Customer Reviews

Vampire Rain

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Tellurye is going to break it down for you. As owner of Fedora Technologies (www.fedoratech.com) we get access to lots of goodies. I've had the chance to try this bad boy out immediately. What stands our company out is, yes I give you my opinion, but I will also state facts - this helps the user decide on whether they want to buy it. Not just "its good" or "bad". So let me sum up.

STORY: You are John Llyod, part of a Special Forces team set on a rainy night in LA taking out vampires (also called NightWalkers), rescuing a kidnapped professor from their hold, and unraveling the events behind how this Plague came to the city. Just like other folks said, this is Splinter Cell like. Although you CANNOT engage the vampires for the first third of the game. (well, you can...we'll get to that in a minute) They can run FAST, and kill within seconds (and the standard weapons do no good) so don't bother shooting or trying to outrun them and get to a hiding spot to "lose" them. That won't happen here. Think of this as Metal Gear Solid where you had to sneak much of the same amount of the game before you actually acquired a weapon. Same thing here. You are forced to think of alternate routes, watch their patrol pattern, to get to your objective.

GAMEPLAY: Let me also clear up some of myths. Vamps DO show up on radar, but not at first. If moving slowly enough, they eventually show up on radar with their cone of vision as soon as they are on your screen, or if you go into Necro mode (like HeatVision, but vampires stand out differently than humans). and lock on to them. So, you have to engage Necro Vision, or hug a wall and rotate your camera around the corner for it to register. Needless to say you have to proceed carefully. You cannot run or walk fast throughout the level. Don't take for granted that it's a dead end alley and no vampires will be standing there smoking - they will be. This forces you to be 100% stealthy and look at EVERY corner before advancing. Sounds annoying but it really wasn't. Levels went by pretty easy for me. Plus, this was VERY intense and suspenseful. It did not take me forever, but it was realistic. If you were really trying to sneak into a building, you wouldn't walk quickly up to it, you would look at every angle to see the best way in, make sure there weren't patrolling guards, etc. You are given a warning - transparent white overlay of vampire eyes and an awesome sound let you know you are in danger of being seen. The game is somewhat forgiving in even if you are somewhat close to them, it still gives you time to run back to get out of their line of sight. Of course, you only have 5 seconds or so to do this. If not, then it is over for you. So its not like "Ooop, he saw me, I'm dead" unless you ran every where and don't have time to get out of their sight.

You can engage the enemy, but very unwise to do so, unless you have the sniper rifle or shotgun, which usually takes them down in one shot. The other weapons you have, take roughly 15 - 20 bullets (not location specific) to bring them down. This can be easy if they are on the same level as you, you are a good distance enough away from them to get all 15-20 rounds off, as they literally run right towards you - they don't do any defensive maneuvers. However, if you are on a rooftop and they are on the ground (or vice versa) they will jump to get to you and it can be hard to hit them while flying or running left to right / strafing if obstacles are in their way. Hence that's why its best to not engage them at all.

The guns that CAN kill the vampires are pretty cool. However, you lose them by the time you get to the next level. Pretty dumb. I suppose this is a way the developers didn't want you blowing the two-thirds of the game thru in 15 minutes. Games like this have been much criticized. However, they could have done something more realistic, such as make ammo scarce so that you would have to survive on guns AND stealth.

Game does a great job with added suspense by dropping vampires in front of you with their back turned to you on purpose. This scares the crap outta you, but they purposely don't "see you" unless you were running at the time, and they jump away. This gives you that "oh crap" feeling like "Man don't turn around". But they never do - I think the developers just put that in there for fun to remind you, that vamps can travel via the rooftops, not just the streets.

The boss stages are almost too easy. There is a difficulty setting that you can adjust. That really only effects the bosses more so, since even on easy, you cannot engage the enemy in the first third. The bosses are weird in that they take their sweet time reloading their weapon, or standing there. The only challenge really are the regular vampires that you have to sneak by. But, there is a boss or two that are challenging. Almost as if the developers spent time on the nightwalkers, and blew off the boss stages.

The biggest problem with this game, is where there is a positive, there is almost a matching negative. Almost a 1:1 ratio. The game is pretty forgiving. Even though these Vamps are super human, they can't see you thru fog or walls. They explain the dense rain weakens their otherwise super human senses. And when you get killed, you spawn near the checkpoint or when the last cutscene played, but NOT near the vamp or his/her line of sight. So you don't respawn right in front of danger or in an impossible spot, nor do you have to spend another 10 - 15 minutes getting back to where you were. Although, you may decide you do need to backtrack if you think "hey, too many vampires, let's backtrack to that ladder and try taking the roof". The checkpoints did take a while to get to, but like I stated, the fact that you can "continue" makes it go by fast. Although, this does subtract from your score. But then again, so does selecting "restart", so there you have it. Some sequences are scripted no matter what - A nightwalker will "hear" you even though you haven't moved a muscle and will begin to search for you. Kind of sucks, but again, good cause then you only have about 30 seconds to find a hiding spot. This does add to the suspense, but again, its forced. This is extremely rare in the game, but does happen. This unnecessarily adds to a painful trial-and-error game.

Along those lines, not much replay value, except online. It is easy to memorize a level, if you wanted to do it again. You can then run everywhere since you know where all the baddies are. However, there are multiple paths to get to your objective in the single-player game, and I enjoyed finding quicker rooftop paths, or longer but more visually appealing choices. But, with no different unlockables due to a great score, there is little reason to do so.

Multiplayer is fun with Deathmatch, Death or Nightwalker, destroy or capture the flag. However, there is no co-op mode for the mission. Nothing really to shout about here.

GRAPHICS: The graphics here are nothing to brag about. The environments were very detailed and nice, but not as good lookin as Gears of War or Splinter Cell, but I thought definitely better than PS2 quality. They look believable and are detailed environments. Not just similar empty rooms. However, the rain (which persists throughout the entire game) IS PHENOMENAL! The way it glistens and stands on the rooftops, streets, cars, and even the characters are incredible - really pushed the 360 to its max in this area. The intro and cutscenes are awesomely done - very movie-like. The plot seems a little weird. And the voice acting - even worse. Questions are answered but may not tie all the action together (why did I have to travel rooftops and climb fences to go to that building again...if you have a VAN?. And why backtrack through an early level - shouldn't you have ordered me to do that BEFORE we took the house?)

SOUND: The music that accompanies the game, while I usually turn this off, does a good job to let you know when danger is approaching, or as you dive deeper into surreal, seedy environments. The "woosh" sound and music that is played, as your controller vibrates when an enemy spots you really sends chills up your spine. Even if you don't swear when you are scared, you will playing this game, and not just out of frustration either.

I would recommend, based on polls from folks and reading their posts, that you download the demo (not in US yet, but you can easily make a Japanese or UK account on XBL in minutes - that's what I did, and download from there), rent it, or borrow from a friend and see for yourself. I LOVE games like this, but even I wouldn't pay $60 for it. I'd wait till it drops to about $40. It has its ups and downs - you die fast, yet respawn in a great spot; regular vamps are tough, bosses are laughably easy; finally get a weapon, only to lose it on the next level.

I think you see where I'm going with this. This game showed great promise, but feels rushed out the door. If you like a little faster paced like Splinter Cell or MGS, then I'd stay away from this one for a while. However, if you like taking your time, really looking at the level and absorbing all the environments, and proceed methodically, then this may be up your alley. Either way, I would rent or demo it before shelling out the 60 Washington's.

Please rate and let me know what else I can comment on!

I made the mistake of purchasing this game before seeing reviews or playing a demo of any kind.

I got it the week it came out, but got frustrated and bored very VERY quickly after getting into the game.

As most reviewers before me have said, graphics definitely aren't next-gen HI-DEF by any stretch of the mind, I wouldn't say they are downright worst I have ever seen but it's not anywhere near where the graphics should be on a 360.

I don't mind games where you can't take 100 hits before being killed. I loved rainbow six vegas. But, this game... the absolutely most by far frustrating thing in this game is when you are seen and if you do not manage to unload an entire clip into the vampire before it gets to you, you have ALMOST a zero percent chance of living, they hit you once and it takes off 3/4 of your life. almost immediately after they first strike you and knock you back, you are hit a second time and it is game over and time to reload the checkpoint and probably have the same thing happen again.

I will admit I haven't beaten the entire game yet. I played it for a while when I first got it but then put it away for a while due to frustrating gameplay. I have started it back up but only because since I paid 60 bucks for it I might as well complete it before I turn it in for something else.

Also, As I mentioned, it does tend to be extremely boring at times. I wouldn't consider it an action game, or at least not a very good one, Because there is hardly any real action in the game asides from your character being killed. Rest of the game is slowly walking *sneaking* around town and AVOIDING all you see. So, if you want to kill a lot of vampires, dont get this game. Get Rainbow Six instead, it's still one of the best realistic action/fps games I've played on the 360. Or even get BioShock or Stranglehold if you like action.

If your still interested in the game, because you enjoy the whole stealth concept. Try to find a demo first before buying to make sure.

If your thinking about getting this, first make sure you know exactly what you are expecting out of it. If you are fresh from next-gen innovators such as "Gears of War", "Bio Shock", "Oblivion" and the like and are hungry for more, you will be sorely disappointed here. On the other hand, if your craving a decent steath game to tide you over until the next "Metal Gear" or "Splinter Cell", then you will have a right fine time with "Vampire Rain".

Graphics: Functionally solid, they neither impress nor irritate. The enviroments are a tad bland, but the character models and rain effects are nice.

Sound: Mixed bag, enviromental sounds create an effective atmosphere, but gun sounds are limp. Voice acting is pretty cheesy, which may be a plus if you take it the right way.

Gameplay: The deal breaker for many. It's "Slinter Cell", but with vampires. If you enjoyed those mechanics, you can enjoy this. The only major difference here are the bad guys; there is no sneaking up slowly and breaking a terrorists neck, oh lordy no, more than almost any stealth game I've ever played you will do everything in your power to avoid running into the villans. Why? Because these Vampires are retardedly lethal. If you get spotted, you have all of zero chance of getting away alive, as the vampire will clear a distance of a hundred yards to you in a matter of seconds and will tear you apart in 2 swipes of it's claws. The enemy lethality seems to substitute for an alarm system and does add to the tension (and frustration) of the game. Later on you get some weapons to fight back and it's a welcome change of pace, but still be prepared to die often.

Overall: A solid, if unmemorable stealth game that has it's share of up and downs but should satisfy genre fans until the big dogs come to play again.

This game is quite possibly the worst game to ever come out. For one thing its incredibly hard. There are two difficulty settings, normal and hard, however I didn't notice any difference what so ever between the two. To tell you how hard this game is, I have friends who play the Call of Duty and Halo games on the hardest difficulty with no problem and even they say this game is just to hard and frustrating! The difficulty and frustration comes from having to redo each level countless times to achieve the "perfect score" required on each level.

At the end of each level you are scored on the following: Damage taken (health), ammo expended (number of bullets fired), accuracy percentage (with weapons), pickup percentage (extra weapons and ammo) and number of continues (times killed), for which you get an overall letter grade, C, B, A and S for the top grade. By far the hardest part of getting the "S" or excellent score is finding all the weapons and ammo hidden throughout the game map. The pointless part of the whole thing is the fact that with very few exceptions you aren't allowed to use any ammo or you will be graded low at the end of the level, in some levels you aren't allowed to fire any weapons, in others one or two rounds only. Which is compounded by the fact that most of your weapons have little to no effect on the "nightwalkers" anyway. So on one hand, to get an "S" ranking you have to find all the hidden weapons and ammo, yet on the other you cant fire any of the weapons. Its quite possibly the stupidest thing I have ever seen in a video game.

I remember in one level there is a gate with a padlock that you have to shoot the lock to open it, the only thing you get by doing so is picking up more ammo. Yet that one round of ammo is the only one you are allowed to fire on the whole level. It seems stupid beyond belief and you cant help but wonder what the programmers where smoking the day they thought that up!

One of the better weapons is the sniper rifle, which will take them out with one head shot. Yet on some levels they will give it to you, but if you use it you will be penalized at the end for doing so. One level in particular I played using the shotgun and fired a total of 8 rounds, at the end I received an "excellent" rating for ammo expended. I replayed the level and this time I used 6 rounds from the shotgun and 1 from the sniper rifle, for a total of 7 rounds and I received a rating of "average". apparently the programmers didn't want you using the sniper rifle in that level, which draws the question of why give it to me then? Basically the programmers had one specific way in mind for you to complete each level and if you deviate from that plan they penalize you for it. Personally I don't have much patients for such childishness!

By far the worst part of this game are the seemingly never ending barrage of cut scenes that break up the game play and serve nothing more than to screw up your momentum. There are numerous times when a cut scene will occur then you do nothing more than take a few steps and another cut scene will begin. Literally within seconds of each other. It really is annoying to say the least.

Another pointless part of the whole cut scene annoyance is when some of the cut scenes end you find you now have a weapon in your hand, often times one you didn't even have prior to that. This leads you to believe that you are supposed to shoot the "nightwalker" that lies ahead, but if you do you will be penalized in your rating at the end. I know, as stupid as that sounds, its true!

While I was writing this I choose a level at random and played it, (level 13) not counting the cut scene at the beginning and end, which you expect in a normal game, I counted 11 cut scenes, in a space of 5 minutes of game time to complete the level. I think anyone will agree that is excessive to say the least. However this is about average.

If you're into achievements and upping your gamer score this is again a very bad game for that. There are 1000 points to be had but only a few hundred of them can be unlocked in single player mode. (7 in all for 350 points) None of those will come till the very end of the game, and then most of them you have to achieve a perfect score of "S" on every level. The average first time play through you will only get 1 achievement for 50 points and that's for beating the game. Some of the achievements even conflict with each other. One achievement is getting killed 200 times by nightwalkers, however if you get this you wont get the "S" rating or its achievement.

The remaining achievements are all for online play, yet because the game was so bad the online community for this game is non existent. This game came out in mid 2007 and I bought it in the beginning of 2008 and even then there was no online activity with this game. About the only way you're going to get the online achievements is to find someone to play online with you and have them stand there while you kill them enough times and do the other various things required to get them. In that respect its fairly easy, I did this with a friend an we both had all the online achievements within about an hour. But if you don't know someone who has the game you're basically out of luck!

There are 24 levels on this game, each level also has one or two side missions or "Time trials". Again you have to score an "S" rating in all of these, as well as the main levels, to get the achievements. It will take you a minimum of 10-20 play throughs on each level to get it to where you know it well enough to get the "S" rating on it. You're looking at a minimum of 100+ hours of play time. I'll be honest, I've never finished this game, its just way to frustrating. There are more fun games to play out there to waste such an inordinate amount of time on one game especially one this bad!

The game was much like a more sophisticated form of zelda. The overall game play was not very good. Its confusing most of the time. Not a very good play.

What happen here???? This is game that could have been really good. The premise was great. What a waste!!!! Frist, the game was just to hard. What is the point of having a weapon when it's ineffective. I died more times in this game then I could count. I would stand a better chance of surviving a round of rush'n roulette. This was supposed to be a squad based game but you were mostly solo. The voice overs sounded very scripted and poorly written. The whole game took place at night and during the rain hence the "Rain" in the title. The vampires themself moved like they had some type of muscular disorder. They were wobbly,shaaaky,and slow, until they found you and then all of a sudden they were Flash Gordon and could leap on top of three story building. There were no check points or saves so you when spent 30 mins playing a mission and died, you got the joy doing all over again just to spend another 30 mins and die the same spot. "I shot that undead freak 20 times and he still came at me full force." This could have been a real worth while game and might have even spawned a series, but alas, it was anything but fun. The only good aspect was the multi-player. That was kind of fun. The only problem was no one playing it.As I said before, what a waste.

I bought this game because I am a masochist and I wanted a way to inflict pain in myself without damaging my genetalia. That being said, the emotional trauma this game caused was almost too much to bear. I knew what I was getting myself into. I've read other reviews but apparently I'm not strong enough to handle something this terrible. It was like watching a thousand puppies being raped then eaten by a monster. Not a quality monster either, a monster staring in a sy-fy channel original movie.

But I digress, this game is just like Splinter Cell if Splinter Cell had horrible graphics, bad voice acting, a dumb plot, and if it made you want to kill yourself. It has all of the difficulty of Panzer Dragoon Orta without any of the fun. The graphics would have been amazing if I had a time machine and used it to go back ten years ago. A better use of that time machine would be to go back and sterilize the parents of the people responsible for this game.

Every bad review I've read on this game was done by someone who picked it up, played for an hour or two, and got frustrated and quit. Those kinds of people describe it as difficult and linear, which it is not. No one I've talked to who actually played the game to the point where you get good weapons gave it less than 4 stars or so

When you start out, you're equipped with a silenced pistol that is basically useless, and nothing else. The whole game is just you sneaking around trying to avoid vampires, much like Theif or Splinter Cell. Tons of sneaking, not much else. I hated it

Then, as you complete a few levels, you gradually get better weapons, and the game becomes much more action-oriented and less stealth-oriented. There is still alot of stealth in it, but its not 99% stealth like the first 2 or 3 levels are.

Once you get the sniper rifle, you're free to sneak up to buildings and snipe at some vampires. Generally you don't have enough ammo to kill them all, but you can choose your own routes to your objectives and clear some of the vamps from whatever route you pick, making this game non-linear. You do not have to follow a set line unless you waste all your bullets, then there may only be one way for you to do it at that point, but that's not the game's fault

As you go, you get new weapons, which add to the non-linearity and give you more choices. Shotguns are great, and kill several vamps at once, but are loud and will bring every vamp on a level running unless you use them indoors or underground. UV knives are silent but single-use, and you have to sneak close to use them. UV mines are good but you have to set them in a vamp's path and then set them off, etc. Not to mention that some of the later levels are you and your team taking on vamps in a full on shoot out, more like Rainbow 6 or Ghost Recon than Splinter Cell

So basically this game is what you make of it. If you want stealth, its there. If you want to use your head and kill specific vampires with the right weapons, its almost a shooter. But you have to give it more than a cursory try to get the real game out of it

i see so many have a bitter hatred for this game.i see it to challenge players patience and stealth skills.

- I just received this today from Amazon, I have been playing for about an hour or so. I'm following the advice given in several previous reviews (mainly, DO NOT TRY TO FIGHT THE VAMPIRES UNTIL YOU ARE FARTHER INTO THE GAME!) You have to use
100 pct stealth, until you can acquire some sort of weapon with upgraded firepower. Regardless, the vampires have gotten me a couple of times, and it IS frustrating. They are ridiculously powerful. Im trying again until I figure out the best way to avoid them. And I'm looking fwd to some payback later, I hope lol. Graphics are not bad. Not the best I have ever seen. But I cant urge you enough, HOOK UP YOUR XBOX WITH THE HDMI CABLE (which I finally did recently). It makes a huge difference.
Couple more final points I want to make - one, you cant beat the price (less than $9), and two, I am pretty sure that the actor who played Det. Ronnie Gardocki (David Rees Snell) on my all-time fave show 'The Shield', does the voice of one of your Recon Team members (awesome!!!) Even if for no other reason, I'd have to give this game 4 stars just for that. Bottom line, check this game out, and give it a chance. You might like it. So far, I do.