Vampire Rain is essentially a budget Splinter Cell clone with vampires. And rain. You play a character named John Lloyd, who for all intents and purposes looks very similar to Sam Fisher. He almost looks like Fisher, moves like Fisher, sounds a bit like Fisher and has a similarly shady past. Vampires (or Nightwalkers, as they've been called) have overtaken numerous American towns and Lloyd has been dispatched with a team of the special forces, charged with eliminating the threat. There is some mystery behind the reason why these vampires are running around and to why you’re essentially facing this threat alone. The story is reasonably well translated but feels like it drags on way too long and doesn't really answer enough to feel like it was worth playing through. A lot of unresolved issues and plot holes remain at the end.
Vampire Rain is about as blatant as a clone can get. Lloyd has virtually all of Fisher’s moves, from the pipe climbing to rappelling moves. The two play almost identically. You’ll utilise these moves to make your way around the rooftops of buildings and escape dangerous alleys. For the most part, the game’s path is very linear, it is merely a matter of recognizing the right way to go. Unfortunately, this means that a path that looks OK, is probably the wrong one. There is usually only one path that was intended for use. Otherwise, Fisher… we mean Lloyd, is reasonably proficient in his maneuvers and you’ve got a reasonable amount of control over him. Particularly when it comes to sneaking, as Lloyd is quite sensitive to the most minor of analog stick movements.
Have we met?
For the first six or so levels in the game, it seems that you’ve got a difficult but workable game on your hands. You need to sneak around the vampires to either get somewhere or to find something. Unfortunately, the pistol and assault rifle that you’re equipped with are too weak to make a real impact, so you have to resort to absolute stealth. For a while, you can get by on this. In the seventh level, you’re given a glimmer of hope as you stumble on an ammo cache and anti-vampire shotgun, which levels the playing field. It’s the best level in the game, one half intense sneak, one half clean out. Regrettably, it’s a false dawn.
You realise that you’re in for it when in the very next level, your lovely new toys are taken away from you. As the levels pass by, the vampires become more numerous and the decent weapons become scarcer. By decent, we mean ones that actually give you a chance of surviving. The game simply gets to the point where it becomes something of a masochistic exercise. It becomes a frustrating blend of trial and error against the feverish need to conserve the good ammo. Most of the trial revolving around which path is the right one, which can take a while to figure out.
There are three aspects of the game that come together to really hurt what could have been a decent experience. Probably the single worst aspect of the game is that of the vampires. Despite the fact that they are utterly stupid, they are horribly overpowered. In the first few levels, it actually makes the game quite scary and gives you incentive to avoid them. For a little while, the game is a tense and scary experience. Unfortunately, it devolves into a painful exercise of frustration and sloppiness. Especially when your radar indicates that you're out of their sight range or when you accidentally stumble on one.
Here is a sniper rifle. Know it. Love it. Cherish it. Because you're unlikely to get it back for a while.
Basically, the vampires are three times faster than you and can kill you in two hits, though it's really one, as they'll hit you the second time while you're on the ground. So if you’re caught at close range, you’re dead. No two ways about it. You have a slight chance if you’re spotted at a distance. The vamp will run at you in a straight line and if there is space between you, you just might be able to get off a clip and that will sometimes just be enough. Unfortunately, these situations are very rare, occurring probably around 5% of the time. You will be glad that the vampires are utterly stupid, as most of the time, they’re simply standing in the one spot staring out into space. Why are a bunch of vampires standing around in random places in the rain, which is meant to "dull their senses"? Who knows? Though once they have been alerted, they will not stop until you’re dead, even if you somehow manage a get away. Funnily, bosses do less damage than the regular cronies. Go figure.
Not only are your standard assault rifle and pistol utterly powerless, but you’re pumped with so much ammo for them and so little of the better alternatives that it simply doesn’t make sense. That, and the Splinter Cell combat mechanics are inadequate to cover for the vampire's insane power. Even when you go up against other gun-armed foes, it doesn’t hold up as well as you’d hope. Aside from the rare shotgun or sniper finds, you do get a UV knife that allows for stealth kills. It has limited usage though. The mission design make no sense, as you will start one level with no ammo, then in another, you'll be given a huge amount.
The game is linear, obviously unpolished and has a few glitches. It doesn't even try to do anything remotely next-gen, such as make use of the environment and stealth mechanics. Not to mention, it looks and plays completely like an Xbox game. Glitches include things such as your team characters not moving as they should and enemies getting stuck in corners. At its core, the game functions, but even Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory was a better built game. Finally, the icing on the cake is the fact that the game is dragged out for far too long. There are aspects that are bearable, but when you’re forced to restart levels multiple upon multiple times, for 24 levels, the game truly becomes a forsaken masochistic exercise. Often you'll get to a point in the level, thinking it's the end, only to be sent on another wild goose chase.
The multiplayer might have looked something like this.
Theoretically, there is a multiplayer component to this game. The reason we say theoretical, is that you’re unlikely to get much out of what is there. Why? Because you are unlikely to find anyone online. We assume they’ve all been warded off by the single-player. You’ve got the standard modes, Deathmatch, Team Teathmatch and Capture the Flame (re: flag), as well as Death or Nightwalker. The latter mode allows one player to become a vampire, meaning that person will have the same advantages that are endowed in the single player enemies. Given that the single player is such a chore, you’d at least expect some achievement points from it. Instead, 75% are in the non-existent multiplayer and to get the single player achievements such as S ranks in all missions, you'll find that it is the ultimate task of gaming masochism.
Graphically, the game looks average. The urban environments look OK and the rain affects actually look pretty good. When you get out of the alleys, the landscape is just made up of well detailed Lego blocks. The canned animations in the game are decent but so were the ones on latter-gen Xbox games. Models are very repetitive and the game is incredibly stiff and somewhat dull. Sound wise, the music has its creeping fear-inducing moments but becomes repetitive as the tension effect wares off. The dialogue is reasonably well translated but still B-grade cheesy and the main characters have decent voice acting, though some of the random NPC’s are worse than laughable. Some sound effects aren’t there when they should be, such as vampires running towards you or something simple such as doors opening. It forces the player to rely on sight, as the sound doesn't help you in the least, apart from informing you that a vampire is about to kill you. This is a big no-no for stealth games.
It's sad that Vampire Rain ended up the way it did. Fundamentally, there is a decent game to be played. But so many little things have just snowballed into creating a rather archaic experience. It's bordering on gaming masochism, as it drags on for much longer than it ought. It's quite a poor effort, especially in this day and age. Even if it doesn't really take any risks, it can't even get some of the basics right. Really, if Microsoft were serious about bringing this game down, they should have put some work into it. As it stands, Vampire Rain is a black mark against them. Regrettably, it is another cool concept that has ended up going down the drain.
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