PS2 New Games

VAMPIRE NIGHT
Ah, another G-Con45 compatible shooter! Like Resident Evil Survivor's targets are zombies and monsters, here your cross hairs are set on bloodsucking beasts and those who control them, reigning with a terrorizing grip of fear and death. The dark vampire theme amalgamates the modern with that of the ancient. A one-player attempt is a blast, but if you have 2 G-Con light guns, the screen will light up with hardcore blasting action. The most fun part of this game is the progressive Special Mode. Here you have to go through 6 levels of grueling aimin' & shootin' as monsters come at you from under the ground, from the sky or bursting through doors, from tombs, you name it. Each level boss takes a good couple pounds of lead to be taken down. In this Special mode you get different missions to complete each time you go for another attempt, be it saving a man's wife, finding a bone buried by a dog, a girls' doll, hidden door etc. These all add rewards to your score and get stored in your Mission File. Along the way boxes and barrels and other objects can be blown away to reveal silver, life and other bonuses. The silver can be used to upgrade your firearm, from better magazines to shotgun function. You can also buy objects like a ring that displays your score, warrior gloves that widens the impact, pendent or warp to skip levels, avoiding the same-old each time. These varied upgrades can be equipped at any point during the game. But, you're not in control of the game's speed of motion, thus they give you very little chance to get the good stuff. While warding off monsters, you still need to aim and strike the bonus in that split second of it being onscreen, and not get swiped, losing a life. Civilians can also be saved - they stumble towards you with a parasite growth attached to them - by aiming real carefully and hitting these things. If you strike the person they turn into a werewolf monster, ready to attack you. As you move along, graphic indications point out which focal points of a target is the hit area with maximum effect. One downfall of this game is the terrible voice-over art. Your mean gun-toting vampire hunters as well as bad guys (except the evil female one) are way too camp and laughable, some even coming equipped with an un-macho lisp, making a tough speech everything but.

5 / A
- PB