Bloodrayne Betrayal
Developer: Abstraction Games
Publisher: Midnight City, Mejesco Entertainment
Rrp: £6.99 (Steam), £6.99 (Gog.com), £7.49 (Humblebundle)
Released: 30th April 2014
Available on: Steam, Humblebundle, Gog.com
Played using: An Xbox 360 controller
I just want to preface this review with a statement; I have not played the original Bloodrayne games, so any opinions I have regarding this game have nothing to do any experience of the others. In fact I wouldn’t know of the rest of the previous games if I hadn’t had seen the box art for one of them once in a shop.
Bloodrayne Betrayal is a 2D side scrolling brawler that has some environmental puzzles thrown in for good measure. You play as Rayne, a dhampir (a creature who is a child of a vampire and a human) who has been hired by a vampire hunting agency to crash a ball at a vampires castle.
As you may be able to see from the screenshots, this game has a cartoony art style for the characters but keeps the backgrounds relatively dull looking (although not always).The animation of the characters is fantastic, being highly detailed and very smooth, because of this the combat is a joy to behold, in a gory kind of way. I died quite a few times I died because I was so transfixed by the quality of the animation.
The combat has a fairly varied array of attack combinations which is surprising considering that the attack button is literally that, one button, everything else is down to how you use the analogue stick and jump functions. Actually that’s not true, there is another attack button but I found I used it extremely rarely, you can shoot a pistol with the [right trigger]. This attack is extremely powerful but has quite limited ammunition.
If you want to survive any real length of time in combat, especially in the boss battles, you’ll need to use the dash ability. While dashing Rayne is essentially invulnerable, it only lasts a short distance though so you’ll need to spot your openings carefully.
At first I found the controls felt unresponsive, but I quickly discovered that it wasn’t the controls to blame but my reaction time, I was responding too slowly. Once I realised this and became a little more practiced I found that the controls were actually extremely tight. If I have a flaw with them it might be that they’re too tight to the point of being somewhat unforgiving.
The game uses a checkpoint system in the form of blood fountains. One thing that I love is that if you die and get respawned you see Rayne just sitting nonchalantly drinking blood from a tea cup.
Within each level there are the red skulls of ancient vampires to collect, I believe it’s four for each chapter. Collecting enough of these skulls will grant a choice of two upgrades to Rayne, those being an increase to maximum health or the ability to hold more bullets. Of course these skulls are usually pretty tricky to get, but isn’t that always the way?
Once you’ve completed a chapter you’re given a letter graded rating based on your performance, secret finding and completion time. I rarely ever got beyond the lowest score but I am really bad at these games.
Is it worth looking into? I’d say yes, it’s a fun brawler doesn’t take too long to compete but also has a decent amount of challenge so there’s plenty of replayibility, especially if you like trying to beat your own scores.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
Freedom Planet
Shank
Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams
