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Vampire Rain: Altered Species
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July 11th, 2008 by MarvellousG
Revamping a failure
(Begin sarcasm). Could Artoon do enough to elevate one of 2007’s biggest critical and commercial X360 hits to the status of a classic? Publishers Ignition Entertainment certainly think so, as they’re revamping last year’s superb original with the features mentioned above, and tweaks whenever necessary, although the first game was so problem free we find it hard to see how they can improve dramatically.(/End sarcasm)
For those who were unfortunate enough to miss out on the TERRIBLE original (now that sarcasm time is over, we can be honest; it sucked. A lot), the idea of the game was actually very cool. On a rainy night in Los Angeles, vampires began to roam the earth. You played the secret agent John Lloyd, whose mission was simply to eradicate the vampire threat. Critics praised the game for its good idea, but that was the only thing the game really had going for it. IGN said the game was, ‘an abomination of a videogame that doesn't even deserve a rental.’ And you can’t really argue. The game featured a rock hard difficulty level that rewarded players who got spotted with an unstoppable, two-hit death from one of the Nightwalkers, or vampires to the non-copyright-protected of us. It also featured the sort of linearity that would make even Bourne’s recent outing blush, which is certainly saying something. Critics also slated the game for its insane controls and awful multiplayer, its criminally poor graphics and sound design, and scat encrusted AI. All in all, it didn’t really do that well with the press.
But Ignition Entertainment really do think they can turn the game’s fortunes around. Or at least make a quick buck by rehashing it in slightly different clothing. Their president, Ajay Chadha, said, “It is truly an honor to be working with AQ Interactive to bring Vampire Rain: Altered Species to both the North American and European markets. With a laundry list of notable titles already under their belt and years of experience, we at Ignition Entertainment are very optimistic in regards to this new partnership.” Well, as much as we here at HG would like to share their positive outlook, we cannot help but think that their faith may be misplaced, no matter who they put it in; it’s going to be really hard to fix such a broken game.
Extended play time
Who really wants 50 hours of gameplay? Most that played the original were willing it to end the moment the opening cut-scene ended. No, sorry, most were willing it to end as soon as they realised that the opening cut-scene had sub-B-Movie acting and scripting, which was as soon as the first character spoke. And how on earth are Artoon going to stretch such linearity into 50 hours? But then again, Bioware promised us 50 hours-plus with the hit RPG Mass Effect, and we all know that that was a fifteen hour game, at best. This 50 hour claim leads me to believe that the people who clocked that playtime will have to stand still for three quarters of the game, or just do the exact same thing for the whole adventure, which would be a nice nod to the first game’s levels of variety. But then, Artoon’s next claim could explain this ridiculously long supposed playtime.
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Developer:
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Artoon |
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Publisher:
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AQ Interactive |
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Release:
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August 5th, 2008 |
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Genre:
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Action Adventure |
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No one expects much from this PS3 release - at least no one who experienced the original Vampire Rain on X360. That must give the developers the benefit of a surprise! |
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