Seeing as our previous article highlighted all the furry things in video games, it only stands to reason that we have an article dedicated to vampires in the medium, doesn’t it?
Of course, seeing as how vampirism is much more “popular” for gamers, we do have to lay down some rules. This list only includes those games where you play as vampires (apologies to the majority of Castlevania fans), and we’ll highlight only one entry per franchise.
You – Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines
Based on the tabletop RPG game by White Wolf Publishing, Bloodlines takes place in 21st-century Los Angeles. You are an unnamed human who has been turned into a fledgling vampire for one of the seven clans inhabiting the area. Employed by Sebastian LaCroix, prince of Los Angeles’ vampires, you embark on a quest to uncover the plans of the Sabbat: vampires who have given into their violent vampiric nature. The decisions you make determine the outcome and fate of the clans.
An example of a game on the cusp of greatness, Bloodlines seemed to have done everything right. The narrative and the world are replicated beautifully from its tabletop origins. All four areas of Los Angeles feel unique, and look amazing for the time. The dialogue and character interactions also heighten the immersion, and give you a wealth of options, depending on your goals. Also, the visual feedback from NPCs from your responses is something that wasn’t commonplace, and is put to good use here. Gameplay-wise, you could do almost anything, although of course you had to deal with the repercussions, but it all made for an engrossing game. You have a variety of powers at your disposal, and can feed on humans, but doing so costs you your humanity.
What happened upon release, however, is a different story. The game was rushed, and so bugs crept in. From performance issues to broken quests to issues reloading the game, Bloodlines was hampered from the start. It also didn’t help that it was released on the same day as Half-Life 2, using the same engine. Activision did eventually patch things, but the game still had performance problems. Fans have kept things going by creating their own patches to fix things further, and with the modding scene, have kept the game alive even today. Until Bloodlines 2 rolls out, this is one modern RPG that vampire fans have to check out.
Gabriel Belmont – Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2
Taking place after Lords of Shadow, Gabriel Belmont has been transformed into Dracula. After an assault by the Brotherhood of Light on his castle, Gabriel falls into a deep sleep and awakens centuries later. With no memory of what caused him to fall dormant, the only thing Gabriel longs for is death. His old nemesis, Zobek, warns Gabriel of the return of Satan, who is on the verge of resurrection, and who will surely destroy the world. Zobek offers Gabriel the Vampire Killer whip, the only artifact that can kill Gabriel, in exchange for Gabriel vanquishing the “acolytes” trying to resurrect Satan.
Konami finally found success in translating Castlevania into a fully 3D world in Lords of Shadow (though it originally wasn’t a Castlevania title), and attempted to repeat the success with the sequel. Graphically, the game looks gorgeous, although there is a distinct inconsistency between interiors and exteriors, with the inside of buildings consisting of dull warehouses and pipe-filled corridors. Gameplay-wise, Gabriel has his whip and sword, but is also able to rely on magic and his vampiric powers of mist and summoning bats. He can also resort to the tried and true method of biting defeated foes for health. Unfortunately, many of the powers Gabriel displays are reserved for cutscenes, though the idea of barfing blood onto an enemy in order to defeat it should’ve been left out, altogether.
Sadly, Lords of Shadow 2 has serious problems when it comes to the story. At the start of the game, Gabriel is understandably weak, and must rely on stealth and deception to avoid conflict. Later on, however, once you gain more power, it makes less sense to resort to stealth, since you’re so powerful. Furthermore, one is supposed to feel the “angst” of Gabriel and his condition, but much like many of the emotional scenes in the game, it flops hard. Characters are introduced and then almost immediately discarded, and the ending is seriously anticlimactic. Ultimately, one can spring for the original game, and leave this one for curiosity.
Raziel – Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
1500 years after the events of Blood Omen, vampire lord Kane has now doomed the land of Nosgoth to eternal corruption. Kane has besieged the land with his vampire lieutenants, one of whom is Raziel. As vampires age, they become less human, and more “divine”. As a result, Raziel develops wings, surpassing Kane. In an act of jealousy, Kane rips Raziel’s wings from his body and has him cast into the Lake of the Dead. Raziel is resurrected as a Wraith by The Elder God to become his “soul reaver” and kill Kain in order to restart the Wheel of Fate, a cycle of reincarnation of souls that circle the Wheel in a loop of predestination.
Okay, so we bent the rules a little. Raziel is technically a Wraith that feeds on vampire souls, but he was originally a vampire, so we’ll let it go. Plus, Soul Reaver is still awesome. Crystal Dynamics continued the world building from Blood Omen, but rather than go the RPG route, we’re taking more of a Tomb Raider spin. That’s okay, since the game looks good, and plays well. Obviously, things are dated by today’s standards, but back when it was released, dispatching vampires by fire, water or impaling them before sucking out their souls was always fun (and still is). The game also features puzzles that again, for the time, were akin to Tomb Raider in rotating an object or pushing a block. Mixing things up was the use of the spectral realm, a world where eventually Raziel can enter freely and that is sometimes necessary to solve puzzles or traverse obstacles.
Being that it’s a product of its time, Soul Reaver is obviously dated. Apart from the puzzles, combat is the most glaring. It leans towards being on the easy side with not much to it other than whacking away at your foes until they’re stunned. The game also is more linear than the previous entry, which again will frustrate fans who enjoyed the RPG aspects. Still, Soul Reaver proved that the franchise could move into a different genre, introduce new mechanics, and still be a lot of fun.
Dracula – Monster in My Pocket
Inspired by the 80s phenomenon of miniature fantastical and legendary monsters and creatures, the game follows the storyline of the tie-in comic book series. Warlock, wanting to have power and rule over all other monsters, creates a shrinking spell to use as punishment for any who choose to oppose him. Eventually, all of the monsters choose to join his side, save for Vampire and The Monster. However, Warlock’s spell was miscast, causing all of the monsters to shrink in size. Undeterred, Warlock sends out his henchmen to destroy Vampire and The Monster. As either of them, you must fight back the hordes and make your way to defeat Warlock.
More than just a quick cash-in on a fad, Konami worked their magic to create another enjoyable platformer. Despite Dracula and the Monster playing the same (both only have one attack and a double-jump), there was still a lot of fun to be had, even if the game doesn’t bring anything new to the platformer table. The fact that you’re a literal pocket-sized monster navigating areas like a house, the street or the sewers, fighting off other pocket-sized monsters is a joy. Still, it’s disappointing that you can’t snack on enemies as Dracula. Speaking of enemies, each level has its own set of monsters, each drawn wonderfully. Topping things off is the amazing soundtrack, which given Konami’s past experience on the NES, is nothing short of awesome. Apart from a serious lack of vampiric tendencies or doing anything different from other games in the genre, the difficulty does lean towards being easy. That shouldn’t stop you from trying this one out if you get the chance and if you enjoy classic platformers.
Rayne – Bloodrayne
Set in 1933 and 1938, just before World War II, Rayne, a dhampir and agent of the Brimstone Society, is sent to various locations around the world to battle supernatural creatures. Eventually, Rayne learns of the Gegengeist Gruppe, a group that aims to bring Hitler into power through the use of occult artifacts, including obtaining and reassembling the remains of Beliar, a demon whose remains (as relics) grant their owners supernatural abilities.
Again, we’re kind of bending the rules with Rayne being a half-vampire, but hey. Admittedly, Bloodrayne is a bunch of clichés blended together, but it’s still a fairly fun mix of melee combat and gunplay. And who doesn’t love chomping into Nazis? Of course, Rayne has other powers, such as a vampiric night vision mode which reveals enemy locations and the location of mission objectives, as well as the ability to slow down time for herself to pull off some Bullet Time effects. Apart from shooting up or biting Nazis, you also have to do a bit of basic puzzle-solving, but it’s not too involved once you get into the game.
Bloodrayne‘s level design is also visually diverse and atmospheric. The first level, Louisiana, is appropriately bleak, for example, while the Nazi compound in Argentina feels like a massive fortress. Unfortunately, Louisiana also happens to feel incredibly out of place when compared to the rest of the game. The combination of jumping puzzles, water hazards and lame voice acting all start the game off so woefully. You can understand how it was intended for a “tutorial”, but none of what you’re forced to endure comes up later on in the game! And yes, there’s that whole cliché thing. Everything in Bloodrayne has been done before, and done better. There’s not much in terms of innovation here. Still, if you’re looking for a hot vampire to fight Nazis, you could do worse.
Jericho Cross – Darkwatch
Jericho Cross, a jaded American Civil War deserter, and drifter, becomes a gunslinger and train robber. During his “one last job”, Jericho unwittingly releases a vampire lord named Lazarus Malkoth, who bites Jericho, causing him to slowly turn into a vampire. Jericho is conscripted into the Darkwatch, an ancient vampire-hunting order, as an elite operative. Jericho’s mission is to hunt down and stop Malkoth. At the same time, Jericho struggles with his humanity and his potential descent into darkness.
Another of Capcom’s forgotten franchise starters, Darkwatch was and still is a blast. Separating this game from every other FPS at the time is its presentation. Developer High Moon Studios crafted a superb melding of Wild West horror with a world filled with atmosphere. The graphics and sounds bring it all together, enhancing the personality and mood of the world with their design. Of course, Jericho being a vampire only adds to it all. And yes, Capcom did go the route of tying Jericho’s vampiric powers into his morality, which is a big win for the story. Admittedly though, choosing to follow a “Good” or “Evil” path changes very little in terms of the game itself, and simply opens up different sets of available powers and changes up a few cutscenes.
Despite the gameplay being more or less in the same mold as other FPS games at the time, Darkwatch‘s action is still worthwhile. Fun weapons like a crossbow that fires bolts with dynamite are never boring, nor is using a Gatling Gun on a stagecoach. If you opt for the Xbox version of the game, you also get a multiplayer mode that has a few cool deathmatch options, while the PS2 version has split-screen co-op. Derivativeness be damned. Capcom is sitting on this IP that needs to be given an infusion and live again.
D – Vampire Hunter D
Based on the anime Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, you play as D, the half-human/half-vampire whose sole mission in life is to hunt down and kill vampires. D is employed by a rich family to retrieve their daughter from the vampire who kidnapped her. However, he is not the only one trying to free her, as a rival group of vampire hunters, the Marcus Brothers, are after the daughter and the bounty, regarding D as a rival. D must enter Castle Chaith and battle the vampire lord and his minions that inhabit the castle, in order to save the girl and collect his bounty.
There’s no doubt that Vampire Hunter D‘s source material makes it ripe for a video game. However, the game is unfortunately shoehorned into the Survival Horror mould the likes of more successful games such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill. While it made sense for the time, in retrospect, this wasn’t the right choice. D’s control mimics Resident Evil‘s to a certain extent, but is poorly implemented where you’ll end up backflipping instead of jumping, resulting in being hit. The fact that the game uses similar static backgrounds to RE also presents a problem with jumping, as you’ll often fall to your death instead of clearing a jump. The camera also doesn’t help, as its angles are too far away and change too frequently during battle, and enemies magically reappear in areas that are revisited, just out of reach where you can’t see them.
Unique to the game (and a spin on the source material’s established lore), D can use his left hand to suck up energy from weak enemies to build up healing and attack magic. While this is unique, it, unfortunately, feeds into the main theme of the game just not being fun to play. What’s the sense of danger if you can continually go back to the respawning enemies and regain health? Ultimately, it’s a lot of little things, from the camera and the controls, the game using the same animation sequence of D walking in place as a new area loads, to the tedious backtracking throughout the castle while solving puzzles and killing the same monsters over and over again. It bogs the entire experience down, sapping the fun out of the experience. Stick to the games that inspired Bloodlust, instead.
Ransom Stark – BloodNet
Ransom Stark finds himself stricken with Hopkins-Brie Ontology Syndrome whilst working at TransTechnicals, due to his forced extended exposure to Cyberspace. Ransom is promptly dismissed from TransTech, and soon finds himself homeless and hopeless. Deirdre Tackett, a woman with a personal vendetta against TransTech, saves Ransom’s life by giving him a prototype brain implant of her own design. Ransom soon discovers that his former employers are actually vampires. And as part of his “payment”, Ransom was turned into a follower of the evil head-vampire, Abraham Van Helsing, but was saved due to his implant. Now Ransom must put a stop to Van Helsing’s plans to take over Manhattan and control Cyberspace. At the same time, try to save himself from being a vampire before it’s too late.
Combining cyberpunk and vampires? Sounds cool. Does it actually work? Uh, not really. Okay, it’s not all bad. Graphically, BloodNet captures the weird mix of dystopian gothic cyberpunk pretty well, being both oppressive and enchanting at the same time. The combination of pre-rendered and hand-drawn futuristic stills is typical for the time, so if you grew up in that era of PC gaming, you’ll be more inclined to immerse yourself. In fact, the game melds a number of different aesthetics together: the classic adventure gameplay elements with RPG aspects, the distant future with supernatural vampire myths, and a bright and loud metropolis contrasting with a dark mystery.
So, what went wrong? Well, the game isn’t much of a game. That mix of adventure gaming with RPG? It results in a weird blend of endless conversations, heavy turn-based combat, and wandering around, trying to figure out what to do next. Characters are one-dimensional, with bland writing that fails to develop anyone at all. Compounding everything is the awful user interface, which is far from intuitive, and can take forever to figure out, and the keys to use the interface change depending on the context. To top it off, the game employs a bloodlust mechanic that will constantly increase, requiring you to either drink a vial of blood (which is rare), or bite someone to get blood. Not only does it prevent you from exploring (since it goes up faster when you travel), but if you do choose to bite someone, you could end up biting a plot-critical NPC, killing them, and making the game unwinnable. A classic case of looks good, but tastes bad. Stick with Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines.
Jonathan Reid – Vampyr
London, 1918. In the aftermath of World War I, and in the grips of the Spanish Flu, Dr. Jonathan Reid is tasked with finding a cure to save the city’s flu-ravaged citizens. But at the same time, he is cursed with vampirism, causing him to feed on those he has vowed to heal. Reid must now also find a cure for his affliction, as well as find the one who cursed him. Along the way, Reid uncovers information regarding the sewer-dwelling vampire subspecies known as Skals, which are being mistaken for the Spanish Flu.
The newest game to feature a playable vampire, Dontnod earn points for not only crafting a good-looking game, but also having a great story to go along with it. Stalking the streets is appropriately atmospheric, with the gritty and worn streets layered with fog and rain feeling incredibly immersive. London is populated with dozens of unique characters all with a wealth of dialogue and back story. And, much like many of the other games on this list, Reid has to reckon his humanity with his thirst for blood.
Unfortunately, while you do face consequences for killing citizens of London, it’s not going to cut you off from questlines or change the story. You simply have to face more vampire hunters if you are too reckless with your feeding. This is all for getting experience to unlock more vampiric powers. Which, if you do go about it by not biting someone, it’ll take forever. And because you don’t really face any consequences for feeding on the innocent, you can just go about doing it without any real repercussions, cheapening the experience. Another weak area is the combat, which feels clunky and not fluid at all. Combat can also be exploited to the point where if you upgrade health regeneration, and use a “needle” stun weapon that automatically absorbs small amounts of blood on each hit, you can practically become invincible. Regardless of the combat, Vampyr absolutely nails its atmosphere and theme. And, combined with an intriguing story, provides a rewarding, if flawed, experience.
Cole MacGrath – inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood
During the events of “Pyre Night”, a celebration in New Marais, Cole investigates a nearby church after hearing screams. After rescuing civilians trapped in its crumbling catacombs, Cole ventures deeper looking for more survivors, but is overtaken by a woman revealed to be a vampire. Cole awakens on top of the corpse of a vampire known as Bloody Mary. Due to its superhuman properties, Cole’s blood is used to awaken Bloody Mary, who then proceeds to bite Cole for his troubles. Now a vampire, Cole must stop Bloody Mary from taking over New Marais, but at the same time, must contend with his own bloodlust.
Built on the inFAMOUS 2 engine, Festival of Blood plays much like that game (for good and bad), while throwing in some new mechanics and powers. For starters, Cole now can drink blood to restore health and power, and is able to turn into a cloud of bats and soar right over all those buildings you previously had to climb up, making for a brand-new experience. You’re also equipped with a “vampire vision” that allows you to spot vampires hidden in crowds. Probably one of the bigger changes from the original game is the removal of the karma system. This sadly removes the potential idea of using it as conflict within Cole to avoid giving in to his vampiric side, but that might just be me.
While well written and entertaining, the story for Festival of Blood is on the short side, not to mention the unexplored situations and scenarios that could have been added to give more meat to the story and add more variety. Sucker Punch attempts to rectify this with a series of items that you can find, but that tends to feel more like busywork. The devs also brought back user-generated content, which can be accessed once the story is completed, allowing individuals to create their own quests and mini-games for Cole to complete. Still, Festival of Blood does offer a unique experience separate from the series’ canon, and is pretty enjoyable for its cost.