Blade II

Stepping out into the dark hour when the children of the night gather to feed on the blood of the living is man with all of their powers but none of their weaknesses.  He’s Blade, a ruthless hunter of vampires, and one of the coolest heroes based on the Marvel comic books and blockbuster movies.  And did I mention he loves his work?

You get to step into the role of Blade, a man who has vowed to wipe out vampires ever since he found out that his mother died giving birth to him after she was brutally attacked by a vampire. Strangely enough, Blade was bestowed with the powers of the undead, possessing incredible strength and swiftness.  He grows up being raised and trained for combat by a man who calls himself the Whistler.

The game picks up after the first film, sending Blade on a mission that involved an exchange of blood between a known mafia syndicate and growing vampire clan.  Sent out to investigate, Blade set out to find out what exactly is going on.  While this isn’t the main plot of the film sequel, it touches on all the things that lead up to the film version.

Blade starts out in training, learning the mechanics of his movements.  Moving Blade around, you’ll find, is both easy and difficult.  Jumping makes him do a neat acrobatic flip and dramatic drop-on-one-knee landing seen in the movies.  It’s the battle functions, however, that aren’t as simple.  Using the right thumbstick, Blade can kick and punch or dish out a combo on the fly. This, however, makes for clumsy fighting.  Often times you’ll find yourself frantically moving the thumbstick in every which direction hoping to make contact.

Thanks to Blade’s vampire strength, his punches and kicks decapitate vampires and turn them into dust.  Sometimes all it takes is one lucky punch and a fanged foe simply dissolves.  However, you do have the option to choose weapons at the beginning of each level and there are enough to give Blade an extra edge. Many of the weapons you must unlock by collecting floating glyphs the game adds up at the end of each level. He can then choose from a shotgun, mach pistol, UV grenade and the Glaive (a spinning blade he can throw to chop bad guys in half).

There isn’t anything that really separates each level from one another except for the locations.  One level you’re fighting in a parking lot until you reach the entrance of an underground dance club and the next you‘re in a high rise corporate building.  The action remains constant throughout, basically just throwing wave after wave of vampires at you without changing a beat or offering a puzzle to solve. Granted, there are secondary objectives to complete such as breaking a set number of computers but this is hardly what you would call challenging.

Graphics-wise, Blade 2 on the Xbox isn’t as beautiful as it should be but it isn’t really entirely bad either.  Each location has its own charms and the textures in certain things such as billboards or the grimy floors of a parking lot are not bad at all.  There is also a number of really great looking special effects such as shooting flames or the sight of a vampire getting turned to dust.  Then again, characters don’t look all that great . . . although Blade does resemble Wesley Snipes.

The soundtrack is composed of fast-paced techno beats that are just a continuous loop with the exception of cut scenes when the music does change.  It would have been better if they had added the techno-rap score heard in the movie, that would have added tension to the action.  As far as voice acting is concerned, Blade does sound a lot like Wesley Snipes and the actor who does Whistler does a great job of imitating Kris Kristofferson. The problem is that Blade’s phrases are repeated constantly enough to irritate. 

Attempting to rid the world of vampires might sound super cool, but Blade 2 just isn’t thrilling or fun enough to be worthwhile.  It is just impossible to ignore the game’s numerous flaws and inferior design and this is really just too bad.

Gameplay: 5.0
For a game that relies heavily on action, the controls are quite possibly the most complicated to deal with since Bruce Lee: Quest of the Dragon.  Sure the fancy leaps and Blade’s Rage look real good, but the complexity of moving around the right thumbstick for punches and kicks that sometimes hits nothing at all can be frustrating for gamers that enjoy a good brawl.

There are also a few things that were added in the game that would have worked had it been done differently.  For example, the strafe button makes Blade strafe but he does it so slow that gamers might just ignore this function altogether.  There’s also the Glaive, which looked great in the movie and looks fun in the game, but throwing it requires you to face the targeted enemy and hold back the right trigger until it starts glowing.  Takes the fun right out of using such a neat weapon.

Graphics: 6.1
While not entirely bad looking, the game feels as if it would have been amazing if the graphics had been a lot better.  Certain areas in the game do look good, such as the corporate building, while others just feel as if they would have benefited from adding extra details here and there.

The special effects look great, especially during Blade’s Rage where you’re treated to gruesomely bloody finishing moves such as Blade’s sword piercing a vampire or Blade grabbing an undead bad guy and stabbing him or her on the head with a stake.  Now if only the characters looked this good.

Sound: 5.2
Unless you like a continuous stream of uninspiring techno beats, Blade 2 has what you need.  Sadly, the movie’s score isn’t included and although the score does change during cut scenes, it remains virtually the same throughout. 

However, the voice acting on the part of Blade, Whistler and a few other characters do work nicely enough.  The only problem with this is that Blade and the vampires tend to repeat the same phrases over and over again.  Blade’s phrases come straight from the movie like sound bites from the film while the vampire hordes just state the obvious like: “It’s Blade!” or “It’s the Daywalker!”

Difficulty: Medium
You’ll be amazed how many vampire thugs the game throws at you at once, especially in the underground dance club when Blade faces all of the vampires on the dance floor.  At times, these battles can be so challenging that you’ll be coming back again to fight it all over again, but these precious moments are few and far apart from one another.

There are also some noticeable flaws in the artificial intelligence of the vampire foes.  Some of them will get stuck around corners, quivering wildly as they attempt to “phase” right through the corner to get to you . . . and they always get through and always manage to hurt you.  This also gets worse when you are blocking a closed door.  The vampires on the other side just spin hard enough that they instantly appear beside you and attack.

Concept: 5.3
The Blade franchise is certainly a tempting one to cash in on since the character is cool and the concept of slaying vampires is pretty appealing.  Unfortunately there is nothing innovative in terms of gameplay and ideas. 

Overall: 5.0
As far as vampire slaying games are concerned, Buffy the Vampire Slayer still has the upper hand on Blade.  Repetitive action, awful controls and so-so graphics keep the game from being a fun action game based on a really great movie and action hero.