Blade II

"The Daywalker seems to be having problems"

Activision seems to be picking up just about any Marvel licenses it can get its hand on.Spiderman turned out to be a pretty good game showcasing great voice acting and some nice graphics.However, Blade has never been good for them.The first game was a testemant to horrendous.Bad camera angles,Insane defficulty,and horrible cameras.Blade 2 seems to have made some progress,but not enough.

--GRAPHICS--
The N64 and Dreamcast can do this game better.Horrible graphics and low polygun count make this one a dud.Not much effort was put into the characters and their detail.Blade doesn't even look like its movie counterpart.Though striking a bit of a resemblance,its nothing exraordinary.The characters themselves aren't even that original.They all look the same, a shame.This game is being made on the PS2 and no advantage of the machine is being taken.Even when you use the weapons their absoloutely no effects what so ever.Being activision,you'd would expect something better.

--SOUND--
Even worser than the graphics is the sounds. The voice acting is horrible. The characters not only sound like ther movie versions, but even the actors used for the voice acting put no sense of effort in emtions or tone.Its all bland to the maximum. And it just gets worse.The continous bad guys that you kill make no noises.So instead of killing badguys you seem to be killing mimes.Some cheap speeches here and there. Nothing exceptional.

--GAMEPLAY--
Here is where the game really falters.The game is no fun.I used cheat codes and was finishing the game in no time.But that's not the point.Even with the codes I found it extremely boring.Killing the same people over and over becomes tedious after the first level.Add to that the horrible camera angles that you have to deal with.At some points I was shooting the wall when I realized I wasn't shooting anybody.The weapons are ok.But the fact that you have to build up a meter to use the sword is ridiculous.Its Blades famous fighting weapon.The level designs are really boring.Get the hang of it and you'll probably be finishing the levels in like 10 minutes.What a shame.With such a great character a lot more effort could have been put in.

--CONTROL--
Probably a better factor of the game is the controls. While they're not the most responsive they are far better than the ones in the first. Shooting enemies is much easier. And controlling your character isn't all that hard. But when your rage meter fills up and you try to attack it begins to seem like a chore. And using the analog sticks to kick and punch and use the sword is very annoying.

--CONCLUSION--
Well,Activision seem to be getting it right with Spiderman.Then things went downhill with this game.Its just not worth the pain of killing the same enemies over and over again.They could have put more variety into the game.The control system also feels like a chore.This is not the way Activisioin should be treating a game license.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 01/25/03, Updated 01/25/03