It’s been quite some time since the redheaded female vampire Rayne from the BloodRayne franchise has been in the spotlight. Those games released back in the early 2000s with the most recent being a 2D version called BloodRayne Betrayal. Publisher Ziggurat Interactive has been steadily bringing some classic games from the past back including said BloodRayne Betrayal and now the original BloodRayne under the new name BloodRayne: ReVamped. The game is a remaster of sorts but how much exactly has been improved and is this game worth playing almost two decades later?
BloodRayne: ReVamped is for the most part the same game as the original BloodRayne that released back in 2002. It’s a 3D third-person action game where you play as the sexy, dressed in leather red-headed vampire Rayne as she works as an agent of the Brimstone Society to put an end to a Nazi scheme. The story and characters very much have that over-the-top B-movie campy feel that you would expect from back in that time period and for the most part it was still enjoyable to me as I played through it.
The gameplay in BloodRayne is a mix of some platforming as well as combat. The controls are a bit wonky and feel dated for sure but I was still able to adjust to them. Rayne is armed with her twin arm blades as well as a whole assortment of firearms to blast enemies with. You can hack away at enemies with the arm blades and watch the limbs scatter about. As you do this you can fill up a gauge that when full allows you to slow down time and dish out more damage. Since Rayne is a vampire, she can of course grab enemies and suck their blood to recover health as well. Just be careful when doing this as you leave yourself vulnerable while doing so. Many different guns are also available to use throughout the game and the game makes it really easy to lock-on and hit enemies with them. While the gameplay and controls do show their age, I still had a blast ripping and blasting enemies apart and sucking their blood every chance I got.
Now while the core game is the same the improvements come in the form of 60FPS support, higher resolutions, better draw distances, as well as some other touch ups to things like water, reflections, fog, etc. I played the PlayStation 4 version on my PlayStation 5 and it runs really smooth and the visual improvements are very nice. You can absolutely still tell that this game came out back on the PlayStation 2 when looking at the environments or character models but it still looks a lot better when compared to the original release. Basically, if you’ve yet to play this game and wanted to then ReVamped is the best way to experience it. If you’re a trophy hunter a bit of bad news is that the team decided not to give this remaster a Platinum trophy. I’m not sure why especially when they ended up giving BloodRayne Betrayal: Fresh Bites one when the original release didn’t have one. Instead all you get is 13 trophies most of which are easy but you will have to beat the game on hard for one of them.
BloodRayne: ReVamped should please anyone who was a fan of the original game and for those who haven’t played it yet it makes for a nice dive back into the early 2000s gaming period. This is the best this game has ever looked or ran but it does show its age in the visuals and controls. I personally enjoyed getting to use Rayne again to rain blood across the screen and I hope that one day we get to see Rayne make a new modern appearance.
*BloodRayne: ReVamped is available now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. PlayStation 4 version reviewed. Review copy provided by the publisher for this review.
BloodRayne: ReVamped
$19.99
Pros
- Same classic BloodRayne game
- Looks and runs better than it ever has
- Slicing, blasting, and sucking the blood of your enemies is still fun
Cons
- Dated controls
- While improved, the visuals still look like an early 2000s game
