Kombo's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.

What the Game's About
After a dismal showing on the Xbox 360 last year, developer Artoon and Publisher AQ re-release the abysmal Vampire Rain on the PS3 with the expectation that the extra year of time it has had to work on the game has gone into improving, hopefully, everything. But has it?

What's Hot
The team did spend time upgrading the subpar graphics to average graphics in the PS3 version. A significant number of animations, like the rain on John Lloyd's suit, have been improved dramatically. This makes the overall presentation acceptable, as opposed to annoying.

Unfortunately, that's about the only good thing I can see in this game.


What's Not
The gameplay, frankly, sucks. To say this game is an embarrassment and squanders good ideas is an understatement. You play as John Lloyd, a sort of cross between Sam Fisher and a sheet of plywood. As part of an underfunded and poorly run secret government agency, you're supposed to rid the world of the nightwalker/vampire menace. I use the terms "underfunded" and "poorly run" to describe John's weapons and ability. Sure he has the standard Splinter Cell-style infiltration moves such as pipe crawls, climbing, jumping, hanging, etc. But all his animations are stiff and look like they were done by a man with planks in his limbs. Not to mention John and all his allies sound like voice actors who were phoning it in. The weapons and equipment fare no better, as John's equipment list seems like it was discarded in the prototype phase then fished out of a junk yard. Nightvision goggles last 15 seconds tops before they need to recharge (odd for a game that takes place at night), his combat knife has an ammo meter (good for five hits), and every single gun he wields is useless. This game is little more than a straight port of the Xbox 360 with a few new weapons. These new additions add little to the overall experience, as they are just as useless as every other weapon in the game.

There is also the return of the "deer in the headlights" stealth system from the Xbox 360 version, which is just as broken as ever. Enemies retain the ability to be one hit kill monsters which alternate between being blind and having telescopic X-Ray vision. I know the idea is supposed to invoke fear in the player, but it just seems like an annoyance, as opposed to a challenging gameplay mechanic.

Final Word
Is it possible that an updated game could be worse than the one it was spawned from? The year of development could have been focused on a better gameplay experience, but was squandered on useless weapons and minimal graphic updates. I can't think of a reason why this game was made, and even less reason why it was ported. Avoid.