NEARLY INVINCIBLE MONSTERS DRAIN THE FUN FROM 'VAMPIRE RAIN'.

Byline: REDMOND CAROLIPIO

>LA.COM 

Fighting vampires is hard. I understand that.

I've seen enough anime and watched enough movies to know that taking out powerful, unearthly, blood-feeding creatures of the night is not a task for normal people -- this is why we need individuals like Van Helsing and Blade.

However, "Vampire Rain" takes it upon itself to harshly drill this lesson into your head, whether you already know it or not. It is a tension-filled, painful experience that can sometimes leave the player with a feeling of utter hopelessness.

The game can best be described as "Splinter Cell" with vampires. It places a premium on stealth, where confrontations with the enemy can not only be unwise, but fatal.

The enemies, in this case, are the "nightwalkers," freakishly strong vampires that have managed to overpopulate the earth to the point where finding and fighting them is a way of life. This is where you come in. You're part of an "elimination squad," armed to the teeth and charged with handling this "vampiric" rodent problem.

Many of your missions consist of reaching rendezvous points on a map without getting detected by the nightwalkers. Like Sam Fisher, you rarely, if ever, travel in a straight line to the objective. You'll need to do everything from climb up pipes, shimmy along walls, slide down wires, and crawl through tight spaces -- the usual stealth fare.

You've also got a couple of nifty gadgets in your arsenal. The most useful is probably "necrovision," which allows you to "spot" the nightwalkers among the normal people walking the streets (though, I must ask, if the nightwalkers are really crawling all over the place, why are the regular townies still there?). You've also got night vision and an MGS-style radar system that visually clues you in on an enemy's field of sight.

Conceptually, the game could have been a welcome change of pace. Gamers are used to cleaving and tearing through legions of vampires and demons, with true respect for their powers only coming in boss battles. In this game, the vampires are something to be truly feared.

Here's the problem: You can't fight them at all. You can't hold them off once they see you. You can't even run away. If they see you, you will die. The end.

Unless you have backup, you have zero chance of surviving an encounter with a nightwalker, even though you're armed with an assault rifle and plenty of special ammo.

Unfortunately, the rate of fire on your rifle is pitifully slow (so forget the pistol), and the nightwalkers have the speed and attack power of Wolverine. Did I mention they can also take a ton of bullets? With all this against you, you might as well just be throwing rolls of toilet paper.

One hit from a nightwalker hacks off most of your life meter and knocks you to the ground. And while you're still down, unable to move, the nightwalker cheaply hits you with the deathblow.

At least in "Splinter Cell," you had a slim chance of overcoming your mistakes with either force or deft feats of elusiveness. But here, you can only accept death. Not exactly the epitome of fun.

It should be said that the nasty nature of the game has a positive side-effect: fear. The game is rife with subtle and not-so-subtle moments of unbearable tension. But it's that no-chance-in-hell feeling during confrontations in "Vampire Rain" that drives a stake into the heart of the experience.

Redmond Carolipio, [phone]

[e-mail]

VAMPIRE RAIN

Our grade: One star

Rated M for Mature

For Xbox 360

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Photo:

no caption (Vampire Rain)