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Dom Robinson reviews
Sony
- Price: £39.99
- Players: 1-2
Vampire Night could best be describedas Time Crisis 2with added vampires, or with any semblance of humans taken out and replacedwith vampires.
For those who are hell-bent on shooting at anything put out in this type ofgame, you’ll be glad to hear that everything looks arcade-perfect, given thepower of the PS2 when it’s been programmed properly.
Do you need to be told what this is about? I’m sure there’s a plot in heresomewhere, but it’s not readily apparent, other than that you’re having tosave the life of a young girl from the evil clutches of some mad, bad vampireswho have a head honcho that you’re bound to meet in the final round, if youcan make it that far.
For the uninitiated, this type of game, which has included Virtua Cop andConfidential Missionis a first-person shooter which involves you pointing a lightgun at thescreen, shooting the bad guys and hoping to last through each round as long aspossible.
Whereas Time Crisis 2 differed by having a ‘ducking’ option, so this onedoesn’t differ from anything because it’s one long arcade blast from startto finish, but is that good enough these days…?
Well, not really. It looks great on a 32″ widescreen set, or larger, asyou’ll experience the full fun of the arcade. It certainly can’t be played ona tiny portable as the screen wouldn’t be big enough to recognise the gun toany worthwhile degree.
However, on an audio note, it’s all “bang bang bang” in stereo so that gets abit repetitive. I’d like to have seen some use of DTS sound as has been usedfor some EA releases likeSSX Trickysince that really does blow you away and is what’s needed here before boredomstarts to set in.
Yes, I said boredom. While I reasonably enjoyed TC2 for a while, this titletakes a step back by having more in common with less ambitious predecessorssuch as the Virtua Cop series and if you must indulge in this onethen try a rental first. If you’re not yawning after half-an-hour then itmay well be worth a purchase.
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.