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20100718.144024
website is now in archive mode. visit blog.subnova.com for information.
20080730.144615
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Buffy The Vampire Slayer Based on the extremely popular TV show of the same name, Buffy The Vampire Slayer (BtVS) is an action adventure hybrid game. Well, I say adventure, but its really a very linear exploration game.
For those that have been asleep for the last 5 years, you play as young Miss Summers, The Chosen One, who has been chosen to stick stakes in vampires, fight off hordes of demons and agonise over boyfriend after boyfriend (including vamps and special ops guys...). The game takes place around Season 2 or 3, when the Scooby Gang consists of Willow (witch), Oz (titch), Xander (which?) and Cordelia (bitch!), not to mention the estimable Giles.
So, armed with stakes crossbows and other implements of destruction, it is your task to clear Sunnydale of the next Big Bad.
 
I'd Use a Steak Knife
The game begins with a nice training mission that lets you handle jumping, running and climbing, and you soon manage to find some vamps to test out your skills on. You obviously can't just run up to a vampire and show them one of your sticks to dispatch them, and so there are two buttons on the controller given over to "punch" and "kick". Smash these enough and soon your target undead will be on the floor, or if you managed to pull off one of the more exciting (and easy) combos, he'll be flying through the air to neatly destroy a gravestone. When he's on the ground, run over and stake him, and you'll be rewarded with a fantastic dusting noise and visual effect (and some Slayer Power or Health, which is very prettily done).
Sooner or later you'll get the crossbow, which has a zoom function, allowing you to check that the your target actually IS one of the hordes of the undead before you lay him to rest. Or you could look around and pick up a spade, which can be swung around your head to clear the area, or jabbed to double as a stake.
You also have this "Slayer Power", which is a blue bar that can be expended on doing neat combos. Simple combos use up very little Slayer Power, but there are some devestating ones that will knock off 50% or more. The combos are very easy to execute (Back-back-kick sort of thing), and are generally worth the effort.
A Graveyard, of Course
The levels in BtVS are fantastically done. All your favourite locations from the series are there, including the school, the Bronze and the Graveyard. The layout is extremely linear in most places: kill all the vamps here, go through this door, find a key, go back and open somewhere, kill some more vamps, but to tell the truth I really didn't care that much. The game isn't about exploration and puzzles, its about turning the undead hordes into dust, which it does amazingly well.
There are occasional jumping puzzles, and I was stuck for about an hour on one bit trying to catch onto a rope to shimmy across to another platform, but in the end I got the hang of it and put it down to my inate ineptitude. There are also various crystals you can collect, which after every few levels you can take back to the Library to show to the Gang, and if you're lucky Willow will convert them into health or Slayer Power for you.
 
Heartless Bastards
The standard vamps in the game are pretty easy to dispatch (unless they come at you in 4s and 5s), so there are a few other beasts to take out, including zombies (stamp on their heads!) and rather difficult hellhounds (keep kicking!). Of course, there are a number of bosses too: so far I have run across some uber-vamp woman who didn't take too long to dust, and the rather lovely Spike! I am assured that The Master will also return (somehow), as will Angel (on our side, I believe).
All the character animation is very well done - your punches and kicks connect excellently with undead flesh, and Buffy's running animation doesn't suck. The graphics are generally pretty smooth, except for a rather poor implementation of lip-sync.
 
Conclusion
BtVS plays very nicely. I've had it for about a month now and I haven't finished it, but as those of you who know me will be able to support, I don't spend all my life playing games. The graphics are very impressive and worthy of showing off to your friends with PS2s, but I get the feeling they aren't pushing the hardware. By far the best bit of the game is the fighting, which is on a par with the fighting in Oni, if slightly simpler. There is nothing quite as satisfying as wielding a spade around your head and decapitating five zombies with that one hit. Fantastic.
Of course every game has downsides. I find the camera control in BtVS rather hard to acclimatise to, and I spend a lot of time looking at Buffy when I would really rather be looking at the spiders coming at me. Once you get the hang of it though, it starts to grate a little less. Another small niggle is the one-liners: as all superheroes, Buffy is renouned for her stunning put-downs when she dispatches a bad guy. For the first hour they are very in keeping with the series, but after the fourth rendition of "You should have stayed out of my slayground" you really start wishing for some Halo-style chatter.
With no multi-player, the game holds as much replay value as Oni - you might occasionally want to boot it up and do some kicking!
| Graphics | 8.0/10 | | Sound | 7.5/10 | | Story | 7.5/10 | | Playability | 8.5/10 | | Replay Value | 6.0/10 | | Fun Factor | 9.0/10 | | Overall | 7.8/10 |
Please note all images in this article are Copyright © XBox.com |
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Slackers.
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