In this generation of consoles, both sex and gore were extremely popular, with Nintendo themselves even trying to get more adult games on the GameCube. So it’s no surprise that a game like BloodRayne came about, where you’re a sexy half vampire eviscerating monsters like strange spiders, Nazis and worm creatures that burst into humans and replace their head and spinal column. The Nazis are a very handy way to allow Rayne to slash and shoot her way through vast amounts of humans while making her look like the good guy.
The combat in BloodRayne is simple but fun due to the mass slaughter. L lets you use Rayne’s wrist-mounted swords while R fires disposable guns with extremely heavy auto aim. As a result, there’s really not much strategy or skill involved, but the over the top nature of the game still makes it a lot of fun. There’s even a bullet time that you can turn on and off at will (with zero restrictions) after you’ve finished the first area.
Rayne’s jumping also takes a bit of getting used to, as it’s a very quick but very high jump. Jumping while strafing gives you lower acrobatic dodges but there’s something stiff to all the moment, a feeling I can best describe as “this is a PC game with a controller mapped to it”. Rayne is also supposed to “attach” to thin ledges yet this doesn’t seem to happen a lot of the time, which can be annoying in areas with water, as water harms the player.
The story is intriguing, but poorly told, as I felt lost multiple times. In the first area, you’re working under the wing of another vampire, and then it cuts a few years forward and she is suddenly some kind of government agent sent to stop the Nazis. Late in the game, a new villain shows up and Rayne speaks to him as though the audience knows who they are. Despite being a new IP, it feels like an adaptation of something where they skip details because they presume people know them already.
Despite these issues, there’s something fun and charming about BloodRayne. I think they should have delved into the campier aspects a bit more, and some more varied locations would certainly have helped.
As for what happened to BloodRayne, there was a sequel that skipped the GameCube and then a 2D sidescroller in 2011. BloodRayne also had a trilogy of films from Uwe Boll. While they’re all pretty bad, Boll then adapted the third BloorRayne film into an utterly awful parody where the main character is obese and the “humour” is nothing more than being offensive (and is a legitimate contender for one of the worst films ever made). Boll even cast himself in the film. As Hitler. None of his work has any of the odd charm of the games, which have all now been re-released for modern platforms.