deserves none of the hate that it got. It's a perfectly fine stealth-based third person shooter (or TPS-based stealth game if you want to be specific) that is worth playing through. If you're the sort of person who expects Doom, you may want to just rent this, read the instruction manual and start playing. However, if you want a good stealth fix and/or enjoy stealth games, then I see no reason why this isn't in your gaming library, unless you don't own a 360 or PS3. With a mix of harsh difficulty and grand gameplay execution, among some tight controls, above-average graphics, awesome soundtrack and below-average voice acting, you should be able to enjoy this game without many problems.