Vampire Rain

Rating ESRB: Mature Genre action Publisher AQ Interactive External Links Official Vampire Rain Website

There are so many creative ways for me to say that Vampire Rain for the Xbox 360 is a bad game. I can go the easy, low-brow route and say “Vampire Rainsucks,” going for both a fairly accurate summation of the game, but also going for the delightfully witty pun. Or I could just write a mature, reasonable review of the game that caused me so much pain and agony.

On the surface, Vampire Rain sounds like a pretty sweet game. Vampires are roaming the streets of the country, abducting and sucking the living daylights out of people. You play the game as a member of a team of black ops Special Forces unit. As a member of this team, you are sent to Los Angeles to get to the root of this vampire dilemma. So far, sounds pretty great.

Once the first lengthy cut scenes end, you are thrown in to a tutorial-type mode where you sneak around and follow a fellow agent as he observes vampires. Typically, tutorial modes serve to introduce a player to both the games’ controls, but also to give them a feel of what they will be getting in to when the play it. Sadly, the tutorials on this game are both slow and sluggish, leaving players with an ominous feeling for what is to come in the rest of the game. And sadly, Vampire Rain never really picks up from there.

The early portions of the game prove frustrating beyond all belief. While the game is largely a stealth game, the early parts of the game have you relying almost solely on stealth. When you see vampires walking right in front of you, you cannot as much as sneak past them, let alone shoot them. This is because not only are you armed with a weak little pistol, but also because the vampires move lightning fast and avoiding them is all but impossible. And considering it only takes the vampires roughly one or two chomps at your juicy neck to kill you, you are as good as dead once those blood-suckers smell you.

The overall feel of Vampire Rain feels much like that in Splinter Cell, only more phoned in. The concept of hiding in the shadows to hide from an enemy isn’t exactly novel and it isn’t something Vampire Rain pulls off well. The control scheme is complicated, slow and confusing. Pressing several different buttons to crouch or lean against a wall is daunting, leaving little room for error. If you screw up at all, odds are you will end up a grand feast for some nefarious creature.

Vampire Rain is a game I really wouldn’t wish upon my worst of enemies (and Lord knows I have them). Slow, sluggish, uninspired gameplay only ends up leaving players feeling irritated. If you are looking for a good stealth-based game, look for the Splinter Cell’s or Metal Gear’s of the world. Hell, even Burger King’s Sneak King will offer a more satisfying stealth experience than Vampire Rain.