Buffy the Vampire Slayer

September 13, 2002

Reviewed by: Gthomp1

BUFFY GOES DIGITAL

For some reason, I could not tear myself away from playing this game. It’s not the greatest game in the world, but it had something that held my interest. Maybe it was looking at a digital Sarah Michelle Gellar that kept me playing or the fact that the female vampires are sexy as Hell (no pun intended). I really didn’t want to kick their butts, except Buffy had no choice.

As we all know, Sunnydale is wrought with trouble and the time span the game tackles is no exception. There is a foul plot afoot which involves the resurrection of an undead Queen so that she may lead Sunnydale’s vampire and demon community to take over the world. Of course you, as Buffy, must stop this plan. You travel through 13 missions with over 43 levels. If you are familiar with the show, you will visit some places that are in the show like The Bronze nightclub, Sunnydale High School, and Angel’s mansion.

The game progress is what everyone will recognize as your basic 3-d platformer. Start the level, fight monsters, find keys to unlock doors, and locate mission items in order to proceed to the next level. It doesn’t sound like much is going on in the game, but you’re not playing it because it’s just a game, you’re playing it because it’s part of the Buffy license.

Right off the bat, I relived my days of playing Tomb Raider and I didn’t have too much hope for this game. Just another knock-off? Besides the fact I had to search out levers and find crystals, some of the gameplay elements were alike. There are ledges you have to jump to and if you don’t make it, she automatically grabs on to them. But wait, she grunts when she’s trying to climb up. Tomb Raider? Also, there are times when you have to shimmy across a ledge or a hanging rope or a tube to access certain environments. Hmmm, I’m getting nice visions of Angelina Jolie. Lastly, this game sports semi-linear exploration. There are some side spots and “secrets” to be found; but mostly you’ll just go down a path or search an area for a switch only to move on to the next path or area. It’s just Max Payne hopped up on aspirin.

Why even bother with this game? Well, for one, you get to watch Gellar shake her thang through each level. You also get to interact with all those characters from the show: Willow, Cordelia, Xander, Giles, and Angel. There’s nothing like getting Willow‘s outlook on the current state of Sunnydale when things are heating up. Who is she, Bill O’Reilly? Also, the martial arts moves that Buffy uses in the game were motion-captured very well. The kicks are fast and the punches are devastating, sometimes spiraling the naughty demons in the air. And when combined with her Slayer Power--enhancing effects which boost strength and allow you to use other, more powerful combos--you can literally take out the undead while your yawning and waiting for the next opponent. And the best part of the game? Driving a stake Kung-Fu style through the hearts of the bad-guys. You don’t just do it the plain way by spearing it head-on. You can do it while your fighting: as you kick the crap out of one demon and another surrounds you, just aim backward and hit the weapon button and she’ll do a quick back hand and attempt to drive the stake. If it connects it will vanquish the demon and then, for a really cool move, you can try to stake the previous guy you were fighting. A double stake kill...make mine well-done.

Frankly, I’m getting tired of these kinds of graphics. Outdoor environments are lush and pretty, but the indoor arenas are barren and boring. There’s got to be something developers can do with the Xbox’s processing power than can allow them brighten up the decor inside the buildings. Fox Interactive did a nice job recreating the school, both indoor and out, but the Bronze Nightclub was not very crowded, in both people and items. Although there was nothing blurry or pixilated, I just found the blandness not compelling at all.

Along the same trend, the character models were varied in detail. Buffy was the most detailed: her smooth and uncommonly clear skin was intact and the rest of her...well, the rest of her can speak for itself. Let’s just say the digital specifications created a nice representation. The side characters (Willow, Cordelia, etc.) were done nicely, but not as well. For some reason, Willow looked like she belonged in the Planet of the Apes movie, but not on the human side. This game made me think that, barring Buffy, they had a hard time capturing the girls well. Buffy was fine, but her friends took a back seat. The undead people ranged from mediocre to okay. Spike and his minions had their trademarked clothing and tattoos, but the lackeys in the game actually should have been called slackeys because they all moved exactly the same and fought exactly the same. The best character that I fought against wasn’t a boss or even a sub-boss, but it was the skeleton in the cemetery. They have to be decapitated in order to die, but as you fight them, their limbs fly off. If they were still standing and had no arms, they would start to head butt you. Imagine thinking that these armless guys were harmless and suddenly one is butting you Ram-like and you’re caught off guard and you die. That’s a bitch.

Trying to control Buffy was a challenge. Just coming off of a major session of Dead To Rights I was somewhat use to the setup. Left thumbstick turns and moves her forward and backward and the right thumbstick turns the camera. I don’t like this setup in the first place, but at least I am able to invert the aiming and control, which did helped a little. Holding the right trigger puts Buffy in ‘strafing’ mode, which I really didn’t find helpful. It was much quicker to turn her to fight the undead than to strafe out of the way. The left trigger puts you in ‘looking’ mode or more importantly the sniper mode for the crossbow. Sniper mode on a crossbow? Actually, an electronic sniper mode? I guess that’s where my imagination has to take over.

Then there are your regular kick, punch, jump and block buttons. While the response time on the punch, kick, and jump buttons were fine, forget about using the block button consistently. If you are just standing there and want to block, fine; it will block quickly. But try to block after an unsuccessful combo and you might as well take a seat. Getting hit was better because you may fall to the ground, thereby missing a few of the punches. I have yet to block successfully after missing a combo. Granted, I shouldn’t miss a combo, but therein lies another issue with the controls.

If you start a movement, it was hard to change directions. If my combo was started and the bad guy dodged, then I was committed in that direction. Then, to make matters worse, when I finished the combo, there was a split-second delay before I could do anything. That means punch, or block, or move, or spin Buffy around so I could check out her slayer booty. When I was surrounded by many enemies and this delay happened, I got frustrated and couldn’t do anything but let my poor Buffy take it in the...um, get her can kicked.

There were a few other moments of irritation. The first were the one-liners. On the show, the writers are actually clever and witty. But they obviously didn’t have anything to do with the game because with sayings like “I’m glad you came back into town because I’ve been saving up a whole serving of whup-ass just for you”, and “This place gives me the wiggins”, my dumb-dumb level drop 10 points. Wiggins. Who? What? Where? It’s like was watching a really, really bad Van Damme film (or all of them put together).

The award for The Most Odd Collision Detection in a Video Game goes to--you guessed it--Buffy the Vampire Slayer. For moments where Buffy floats off the edge and disappears into walls, Buffy the Vampire Slayer for Xbox exemplifies how game makers can suspend reality even further by letting you fly and go through walls when you weren’t suppose to in the first place.

But not all is lost in this game. The Buffy atmosphere will make those fans of the series feel right at home with it’s tongue-in-cheek plot and creepy environments and sarcastic villains. Using the stake in combat is actually fun to do, especially when you do it well. Knocking out the undead with your ‘sharp, pointy, wooden thing’ (oh, I wish Buffy would say that slower) is pretty satisfying. The moves are motion-captured very well and I admit that some of the combos actually appear plausible. Lastly, I loved using the crossbow. Even though the sniper mode made me question the crossbow, shooting the bolts into the hearts sounded excellent and made me shake my head and think, ‘Yeah, I can’t wait to slay some more vampires...King Arthur style’.

This game is a niche game. No doubt fans of the show will love to immerse themselves in the storyline of the game and interact with the familiar characters. Hardcore gamers will probably be bored quickly because of the Tomb Raider exploring and pseudo-linear gameplay. Either way, I got through the game in about six hours under the normal mode, so for most gamers, a rental at least.

So when’s the video game based on The Anna Nicole Show going to come out?

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER

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