Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Vampire Night

Written by Matt Swider on March 20, 2002

Full Review: Night of the Namco Vampire.

As the arcade market slips away slowly, yet another Light Gun game surfaces on PlayStation 2. After the success of Time Crisis II on the system, Namco has returned to publish yet another shooting game. However, unlike last time, the company has the help of Sega and more so it's development team, Wow Entertainment. Both Namco and Sega have been known to produce excellent light gun titles in the past, and Wow Entertainment has done the same with the all so familiar House of the Dead series. So, with these renowned companies doing what they do best, you'd think Vampire Night would be incredible. Nonetheless, it falls short of this expectation and winds up being a fairly decent title meant for the shooting fans out there.

Vampire Night follows two mysterious vampire hunters out to defeat the newly awoken vampire and his evil subjects. The duo will remind you of the two agents found in House of the Dead, however this time, a little an annoying girl pursues them through their short quest. Several instances throughout Vampire Night, it's easily noticeable that things are along the same lines as the House of the Dead series only containing vampire references rather than zombie ones.

The one thing that really sets Time Crisis II apart from other light gun games is the fact that you have the ability to pop up and down, in and out of cover. While Vampire night doesn't feature this, it contains its own diversion from the traditional light gun gameplay. Saving hostages isn't a matter of shooting a pursuing vampire, but rather preventing the villagers from turning into vampires themselves. To rescue the hostages, you'll have to shoot the growing orgasm on their body. Shooting the person or letting time run out will cause them to become a vampire and it means they must be dealt with. Saving them will allow you to access different pathways that they help lead you to. This is a nice addition to the game, taking it a step away from being just a straightforward light gun shooter and into it's own game.

While accurate, the controller doesn't possess the same excitement when using the GunCon 2, which thankfully, can come packed with Vampire Night. GunCon 2 is also precise and for a change, you won't have to shoot off screen to reload. Instead, with the simple push of a button on the gun, it automatically reloads with great speed. An extra advantage to having two GunCon's will be the ability to go at it with John Woo style action. Even better is having a friend or some one else play with you and become the vampire-hunting duo.

There are a total of only six chapters to the game and boss at the end of each. While the arcade end of the game will be fairly easy, even on the default difficulty, there's always the chance to go back and try on one of the tougher settings. However, once players finish, they're left with little incentive to play the mode again. Special mode plays the same as the arcade, yet villagers will ask you to complete certain tasks for them and collect special objects. After doing this, you'll earn silver, allowing you to buy new weapons and other items. While these RPG functions do add some excitement to the game, it won't be enough to truly keep your interest. Most of the replay is likely to be found in the game's training mode. It's made up of a bunch of mini-games that are frustrating, but can prove somewhat addictive to complete.

The entire storyline in Vampire Night is filled with extremely bad acting and the cheesy voices will likely be the only horror you get out of the game. The script is pretty bland as well, which doesn't help. Many of the spoken lines throughout the game seem questionable, like they could belong in a porno flick. There seems to be a double meaning for so much of the dialogue that it's no wonder why the acting is so cheesy. Trust me, and take a listen. You'll see.

The audio department isn't hopeless though. The music is surprisingly enjoyable, but is always drown out by the sound effects during the game. There's typical firing of weapons and reloading of guns that will sound throughout, making the standard effects you'd want to heard in a light gun shooter. While the voices are campy, some might tend to get a kick out of it all, and with that, become quite satisfied with the audio in a whole. Others, however, will never be the same again.

Like I said with Time Crisis II, Vampire Night too produces suitable graphics and while it doesn't quite seem like next-generation power at hand, it works. The models in the game aren't as crisp as they should be and can be somewhat blocky when shown. This is a shame because each enemy has a very cool design. Many small details went into their creation and they do in fact turn out to be stunning when combined with their animation. There's a load of special effects throughout the game that'll catch your eye like the movement of the first boss by fading in and out of appearance, jumping with a matrix motion past fan blades, or traveling through twisting tunnels and up flights in elevators.

Several of the chapters boast excellent settings as well. While some disappoint or only offer a fair amount of backgrounds and impressive structure, you'll find most filled with exceptional artwork and surroundings. Also, there's some impressive artwork contained throughout the game and in between on load screens that's worth mentioning, rounding out the overall strong visual department.

The real value of the game comes when owning two guns and having a partner to play the game with. It may be a short game, as all light gun shooters are, however this means that players will have no problem picking it up after a couple of bullet rounds. The only problem that comes from this is the constant flickering of the screen when firing. It tends to hurt the eyes are a while and when playing with two players and wasting two times the bullets, it become quite aggravating.