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LB's Buffy: Chaos Bleeds Review

Buffy's television days have come to an end, with the series finale airing this past spring. Over the years it aired, "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" developed a very loyal fan base. So loyal, in fact, they followed the show from its demise on the WB to its new home on UPN. Many of these die-hard Buffy fans are feeling hollow as the new television season is beginning, and there's no sign of Buffy, Willow, Xander, Spike, Giles, nor the rest of the gang. That is, until now. "Buffy" fans have another chance to see their beloved characters battle evil in the newest video game based on the series, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds".

"Chaos Bleeds" is the follow up to last years aptly titled, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". The original was an Xbox exclusive developed by The Collective. "Chaos Bleeds" is available on all three platforms (PS2, Xbox and GCN), and was developed by Eurocom Entertainment Software. Despite these changes, the game remains true to form with hand to hand fighting, puzzle solving and a general action-adventure gaming style, all found in the first game. However, with "Chaos Bleeds" the same form has been greatly improved.

The original "Buffy" received marginal accolades from both Jeremy and myself. Neither of us are huge fans of "button-mashing" fighting games, but the action adventure and puzzle solving elements of the game were just strong enough for us to look past the sloppy fighting system. This time around, Eurocom Entertainment Software got it right by throwing more weapons into the mix, along with magic spells, and the use of different characters, each with different skills. Also, the hand to hand combat felt more solid this time around, making the "button-mashing" actually fun.

Buffy is, of course, the star of the game as you spend about 50% of "Chaos Bleeds" playing as her. She is the best hand to hand fighter in the game, followed by Faith and Spike. Each of these characters come with the Slayer Handbook, or a list of attacks and their button combinations. Willow is a witch, so she comes with a Magic Book. It provides the button combinations needed to make Willow whip off necessary spells, as her hand to hand combat is fairly weak. Xander is most skilled with the Crossbow and Battle-Axe, and Sid (the dummy) has speed on his side. Each of these characters keeps the game more active and alive to the gamer as new tactics and button combinations need to be applied to every character.

The story also keeps the game flowing nicely. "Chaos Bleeds" begins with the gang being attacked at their operations hub, the Magic Hat. It eventually turns into a battle with an enemy from the past, Ethan Rayne. Mr. Rayne is at the center of a struggle with the first incarnation of evil the world has known, or The First. It is the gang's job to fight their way through vampires, zombies, and a whole slew of monsters that don't necessarily fit into traditional "monster" categories, in order to, ultimately, face The First themselves. There are twists and turns, and, of course, the cheesy wit that made the show what it was. All in all, "Chaos Bleeds" is a playable episode of the show.

What really shined in this game, however, were the object based puzzles. Much of this game is a treasure hunt of objects which all come together somehow to forward the story. The biggest difference between the first Buffy game and this one was the increased difficulty of the puzzles. In the first game, the player seemed to stumble into the solutions. In "Chaos Bleeds" the player really has to think about what needs to be done to solve the situations in front of them. Thank goodness we have a complete Buffy: Chaos Bleeds Walkthrough in case people need help with such puzzles.

The final element of the game that is worth praising is the new multiplayer aspect of it. Granted, gamers won't and shouldn't buy this game for the multiplayer component of it, but the multiplayer games are fun and work as a decent distraction for a short time period. There are four multiplayer options which can be played by 2 to 4 gamers. There's Survival, Bunny Catcher, Slayer Challenge, and Domination. Survival is simply a fight among players, the last one standing is the winner. Bunny Catcher (my personal fav) is a game where players compete to collect the most bunnies of their assigned color. Slayer allows one player to control the slayer, while the other players control the attacking monsters, and Domination is a fun form of king of the hill.

Sadly, with most decent game, comes a list of its weaknesses. Here are those of "Chaos Bleeds": Camera, controls, graphics and length. The camera does not move all of the way around you, as it did in the original game. Blind spots are common, and that can be aggrivating, particularly because we were given a great camera originally. The controls aren't really bad, but they can be annoying. We played the PS2 version of the game, where everything felt right, except scrolling through the Inventory. Imagine this: A vampire is coming at you, and you want to toss some Hell-Fire his way. To do this, you have to run around, while selecting your item from the in game inventory by pushing "right" or "left" on the control pad, then, finally hitting "up" to officially select and assign the item to your "Use" button, which you then have to hit to use the selected item. It's a lot of work to toss one vial of Hell-Fire, which never does as much damage as it should, anyway.

The graphics weren't good. They weren't bad, but they weren't anything to celebrate. This is fine with me and does not hurt my view of the game, as some games are just fine with just fine graphics. This is one of those games. However, if you're a graphics buff, you will be disappointed.

Finally, the game suffered from being too short. With only twelve levels, I was left wanting more, while thanking the Buffy gods that I rented this game instead of purchasing it. Unless you really like to take your time with games, this one is a renter. And you should rent it. You will like it.

-Allison

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