Buffy the Vampire Slayer is still alive and kicking; well, not the live-action version, but thankfully, the story was not merely limited to the television series. For instance, the newest addition to the Buffy franchise would be the new video game Chaos Bleeds by Vivendi Universal. Unlike the original Buffy game, released a year ago by Electronic Arts, Chaos Bleeds has not only been released only on the X-box, but has now found its way into the realms of Playstation 2 and Nintendo's Game Cube. And it is a smashing (sometimes literally) success!
The game takes place as a "lost episode" in Season 5 of the television series, involves the opening of a dimensional bleed caused by a bet between Season 7's major villain, The First Evil, and minor recurring villain Ethan Rayne. A former chaos worshiper, Rayne has now begun to worship this ancient primordial evil, and has made an agreement with him. Ethan picks five champions to face off against the five original champions chosen by The First in a deadly conquest. The prize is a tremendous amount of power for Ethan. And of course, he signed Buffy and a few of her close friends up for the mission, without asking. Now, all of Sunnydale is being overtaken by the dimensional bleed, as dead villains and even allies from the past are brought into this challenge with the world on the line.
This game offers much more than just a tremendous storyline. Unlike the first game, Buffy is not the only playable character. Here, throughout the story you are given the opportunity to play as Buffy, Willow, Xander, Spike, Faith and Sid the Dummy, a demon hunter that only appeared in one episode of the first season. While you don't get to choose which character you play as, (whom you play as depends on the part of the story you're dealing with), the game play makes a decided shift depending on who you are. Faith, Buffy, and Spike are great fighters, so their moves have more power, speed, and finesse. Willow, while a tremendous magic user, doesn't really fight, so her moves are limited to slaps, and magic attacks. Xander's fighting style is more defensive and not as smooth as the vampire and the slayers. And Sid the Dummy is just hilarious. Often only coming to knee height against his enemies, Sid has to jump to stake them, and his attacks aren't always as powerful as those of the other five playable characters.
Also appearing in this game are old favorites such as Giles, Tara, Anya, Kakistos and Adam. Most of the characters voices are done by the original actors, but there are a few exceptions. Sarah Michelle Gellar does not do the voice of Buffy, but thankfully, the voice actor who does is very good. Alyson Hannigan and Emma Caulfield also do not return to do the voices of Willow and Anya, and their replacements are terrible. Willow sounds like she's on a constant acid trip, often taking WAY too long to say a sentence, and Anya's voice is just squeaky and annoying.
Chaos Bleeds also features a wide array of weapons to be used against the villains, allowing you to hold a great deal more objects than its predecessor. It has four multi-player side games and unlockable extras such as photo galleries, highlights from the voice over sessions, interviews with the cast, and even an outtake real. All this, makes game play extremely interesting and fun. Unlockables are always great because they give you a reason to find the more deeply hidden stuff in the game.
Of course, there is almost a negative to all positives, so here are the only two negatives I had with this game. For one, I think the graphics could have been better. Chaos Bleeds looks almost exactly like the original game. I expected some form of improvement, but it's all the same, and if possible, this game's version of Buffy looks even less like her than that of the first game. Also, there were too many puzzles in this game. It's not like I'm stupid or anything, but when it came to these puzzles, one could spend a half an hour in the same two rooms just because you didn't see one tiny button that set off the fire alarm, thus letting you out of the fire exit. Though, not a major part of the game, it can become infuriating, especially with a game that only lets you save every level.
All in all, this game was great. Sound and game play overall were fantastic. And with a story written by well-known Buffy novel writers Christopher Golden and Thomas Sniegoski, how could you go wrong?
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