Vampire Rain: Altered Species
Posted By: James on Nov 16 2008

I have been dealing with vampires for a long time, from Castlevania to the Legend of Kain series. They have always provided an interesting jumping point for evil in all veins of entertainment. To the core, their life blood is that of darkness and sexual energy. Now evil has morphed into a new design, that of boredom, and the vampire is there as well to greet us.

Vampire Rain probably could have made for an acceptable game on the Nintendo 64. Not a great game, but people would have more willingly accepted the blocky level design. Perhaps they would have been fine with the ultra linear, one option through any given situation gameplay. Maybe the dull lifeless city would have seemed far more interesting to someone playing on such a limited system. However, as I sit in front of a Playstation 3 running Vampire Rain, I find the idea of Pong refreshing.

The most painful thing about this game, seriously it hurt worse than Haze to play, is that it is absolutely boring. Bad games, like bad movies have things that are unintentionally funny or are worth getting frustrated with, but Vampire Rain is without any of those almost redeeming qualities. I found myself coming up with chores to do, opting to wash dishes over having to play this title for review. I will let you know that my playtime totals about 3 hours, so if you feel that I am making an uninformed opinion you can stop reading now.

How you fail by combining Splinter Cell with vampires is beyond me. Even when hit with many terrible reviews of the Xbox 360 release from last year, I kept thinking that there must be a redeeming quality. Do not expect that cheesy B movie quality other mashups in the past have delivered. This is no Jesse James meets Frankenstein's Daughter. The story involves vampires secret lives. Just imagine the standard vampire story with a government agency that hunts them. Now imagine that it is a Sci-Fi made for TV original.

Traditionally, even the worst of games is made slightly better by its multiplayer. A group of people can always find a way to entertain themselves. Apparently that is not the case with Vampire Rain, as the servers are vacant and basically non-existent. Only after creating a server and waiting over ten minutes did I find another trapped in this purgatory and we proceeded to launch into a one on one deathmatch. The deathmatch follows the same outdated feel as the rest of the game. It consisted of a boring map with weapons strewn about haphazardly. After several minutes we finally saw one another and fired. After some time of killing one another I had a meter build up that allowed me to become a vampire and completely wreck the face of the other player, for a few seconds. This momentary transformation was the only glimmer I ever experienced in what is a total failure at entertainment. After about one and half maps the other player left the game, and so did I. Maybe you could have more fun in another mode of online play, but good luck finding someone to try it with you.

Vampire Rain consists a plot and idea that should create something amazing, but fail in every way imaginable. If vampirism is a curse for a terrible sin, playing Vampire Rain is punishment for something far worse.