You play from a Tomb Raider style third person view with the camera fixed firmly behind you, and during the training level you learn a few of Rayne's tricks from her bouncy-boobed tutor Mynce (no, that's really her name). She can jump superhuman distances, tightrope walk better than any circus performer and use special vision modes (including a sort of thermal vision like Predator), and later a 'bullet time' effect like Max Payne or Enter The Matrix, complete with zoom-o-vision (for sniping or checking out distant enemies). She can do an impressive 'rebound' jump that can break through weak walls and locked doors, and a sort of corkscrew double-jump which acts as an attack and handy way of extending her already prodigious jumping ability. Rayne has two wicked swords attached to her arms and can cause an awful lot of damage with a few presses of L1. As you progress through the game Rayne learns to extend these attack combos into strings and really starts to chop and dice her enemies. Repeated attacks fill up Rayne's rage meter, and when its full you can press triangle and unleash an awesome flurry of moves that cause even more gory damage than normal - enemies get literally dismembered and liquidized, and blood gets splattered absolutely everywhere - BloodRayne is a seriously visceral and gory game. And obviously, being part vampire Rayne doesn't go hunting for a medikit when hurt - she simply grabs anything vaguely humanoid in shape and sucks its neck when you press square. Feeding is accompanied by satisfied chomping and slurping noises, and usually a sarcastic or fruity parting shot as well…

Rayne is also quite happy to kill her enemies with machine guns, rifles, rocket launchers and grenades - she'll even tote two guns at a time, and target two separate enemies simultaneously. This girl can really look after herself, and there's a real joy in seeing arrogant soldiers run away screaming when they get a taste of her bullets or blades. Rayne often makes wisecracks to her soon-to-be-dead foes, and being a vamp can even suck blood, use the victim as a shield and shoot any others in the immediate vicinity (if she's got a gun)- it feels incredibly cool the first time you do it suckcessfully (get it? - I made a sucking joke), like when you hold up a guard and get his dogtags in MGS2, or sword juggle/shotgun something in Devil May Cry.

   

The graphics in BloodRayne are a rather mixed bag with a rather inconsistent approach to the amount of detail; such as the sheer amount of gore and body parts that unlike in most games don't disappear, but stay in place as evidence of your passing through, or conversely the big, ugly texture maps that are used in places. There's plenty of well-modelled scenery and furniture and a remarkable amount of breakable objects. But despite the detail Rayne's movement is almost too quick and lacks subtlety, and I think that if she moved a little slower then you'd have appreciated the complexity of her many movements more. The settings are certainly atmospheric, but also all interminably dreary and dingy, and the game lacks the ability to draw someone to it through pure visual appeal - Do horror games really have to be dark and depressing? But the important factor is that playing BloodRayne is fun, and a quick go is all you need to be hooked. Compared to the likes of Raziel, Kain, Buffy, Indy, Tenchu or Primal's Jen, Rayne packs more action into one level than the rest of them put together - but the Nazi headhunt does get repetitive. The game seems to have had so many unoriginal gaming concepts thrown into the pot (both in plot elements and actual playable sections) that we starting making a mental list of the sources - you get; vampires, Nazis, huge boss characters, sniping, wobbly breasts, bullet time - you even get to control a mecha walking tank (in 1939 for goodness' sake) - BloodRayne ought to be rubbish, but it's not, it's a highly entertaining journey full of violence, bloodshed, exploration and... more bloodshed, and it doesn't suck.