[Mr. Mechanical]

Okay, most of us know who Artoon is, right? They're a third party developer founded in 1999 by ex-Sega employees, particularly the guy who created Sonic and some of the people that worked on NiGHTS or however you crazy people spell that name, among some other people. Lately they've done that platformer thing Blinx the Timesweeper or whatever it's called for the original Xbox. Currently they are working on Blue Dragon, Cry On, and Blinx 3 for 360.

Alright, with all that in mind, click on this link here and watch the videos for a glimpse of their latest offering. Go ahead and check it out, I'll wait.

...

. . . .

Ready? Cool, let's go.

It's called Rain, or Vampire's Rain in Japan, because apparently the locale (Los Angeles) is very rainy. And also overrun with vampires. Oooh, pretty scary I know. However from the looks of the videos Rain does not appear to be a horror game. It appears to be some weird breed of action game.

Now, I say "weird breed" because when I saw my first video, the "nightstalking" one, the first thing that popped into my head was "Whaa, it's like they tried to make Syphon Filter meets Metal Gear with, with vampires?" and my mind was thoroughly blown.

So let me cut to brass tacks here, ladies and gentlemen, I am in no way hyping this game whatsoever. Okay, maybe I am in principle by even talking about it but I feel it merits some sort of discussion. However from the looks of things Rain does not appear to be in any way worth spending time and money on because everything it is seemingly attempting to do has already been done, and much better at that.

I namedropped Blue Dragon and Cry On above so you're probably all "wtf maet" on me right now, so let me just say that yes, I understand Blue Dragon is a Mistwalker game with Sakaguchi at the helm and Toriyama doing the art direction; and I also know that Cry On is being developed by cavia, so we know there's a decent chance of both of those games turning out to be marginally worth playing. Blue Dragon at least looks nice and Cry On will be cavia for those of you into that sort of thing, but Rain? Oh lordy.

Rain is like the next gen definition of generic. Hell, generic might even be too kind a word to use in this instance, I mean, have you seen those videos? It's like somewhere long ago in the past some Japanese dude played Syphon Filter when it first came out and said to himself "Damn, this game would be cool if it had Solid Snake as the main dude, hey I wonder if maybe someday I could make a game with all the cool gadgetry crap from Syphon Filter but have a Solid Snake-like main character?" and in doing so he carried his dream through all the pratfalls of the videogame industry, slowly rising through the ranks with his tireless effort on all those other games that were maybe somebody else's vision, and was only finally able to realize the VISION, his vision, until just now and with the Xbox 360.

Rain just screams "Japanese third-party game for an American console". It's almost cynical to think about it like that, given the amount of work that must go into developing a "3D action game" for something like the 360, so obviously somewhere down the line somebody that's working on it cares about this project. They may even care deeply. And that just amazes the hell out of me, given how amazingly mediocre it looks at this point.

Look, here's a story synopsis lifted from Wikipedia (who get the quote from IGN): "Vampire's Rain takes place in a city in suburban Los Angeles, where vampires have been determined to reside. Players take control of a special operative called John Lloyd and, having entered the city, must wipe out the vampires.". Okay, grammatical errors aside, wow. Just, wow. I mean, read that. Read it twice if you have to, I did. This reads like something I might have scrawled in my notebook during my seventh grade math class or something. Wow. Even the concept for the game is as generic as it can get.

Cheesy title? Check.
Major US City? Check.
Vampires? Check.
Special operatives? Check.
Generically named main character? Check.
Goal of extermination that sets pace for entire game? Check.

I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't being designed by a committee of some sort. But no, doing a bit more research I just came across this little tidbit, taken from IGN: "Naoto Oshima, one of the creative forces in the creation of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, is working directly on this title"

Oh my God.

Quoting further: "and [he] promises a game that makes vampires scary once again."

Oh. My. God.

We're in too deep now, people. I don't think we fully grasp what we're dealing with here. There is someone out there who is working on this project and apparently he does care. He may even care deeply. How does one make vampires scary once again? You stick them in a generic looking, run of the mill 3D action game apparently. Watch the one video, the Japanese Trailer one, and wait for the part where our hero, John Lloyd, kicks a box in an alleyway and a fucking vampire just pops up from behind it or from inside it and just starts attacking him out of nowhere. Jesus, I feel like we're on the verge of some sort of great discovery here. We may have very well found the Ed Wood of videogames, or at least a game that would have been made by Ed Wood were he still alive and one to make really terrible videogames instead of really terrible films.

And therein lies my almost sick fascination with the subject of Rain for Xbox 360/PS3, folks. It is schlocky, B grade thrills and spills. The question that now remains, is it even competent? You don't have to be Nostradamus to accurately predict that this will be receiving very middling to lower end reviews across the board, but will the gameplay hold up as even mildly entertaining despite everything else? And moreso, why do I still feel like I have to play this game?

And I really do want to play it, make no mistake. According to IGN you don't know exactly who is a vampire and who isn't without using some sort of special goggle to look and see for yourself, much like that old NES Simpson's game Bart vs. The Space Mutants. A game I enjoyed very much, despite being so terrible overall. Could Rain be the new Bart vs. The Space Mutants for me? I don't know, but I find that notion oddly appealing for some reason. But will that one hook keep Rain from feeling stale? I'd wager a solid "Probably not." if I had to put money on it. I'm only speculating here but I don't want to sound optimistic about it because I really can't see this game as turning out to be anything worth anything.

But still, I really can't wait to play this. I will definitely rent it at least, for a weekend perhaps. And who knows? Maybe the "competitive multiplayer" will be a good time. Though if you watch the videos everyone looks like they're just jumping around like monkeys, or trying to break a box open in a large, dull warehouse while getting sniped from across the room.

I know I'm probably spending way more time than is worth going on about something so trivial, but I'm looking at these images and watching these videos and I'm genuinely having a very good time. Yeah, I'm laughing my ass off at this game, but that makes me want to play it! So I can laugh my ass off at it in real time. Maybe this is the very crux of Oshima's VISION or whatever and he's a freaking genius, or maybe not. Either way, I bet he's a really nice guy with a lot of heart and all, but this game is comedic gold.

I mean, look:



This is what a blonde girl designed by a Japanese guy looks like in high definition. You can tell she's probably going to be the love interest of the main character, due to how vulnerable she appears in this image.

Also note those totally awesome next generation brick textures behind her. This is why we play videogames, people.



Our hero, 3D Action Game Guy. Oh whoops, I meant John, what was it? Lloyd, John Lloyd. Who can forget a name like that? He is clearly a hard ass because you really have to work your way up the ranks in the military to be sent off on awesome assignments like vampire extermination wearing kick ass black body suits like that.

Check out those IR goggles, check out that mic on his mouth, check out that radio thingy on his back, this dude is geared up and ready to go. He's packing H E A T too with a bad ass machine gun with a silencer on it so he can still kick major ass while sneaking around Los Angeles' vampire district. What do you get when you take Sam Fisher, Solid Snake, and Gabe Logan and roll them all up into one big fat ass blunt? John Fucking Loyd, our new savior from the vampire menace of LA.



Oh snaps this game takes place on rooftops too. Here we see John Loyd making his away from some sort of abutment to nearby rooftop. Note that it's raining out, hence the title. Also note how the walls of the buildings are very flat, here we can see the Syphon Filter influence in the title. Notice the rain effects, the texturing, and the expression of steely determination on John Loyd's face as he realizes he has exactly one second to jump or fall down to the streets below: only on the 360/PS3 could all of these elements come together so sublimely.



This is my second favorite of these five images, which I call "Snipers On The Roof". In this image John Loyd takes the standard squatting stoop position of a sniper on a roof somewhere in the rain. With the patience of his character shining through as he looks down the scope of a sniper rifle, possibly watching those stairs in that alleyway across the street for a vampire to pop out of, this image almost has a transcendent, poetic quality about it. What kind of past must a man have to willfully take on an assignment as dangerous as this? What kind of skills must he possess to pull through alive?



I had to save the best for last. This is by far my favorite image of the five, which I call "Zombie Crotch Shot" even though the zombie in question is actually a vampire and is clearly being shot in the chest. When a vampire is hit they explode in a cloud of vapor and interdimensional vortex, which is clearly what is about to happen as John Loyd takes vengeance for his fallen comrade, seen behind the vampire, by unloading his silenced pistol at point blank range. The vampire in the far right corner is obviously foreshadowing of the battles to come.

You may notice how the targeting reticule and the direction the gun barrel is pointing don't exactly match up. This is not a big deal as the vampire is clearly being hit regardless, though since this game is still early in development (these shots were from last year) we can safely assume that this little technical niggle will be touched up in the final release.

So there you have it, folks. I am thoroughly spent and yet oddly in a very good mood right now. Rain for Xbox 360/PS3 might just very well be our first ever Anti Game of the Year. Let us hope it is not delayed.
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[BotageL]

I'm watching the videos now. Wow. This is... this is really something you've found here, man.
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http://www.mdgeist.com/

[haircute]

Damn, mechanical!

I knew there was reason why you have always been one of my fav posters.

I keep wanting to add something to this thread but then I go back and reread your OG post and realize whatever I was going to say was already made known!
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Get Wild and Tough!

[Frequent Pilgrim]

I don't want to admit that I was watching G4, but I remeber X-play saying something about playing it at the Tokyo game show and it being really really hard. At least as far as Tokyo Game Show demos go.

I really hope this is ridiculously difficult.

[Mikey]

If I didn't know better, I'd say this thread was starting to fill with FROTH.

For some reason this reminds of that game for N64, Winback - a reasonably competent MGS clone, essentially.

The character models for the vampires look ugly as hell.

[Moogs]

I like how the dead guy appears to be floating in that final screenshot.

This game will be Bullet Witch awesome!

[SuperWes]

This game would look awesome if it didn't look like a really slow, really sloppy version of Splinter Cell.

-Wes
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[Mr. Pointy]

That's looks as generic as all get out.
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[PANTS]------////////////////////

[icycalm]

I am playing this right now for review.

It is playable, is all I can say so far. I'll be back with impressions at some point, perhaps.

[Mr. Mechanical]

[Toups]

Mr. Mechanical why is this not on the frontpage ;_;

Also while the game looks somewhat interesting, it's kind of horribly depressing to see a second generation xbox360 game look worse than a first generation xbox game.

I mean coming from a relatively well-funded publisher like AQ.

I mean Bullet Witch looks hella better than this shit.

Still! It has vampires! And stealth! It might be... something!!

Probably better than BloodRayne, anyway!
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[Mr. Mechanical]

[tacotaskforce]

[Toups]

[Craptastic!]

[SuperWes]

I played that shit!

It fucking sucks!

(And I played the demo for part 2. It was ok until it crashed on me 5 minutes in.)

-Wes
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[JamesE]

[JamesE]

This actually looks a bit more like a Rainbow Six (circa 1999) style affair with vampires. Look how you have a team and a tac map and you have to switch between roles as the mission progresses. If there's actually some meat to the tactical element it could be awesomely playable.

I kind of like the way it looks, even if it's objectively inferior to everything else released in the last 3+ years. It looks like an interesting Splinter Cell mod made by some talented high school kids.

WTF Oshima, though. I wonder if NiGHTs broke him too.

[Maztorre]

I think they kind of got the design process completely backwards. Why isn't this a stealth game where you're a vampire taking out SWAT dudes? That would be, you know, possibly interesting!

EDIT: also FYI cavia were removed from Sakaguchi's Cry On game recently and are being replaced by the Blue Dragon team(again, Artoon!) alongside the Panzer Dragoon/Saga lead artist.

[boojiboy7]