By Kevin "Berserker" Hall
Player(s): 1 (up to 8 online)
Memory: 3801MB (game installation)
HD input support: 480p, 720p
Vampire Rain is a horror stealth title that places you in the role of John
Lloyd, MGS 1 Solid Snake lookalike and member of a special combat unit known as
the Nightwalker Elimination Squad. Basically the nightwalker (vampire)
population is about to take over and, under the cover of rain (because rain
clouds a nightwalker's senses), the squad is sent in to a west coast city to
wipe out all nightwalkers before they get the upper hand on the human
population. If you've been scanning the reviews on gamerankings.com or
gamestats.com then you're likely familiar with the bad reviews that the original
Vampire Rain received when it was originally released on Xbox 360. The game felt
like an overall mediocre stealth title to me, but I found some amusement in
Vampire Rain: Altered Species that kept me hooked throughout the game.
The mandatory game install takes about 20 to 30 minutes upon starting up the
game for the first time. The gameplay is primarily based on stealth. Many of the
sneaking missions are found early in the game but more variety is added with the
better guns that your character gets later in the game. The early sneaking
missions are limited to staying out of the viewpoint of nightwalkers while you
work your way on a linear path. There is some slight exploration in each level
but for the most part the game limits your movement through the use of invisible
walls. Invisible walls will keep your character confined to a certain area until
an objective is fully complete, then you might have to backtrack or proceed
forward past the area that was previously off limits.
Nightwalkers are given viewpoint cones on your radar much like Metal Gear
Solid once you look at them for a few seconds through the use of "Necrovision".
Necrovision allows you to tell the difference between the different types of
nightwalker and normal humans based on the glowing color that appears over them
while this mode is activated. You'll be constantly switching back and forth
between Necrovision and normal view to search for a nightwalker's location. The
viewpoints are not always exact - sometimes nightwalkers can see well beyond
their normal viewpoint as displayed on the map, so you'll always have to
cautiously watch out for the vampire eyes that appear on the screen that signal
your character is in their line of vision.
Nightwalkers appears as normal humans and don't immediately attack once
you're in their sight, but after you have stayed in their line of vision for too
long they will literally vamp-out and toward your character with tremendous
aggression that is hard to fight back against. I found the enemy aggression
frustrating thanks to the limited firepower and ammo in the earlier levels.
Later levels provide the means to fight back a bit better, but earlier stages
basically equal death once you've been spotted. The nightwalker darts toward
your character then kills him with two slashes and then you're treated to a
death sequence of them feeding on your character. Oh, you'll see the death
animation quite a bunch until you learn the location of certain nightwalkers in
a mission. The constant deaths can be aggravating at first, but I basically got
used to them after progressing further through the game. Sometimes even when you
do have the ammo to take them down, a nightwalker can still get the best of you
because of their sheer speed though.
In order to make it through each level, you'll have to find the perfect path
that will to slip by the viewpoints of all the nightwalkers, which usually means
finding a nearby pole or ladder and descending a building. Once you realize the
correct route to take it is all a matter of working your way to the next
checkpoint. One of your squad buddies always contacts you if you happen to go
beyond the mission boundaries, which can get annoying when the mission boundary
is so very close to the actual destination - in a case such as this, you're just
not going the planned route. It's as if the game is telling you, "How dare you
explore!"
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