BloodRayne 2

The good: interesting story
The bad: less focus on gunplay
The first Rayne pitched the titular character against hordes of Nazi henchmen and vampiric enemies in an effort to stop vampires from reigning dominion over men. You spent equal combat time using your blades and various World War era guns to lay waste to your enemies. The sequel continues the interesting storyline (this time she's hunting for her vampire siblings) but ditches (in a way) the gunplay.

Instead of the assortment of guns that you picked up everywhere in the first game, you'll only have access to one gun - dragon pistols - which will be upgraded with various mystical attachments as you progress through the game. The dual pistols effectively serve as normal pistols, machine guns, shotguns, rocket launchers depending on which ammo type you choose. The problem is that ammo is counted as a blood reserve which can be replenished by feeding on enemies. When you run out of reserves, the gun drains from your health to fire.

Since much of the first half is littered with only pathetically weak enemies, most of which can be killed just by feeding on them and executing one of several feeding fatalities, there's very little use for your pistols. In fact, standard swordplay is also rare because harpooning enemies into environmental hazards is far quicker and more fun. Speaking of harpooning, the game relies too much on harpoon puzzles where you have to harpoon several enemies on an obstacle to progress like when the still spinning rotor blades of a downed chopper is blocking your path. And while its fun for the first few times, it just becomes plain annoying when you have to do it in almost every level.

Level design doesn't help matters any - their generic (how many sewer levels do we need?), devoid of innovation and repetitive. For example, in one level I've lost count of just how many lifts I took in order to get to the top. Graphics are also a downer because they're only technically decent and aesthetically quite ugly.

But that's not to say that the game is horrible; far from it in fact. Boss battles are great requiring use of your vampire abilities (which you'll rarely use in standard levels), and the second half of the game dishes harder and more interesting enemies like ninja vampires. Its too bad that just as you're starting to get immersed in the story and gameplay, the game ends abrubtly at only around 7 hours. (3/5)