Vampire Rain

Even though Vampires are very cool subject matter for video games there are hardly a handful of games out there that have managed to exploit the Children of the Night to their true potential. Awesome movies like Blade II translate to lack luster and horrid video game adaptations that absolutely suck (Oh come on, I had to use that once) while games like Vampires The Masquerade Bloodlines are way too buggy to enjoy even though they are excellent in quality. And now we have Japanese developer Artoon (Blue Dragon) attempting to fuse horror with stealth in their latest offering, Vampire Rain, the results of which are pretty horrifying (not in a good way unfortunately).

Before you start the game you’re treated to a pretty cool looking cut scene that has an innocent girl stalked and slaughtered by a night stalker only to become one herself. This cut scene actually gave me a bit of hope and made me believe (momentarily) that the game had some potential but as soon as I fired up the tutorial I knew I was in for a rough ride. I can confidently say that Vampire rain boasts of one of the most annoying and anal tutorials ever made; you run, climb, duck, crawl for like a minute followed by two minutes of badly done cut scenes and this phenomenon is repeated over and over again until you reach the second mission.
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Now before I continue with the review allow me to fill you in on the game’s oh-so-clich