Fun to Look at, not to Play with.
I must preface this review by stating that I am a virgin to the BloodRayne series. Not until this new switch from 3-D to 2-D did it get my attention to play as the Dhampir. Oh what bloody a night it was when my BR cherry was popped. I honestly have no idea how this game got T for Teen rating; decapitations, exposed organs, and jetting bloodstreams are constantly filling the screen, but all of it is beautiful. I've never seen 2-D animation look so detailed and fluid in motion till BloodRayne Betrayal, but the bad news is the great art is at the detriment of the gameplay.
Throughout the whole 3 hour experience It was hard to know, at a glace ,If a wall or platform was in the foreground or background. I died many times because of running into a wall or not seeing the path the designer's provided. Trial and error is the way you path find Betrayal's levels, knowing there's deadly saw here, a laser beam there, but the checkpoint system kept me playing when I otherwise would have quit. Anytime you die (with exception of a couple of times ) there's always a checkpoint at the doorstep of your failed attempt. The checkpointing of Betrayal, for me, is the saving grace of the whole game. I never once felt like I was in complete control of Rayne. I found myself regularly fatally falling into hazardous liquids or situations because of the delayed responsiveness, but I knew if I died I would be right back into the fight in no time. The length of the game is a problem too, because once I felt like I was starting to get used the the quirks of the controls, the game ended. That said, all the dying and respawing I did looked fantastic
Betrayal implements what I like to call one-button-direction-timing based combat, also Rayne has a powerful magnum she can use to quickly kill hordes of creatures. I made sure to collect red skulls to boost my health and acquire more bullet slots for the powerful sidearm. To my dismay, there is no upgrading weapons (aside form bullet slots), unlocking moves, or a “mini-map” in the game. You progress from encapsulated level to encapsulated level while using the bare bones move set you had at the very beginning, to the end of the game.
BloodRayne Betrayal had stunning art and near perfect animations are amazing to see, but the that's about all it has. Any “story” the game has is told in about 10 sentences so don't come here for that. I would not recommend buying the game for full price on Xbox Arcade or the PSN Network right now, when It's on sale I would recommend downloading just to see what 2-D perfection looks like. It's like a very attractive girl who doesn't have much else to her, but damn, if she isn't gorgeous.
