Written by Jeff Buckland, 1/6/2003
Played on:
Xbox
Yes, yes, I know, movie and TV license games generally aren't worth even trying. But Buffy the Vampire Slayer is actually a good game - The Collective have managed to recreate the show's wit and atmosphere while maintaining some great vampire-killing action.
Buffy controls like most action beat-em-ups you've already played, with a few extra options thrown in. There are your usual punch, kick, and jump buttons, as well as a button to block and lock onto a specific opponent.
Buffy will have you fighting multiple opponents, and while the controls don't have any specific features to help these situations, the combat is easy enough anyway. The game also allows you to switch between several weapons, including bats, shovels, stakes, a circular weapon right out of the movie Blade, a Super Soaker filled with holy water or "hell fire", and a sniper-type crossbow. Switching weapons and taking out enemies works well, and control frustrations are pretty minimal even during the big fights.
This game looks pretty good overall, although the most work has gone into Buffy herself. The animations are well-done for all of the game's characters, and the fighting is fairly fluid to watch. The only thing I found wrong with the animations is with the mouth movements for the game's in-engine cutscenes, as they hardly match the speech at all. Still, it's a small gripe, and most game developers rarely seem to do these animations correctly anyway.
As you go through the game, you will traverse through many environments that are based on the show. Schools, mansions, churches, and ancient tunnels are all here, and they generally look pretty good. None of the level graphics are exactly awesome, but they do the job and are solid enough to keep the game going.
The main cast from the show is mostly here, including Giles, Willow, Cordelia, and Xander. Spike and Angel are here too, and they all look fairly decent, but nowhere near as good as Buffy herself. That's kind of expected, though, as Buffy spends far more time on-screen than any other character.
The meat of Buffy's gameplay is in the fighting, and you'll find plenty of it to keep you going. There are a bunch of combos at your disposal, and you can use the environment to your advantage. For example, if you see a chair lying around, you can throw a vampire into it and he'll crush it, dying on a wooden stake. If that doesn't work, there are several weapons to use, and they are all pretty fun to kill stuff with.
It's not 100% fighting, though, as you will have to solve a series of relatively simple puzzles to progress throughout the game. None of them are too difficult, and you won't have to backtrack very often to get through them.
While fighting, there are several types of special attacks you can perform, all of which drain your blue bar (rather than the red health bar). Certain button combinations trigger these attacks, which will wind up being pretty vital to your survival by the end of the game. As you kill enemies, they will leave behind globes which can fill up your power or health bars. There are also elixirs you can carry around to replenish health, and other potions to use as well.
