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| By Brad Cook A young couple runs along a cobble street, fear in their eyes. A rope whips out of a dark alley, snares the man around the neck, and pulls him into blackness, where he meets a gruesome fate. Then a woman with fire-red hair and two long, blood-stained blades on her arms steps out of the alley. She walks toward the terrified girl, who drops to her knees. Suddenly, the girl raises her head and exposes a pair of fangs, revealing her true nature; she lunges at the woman, who fends her off and skewers her with a blade. |
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 Midnight Snack. Rayne enjoys the taste of blood, and a good feeding fortifies her health meter. |
Two purple-cloaked representatives from the secretive Brimstone Society watch the events unfold, and we learn that the woman is Rayne, the hero of our story. She’s a dhampir (half human, half vampire), and one of the mysterious watchers wants her to join the society, despite the other’s reservations. Eventually the dissenter accedes and the two slip away, leaving behind a talisman that tells Rayne she has been accepted into the order.
You Go, Girl. Rayne gets aggressive.
Fast-forward several years to 1933 and a swamp in Louisiana. Rayne is on her first assignment for the Brimstone Society with her mentor, Mynce, and we learn that she’s been hired to help rid the world of supernatural threats. A town has been overrun by an evil force that is turning the residents into shambling monsters, and Rayne and Mynce must discover what is behind it.
But just like you couldn’t assume she was evil simply because she attacked that cowering couple, you also can’t assume that she’s completely good simply because she protects people from those who wish to harm them.
Look Closer
“Let’s just say that Rayne is doing good for the world, but she isn’t a particularly good person,” explains Brett Evan Russell, vice-president at developer Terminal Reality. “She really isn’t a true anti-hero, though; she falls into a class of her own.”
While it does feature some common trappings of the action genre — vampires, undead monsters, and Nazis (in this case, a fictitious subset of the Nazis called Gegengeist Gruppe) — BloodRayne also offers up some unique features, such as the absence of health packs, different ways for Rayne to see the world around her, and enhanced abilities that go beyond what other games use.
Play It Your Way
Instead of picking up the ubiquitous health packs that are scattered around most games like candy, Rayne simply feeds on a victim to replenish her life meter. She can also use this method to kill the bad guys.
Under Cover of Night. Graveyards full of monsters don’t bother Rayne.
“Jumping on a soldier in dilated perception and watching him scream as you kill him by sucking his blood is a blast,” says Russell. “I love doing that.
“There was some concern about not allowing the player to do it, but we fell back on ‘Let them do it if they want.’ Personally, when I play the game I try not to use the weapons at all. I suck their blood or slice and dice them with the blades.”
Dilated perception? It’s an ability similar to the Matrix-like bullet time found in the game Max Payne, except that Rayne can use dilated perception as much as she wants once she masters it. The skill allows her to process visual information so quickly that she can seemingly slow down time and dodge bullets or other things.
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“A concern I had when we were talking about dilated perception is that it would let the player ‘cheat,’” explains Russell. “The reality is that it helps under some circumstances but you won’t want to use it all the time.
“I’m also all about the player doing what he wants to do. He paid for the game, so he should play it the way he wants to. I’m a big gamer myself and there’s nothing more frustrating than when a game introduces an artificial restraint that is obviously just something the designer didn’t want me to do, rather than what I found to be fun.”
Action and a Good Story
Rayne also learns how to use her aura sense and her extruded view as the storyline progresses. The former lets her see the aura around her foes and determine how healthy they are; she can also use it to see through walls. The latter acts like binoculars.
Flip Kick. Rayne is equally adept at disposing of the bad guys with her arms and legs.
When Rayne battles the bad guys, she can do more than suck their blood or shoot them with the guns that she finds. She has those vicious blades attached to her arms, and she also has a throwing knife attached to a chain that she can use to impale a foe and pull it close to her.
As she uses her blades, she builds up something called Blood Rage. When it maxes out, you can activate it and send Rayne into a berserker frenzy that decimates all enemies in her path.
Mechanized Horrors. Not all of Rayne’s foes are of the undead variety.
“We know that gamers not only expect but demand a good story,” he says. “Trying not to give away too much of the plot, I can say that there are double agents, ancient artifacts with mystical powers, ancient demons who get summoned, and faked deaths. You know, the normal events that happen in the daily life of a Brimstone Society agent.”
But will Rayne be sent on future missions once you help her succeed at this one?
“Agent BloodRayne hasn’t hung up her blades yet,” is all Russell will say.
If you liked this game, check out:
American McGee’s Alice Max Payne Return to Castle Wolfenstein
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