![]() First of all, Nightwalker vision cones are rough approximations of what the beasties can actually see. New ideas are introduced in almost every area, but these innovations just mess up what should have been a pretty straightforward game design. Still, this isn't exactly a by-the-numbers stealth game. If you succeed, congratulations-you've just beaten a transparent game mechanic. Instead of getting to listen to inane conversations tipping you off to the guards, you get a cheesy flashing-eyes special effect that lets you know somebody with fangs is watching and you've got a couple of seconds to get under cover. The only striking difference between this game and a typical sneaker is that you're dealing with undead killing machines that have no personality-not the usual sentries whining about noisy rats. Level design should also be familiar because you spend the game creeping through alleyways, climbing ladders, and sliding down wires or poles in a desperate attempt to avoid the vision cones of patrolling bad guys displayed on your minimap. Even though Lloyd is supposed to be fighting an undead invasion, he spends most of his time dealing with standard spy stuff, such as sabotaging electronics, shutting down power plants, and sniping bad guys. You're sent on one technological scavenger hunt after another, set in usual-suspect locales, such as offices, parking garages, warehouses, and deserted city streets. Mission objectives are taken from the Third Echelon playbook. ![]() Lloyd looks exactly like Sam Fisher, right down to his black Underoos and night-vision goggles. Aside from fanged foes ripping your throat out when you lose, there aren't any differences between Vampire Rain and a typical espionage-style sneaker. It's hard to get too creeped out by the protagonist and setting, either, because both are pulled straight from Splinter Cell. Oddly enough, the rain of murderous vampires doesn't keep pedestrians and cops from wandering the streets at all hours of the night. Yet gory scenes, such as the one where you discover some of your buddies have been turned into performance art through the innovative use of stop signs, seem more like cheap gimmicks than truly spooky. Visual design of the game is too urban and high-tech to give off any sort of creepy gothic vibe, so the game always goes for the gross-out. Civilians are still walking the streets at night without a care in the world, so it's hard to believe that you're in the middle of a bloodsucking apocalypse. The new PS3 version of the game better explains how this is happening, courtesy of a relocated flashback scene, although the whole story still seems faintly ludicrous and not the slightest bit scary. These fanged goons are biting their way across America and will outnumber Joe Sixpacks with pulses in precisely 908 days. ![]() The campaign tells the ludicrous tale of John Lloyd, member of a team of plucky commandos fighting a secret war against postmodern vampires called Nightwalkers. About the only good thing about this game is that it doesn't waste your time it broadcasts its awfulness right from the start. ![]() Playing Splinter Cell with vampires isn't as cool in reality as it is on paper. This is a mostly straight-up reissuing of last year's debacle, loaded with the same crippling design screwups and absurd difficulty. Alas, the game has been resurrected for a new platform with a subtitle added to it in the hopes of fooling people into believing that this is a superior sequel. Developer Artoon's blend of Splinter Cell-style stealth gaming with toothy creatures of the night was so awful when it debuted for the Xbox 360 last summer that it deserved to be locked inside its coffin for good. If they could be finished off a la Van Helsing, you can bet that Vampire Rain: Altered Species would never have made it to the PlayStation 3. Vampire games apparently can't be staked.
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