| Although there is a question behind the subject matter this being of course vampires and sucking a few zombies dry of blood, yadda, yadda. Blood Rayne certainly has its moments. Its stylised approach does set a standard in design and character and there is not much out there that can rival this benchmark. All the graphics has a kind of stretched and polish not seen in many PS2 titles. The combat is excellent although not as refined enough to be brilliant. The collision detection is where it loses a hint of its quasi brilliance. Rayne is a young girl in the eye of the cyclone between the two world wars. She was born half vampire and half human as a result of her vampire father raping her mother. She becomes part of what’s called the Brimstone Society who is a fraternity that hunts down and destroys threats from the realm of the supernatural. Gifted with unique abilities from her father whilst still having a human mind she takes on the role of vampire slayer for this Society. There has been a man searching the world for some ancient occult artefacts to give Germany the power to rule the modern world. Rayne is administered to quell this possible threat. Before thinking that the controls are the same as any third person shoot-em up, they aren’t. This is not all bad however as the shoulder buttons are easily adaptable for any game enthusiast. L1 is melee attack with her rather deadly blades, which strings out for some elaborate combos. There is of course the Blood Rage mode that will send Rayne's abilities skywards and exacerbate her prowess with her flick blades. More combat will eventuate into more moves and combos each building on the last. There is also some great weaponry to get your hands on. These involve Winchesters, grenades, rifles and special weaponry that can really turn on the damage. It is a shame that the guns don’t last very long with their being no chance to reload. In some levels you even get into a mech and walk around killing anything that moves. The graphics are polished and are impressive for the PS2 with some magical moments to its credit. The mainly outdoors swampy outdoors locations are a breath of fresh air much needed for the stylised Beat’em up genre. Some missions involve killing monster nests and saving innocent civilians, running along powerlines. Rayne's abilities because having half vampire blood has some of the advantages of a vampire like super strength and not instantly dieing when wading through water it also has its drawbacks. These are the need to feed (drink blood) to maintain health and the fact that she has to live with the jeers of passing motorists. | 
