Over the years, Vampires and video games have been quite kind to each other. Like film, video gaming just lends itself well to the concept of super human beasts out for blood, whether it is the gamer on the prowl, or the hunt. Unfortunately, in Vampire Rain, this concept fails to shine through creating what has to be one of the most generic stealth/action titles ever made, Vampires or not.

The storyline in Vampire Rain consists of the usual cliches and characters you'd expect to find in a corny Vampire videogame or movie. In this case, a city is being over run by Vampires often refereed to as 'Night Crawlers', threatening the peace and causing havoc, etc etc. As a member of a special task force team, you must enter the city at night and take on a few basic missions ranging from information gathering to elimination, which gradually uncover the scale of the situation, forcing you to try and bring the whole thing down piece by piece. This all plays out in a rather predictable and rigid fashion, with a few odd design decisions on the way.

One of the first problems you'll notice with Vampire Rain is that it really isn't a Vampire game at all. You see, the entire basis of the game is stealth, and the way that the game has implemented this stealth means the things you're trying to hide from as you move about, in this case Vampires, could really be anything. The game could be about a British spy moving through KGB facilities, and the only thing they'd have to change is the character models and the "Game Over" video sequence showing your character being devoured by a Vampire when you get caught (in that case, they'd show a KGB operative poisoning you I guess).

This is the case because the gameplay is rather generic and doesn't really stray from third-person stealth/action game standards at all, failing to implement stuff you'd expect a Vampire based game to implement. All you really have to do is move about without being caught and occasionally deal with Vampires with a gun or a UV Knife, which is basically just a modern version of the wooden stake. Although the game does mention that these Vampires or 'Night Crawlers' have super sensing abilities which could have added some new dimensions to the gameplay, thanks to the fact that the game is more or less entirely played outside in the rain (or inside with a sprinkler system going off), this rarely comes through as apparently rain lowers their senses. So, basically, remaining out of sight from the Vampires in this game is about as dull as remaining out of the sight of a normal human being.

The only time you really ever experience a sense of Vampire superiority in this game is when they do in fact spot you, which could be because you walked in the plain sight of one, or because the one you were quietly tailing behind to plant a UV Knife into suddenly turned around for no good reason, which as I'm sure you can imagine is quite annoying, because when a 'Night Crawler' in this game does spot you, you're basically as good as dead. It doesn't really matter where you are - on top of a building, behind a large fence etc - the Vampire will do what it can and track you down usually in the matter of seconds, as they can ascend pretty much any object with ease when they enter their beast form.

If you want to stand a chance of surviving a Vampire attack you're going to need a weapon capable of taking one down, which isn't viable to do until at least half way through the single player story mode where you are given access to more weapons. This is just one of the few odd inconsistencies in this game, as at least one of the weapons you gain early - an M4 Carbine look alike - should be just as powerful if not more so than these apparent anti-Vampire weapons; a standard sniper rifle and shotgun. It's not that the M4 won't kill a Night Crawler, it's just that you can only very rarely take one down quick enough before they run up to you and chow down - which, by the way, looks absolutely ridiculous. I don't have the slightest idea why, but the Vampires in this game have the oddest running animation I think I've ever seen in a videogame. They run like pepped up cliche super hero's with an arm bent out in front like a shield - very odd indeed.

While I can understand the game wants to create an environment where stealth is vital and combat only suitable where absolutely necessary, making it so that attracting the attention of even one Night Crawler is almost guaranteed to be a 'Game Over' every time eliminates much of the suspense and horror the game could have had. There is absolutely nothing scary about the game alerting you that you're about to get killed because a Crawler has you in his or her sight. In this situation, unless you have a weapon suitable on hand, which you probably don't, you're better off just putting the control pad down and waiting for the 'Game Over' screen allowing you to continue from the last checkpoint. Where's the element of surprise? where is the possibility of escape and hence the creation of an intense chase sequence? Even if you do have a capable weapon on hand, they are so capable, i.e. one shot one kill, that the roles basically get reversed, making it very hard not to kill them, which itself is no more exciting. There just doesn't seem to be a happy medium here.