Blade II

Blade II goes X and finds a nice trenchcoat to keep him warm at night. What else awaits the daywalker?

Blade II doesn?t follow the movie story line, which isn?t all that important anyway as the game?s main draw is vampire-slicing action. In this regard, the 3D gameplay is nifty but ill-suited to what fans of the movie are accustomed to. Blade moves like molasses, and the rhythm-based attacks feel very out-of-character. Enemies are as dumb as posts, and making Blade punch cars and other random objects to unlock secrets is just plain silly. Halfway through, you?ll wish they just stole Devil May Cry?s engine; the kinetic energy present in the movie Blade II is nowhere to be found here.

The graphics are a mixed bag with environments that look true to areas in which vampires would congregate but lack any sort of personality. Blade himself is beefy and defined with care, apparently leaving little time or horsepower to differentiate the many nondescript baddies that populate the levels. On the plus side, Xbox owners get Blade?s signature trenchcoat, which is not included in the PS2 version. The leather billows in the wind and generally looks pretty cool, although there doesn?t seem to be any reason the developers couldn?t have included it on Sony?s machine. The background music is repetitive, and Blade himself doesn?t have a whole lot of witty one-liners at his disposal.

Blade II has a lot of good raw materials, but the end product doesn?t congeal into a bloody good time.

Comments [0]

post a comment

Post a Comment