First, let me start with saying that I have not played the original BloodRayne. Perhaps I should, because this one is absolutely lackluster. I won't go into story and writing - nobody plays a game called BloodRayne, starring a half-naked ginger supermodel vampire murdering goths and street thugs expecting a gripping story and Oscar-awarding dialogue. That being said, one would expect, at very least, the gameplay to be fun and exciting. And it is. For maybe an hour or two. Then it becomes extremely tedious and unbearably annoying. For one, controls are abysmal, clearly meant for a controller and not a mouse and keyboard. Second, fights are often just straight-up unfair. Even though you should be technically curb-stomping some low-level street muggers, they always attack in droves, and while you are dealing with one in front of you, the other will come behind your back and put you out of action in a couple of hits, immobilizing you for a few seconds, taking not an insignificant chunk of your health to boot. In short, you get overwhelmed quickly, despite the fact that you are an undead vampire badass armed with razor-sharp blades and thugs that are attacking you do so with fists(!) or some blunt weapons. These are not some mini-bosses or even high-level enemies, but just street hoodlums I should be slaughtering left and right. In addition, this game does have gunplay, so awful and weak, in fact, that it is not even worth bothering. The only thing that impressed me were a whole myriad of different moves and fatalities that the game offers, some of them very well done for a 2004 game. Unfortunately, even here the game fails to show, teach or tell them to you, so oftentimes you are forced to go the "Moves List" and look it up manually. Graphics I would rate OK, even if they are far from being spectacular. Rayne, of course, looks absolutely stunning. But everything looks very Playstation 1-ish. All-in-all, would not recommend this one.
I didn't find anything really amazing about this game. The combat is primitive, relatively easy and lacking any depth. It's basically a click -QTE fest with no variety and the fire spell is ridiculously overpowered. The story is all right with few interesting moments, but in the end it becomes too predictable. The role-playing elements are kind of there, but won't blow you away with originality(2% to this, 5% to that, etc) and I really doubt, if they affect the gameplay in some meaningful manner. The characters Geralt(you) meets are mostly annoying and shallow. Also having some open-world areas is great, but going from one location to another usually takes huge amounts of time and will bore you to death. Basically, the only really good features this game has to offer is the alchemy (very detailed and interesting), the choices (including shaping Geralt's character and affecting his views), great design and graphics. Some quest are fun, too(but most of them- good,old fetch quests). The world seems interesting for some time, borrowing many elements from Eastern European lore, until you realize, that you are stuck in one city(Vizima) and its surroundings. In short, It is not really terrible, in fact it is an an all right game, but the main reason it got all this "RPG of the year" awards is simple: lack of any decent rivals on PC in 2007 (except for Jade Empire maybe). It's probavly worth playing once, although you"ll hardly want to replay it again.
