Chaos breathes a new life in 2020, one that was thought to be lost back in the early parts of the 2000s. Taking the thing that made men tremble in seduction, creating a new form, and resurrected in a new age. The vampire was a creature that was feared, and most often told about to children as a bedtime story to deter them from wandering off to places where they ought not to be. But now, the vampire has a new goal, to reclaim self-dignity and pride by slaying those who have wronged them and their family.
Blood Rayne, a third-person horror action/adventure game that came out in 2002 is being re-born and brought into a new light. Tackling this title in the age of gaming that we are currently in is not only a joy but a hassle. A pure Joy in the fact that I can play a retro game on YouTube and a hassle in the fact that I experience throughout the game silent hill two Esq camera angles, and mediocre controls. Don’t get me wrong my experience with Bloodrayne is one I will forever treasure because this is a game that has a strong place in my heart but the controls lack desirability amongst other things.
They Planned To Take Over The World:
This game takes fighting demon Nazis who are out to destroy the world to a new level. The game starts in 1933, and has three acts; it is much like a play, starting in Morton, Louisiana, Rayne starts working with the Brimstone Society to investigate an outbreak in the area.
The story will then skip ahead a few years to Argentina. Rayne is sent to prevent the G.G.G. (Gegengeist Gruppe), from obtaining an artifact known as "The Skull of Beliar”. The GGG is a faction established to seek out supernatural means of bringing Germany to power, much like it was in World War Two when Hitler would collect paraphernalia in which he thought would help him rise to power and stay there. How wrong he was. After finding an anonymous letter stating that a G.G.G. officer in Germany has a document of the remaining officers, Rayne then goes to Castle Gaustadt in Germany to dispose of them and eventually, Jurgen Wulf himself. Jurgen Wolf acting as a Hitler in this instance. The history that has been put into this game is quite thorough, in what capacity it could have been done and what would have been too far and just right at the time of 2002 for a game to do. Having pictures of Adolf Hitler, representing S.S. soldiers as G.G.G members and, using vampires as a metaphor for both good and bad is quite something.
The Use of Vampires and History in Blood Rayne: vampires are turned into a metaphor in BloodRayne, for a multitude of things and one of those is of the many heinous murders that the S.S. played out during World War 2 on the Jews. I feel as if this game takes its hat off to the lost lives of World War Two, making the vampire characters (and the ones they protect) fighting for their survival and succeeding to an extent. But on another side of the coin, the vampire could also represent the S.S and how they drained the life out of the millions, all for the one, treating the character of the vampire in this instance as the villainous murderer who has no bounds. Both examples are valid in my opinion and warranted in a game like this that has actual historical connotations. Speaking of the use of history in this game, the developers create a nice nod to the ever so famous Elizabeth Bathory, and the cruel Dr. Josef Mengele, combining the names together creating the character “The Butchress” now, just to give a little context as to who these people are in regards to the game, Elizabeth Bathory, a Hungarian countess who purportedly tortured and murdered hundreds of young women in the 16th and 17th centuries. Draining them of their blood, and according to some reporting’s ate parts of her victims. As for Josef Mengele, also known as the Angel of Death, he was an S.S soldier and physician during world war two He is mainly remembered for his actions where he performed experiments on prisoners and was a member of the team of doctors who selected victims to be killed in the gas chambers and was one of the doctors who administered the gas. He was also known for his work on identical twins. Now, the reason why this is pertinent to the game is that later on, towards the tail end of the end of this game we have a boss battle with a set of twins. Could this be a reference to the horror that was done at Auschwitz-Birkenau? Im not sure but it is intriguing, to say the least, all the while, the developers are plaguing this game with ancient artifacts, and cryptic meanings, and backing it up with facts? I might just be in love.
Re-Writing History of Beliar:
The history of Belial is an interesting one, while im unsure if the developers of Bloodrayne used the origin, or made it up Belial originally is from Jewish history and means “the wicked one” and the history of Belial is that he is one of Satan's more vulnerable demons. Well, forget the history you knew because that is not the interpretation given in the game. Belair as it is re-written is a powerhouse of a demon and tries to take over the world by destroying it, demons really don’t make sense. Now the Deamites for example were found when the Nazis in the game we're looking from the ruminants of Beliar. The Deamites are different as they can easily represent the disgusting nature of who the S.S was in Nazi Germany. These worms with heads are parasites that attach to the host and are almost impossible to shoot and make a weird shrieking noise as they try to attack you. These characters don’t have much meaning other than what I stated previously, but diving deeper, psychologically it’s a different story in regards to Rayne.
The psychology of Blood Rayne:
The one vampire to take out the entire force of the G.G.G is also someone who is half-vampire, half-human, and who still has tremendous regard for human life and is empathetic towards others, no that’s totally a normal vampire. A vampire by nature is one that lacks all human emotions and feels absolutely nothing. Im not talking about the vampires that got corrupted by society over the years with books like twilight, im talking about Nosferatu, Dracula, Vlad the impaler the list goes on. Bloodrayne is a product of the politically correct generation we currently live in where we are constantly changing the way things are to an extent. Now, is this a bad thing, now it's an evolutionary process, it's taking the next step (some take it farther than others) but be that as it may, Bloodrayne is at an empathic crossroads with herself, and characters such as Mynce. Mynce is a double agent and a dhampir (half human half vampire) worker for the brimstone society. She is the only character that I feel is like a mother to Rayne, one that she truly connects with. In the story. Rayne already shows a tremendous amount of empathy and is one with the humans around her since she once was a human herself at a younger age. While Rayne may be on this hunt for her father, more importantly, she is on the hunt to find herself again through these missions she takes and the Nazis she decapitates.
Final thoughts:
Blood Rayne was a trip down memory lane, and now that I've played both games im eager to see if either the first or second game with getting a remake. It deserves to be revisited and to be loved once more with better graphics, camera designs that aren't so sickly, and voice acting that is actually good. And while I loved this game, and coming back to it was a treat for sure, I have to wonder if this game was re-released today would it receive the same praise that it got back in those young days of 2002?
Commentaires