Buffy The Vampire Slayer Chaos Bleeds

Review:
I'm a fan of the 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' TV show, so I was intrigued to try out this game. The game lets you take on the role of the Slayer and other members of the 'Scooby Gang' as they take on some supernatural threat. The game is a mixture of a fighting game from a 3-D, third-person perspective, and a puzzle game where you have to find the key somewhere to open the locked door in order to proceed.

The game itself is a mixed bag. It offers a good tutorial level to start out with, explaining the different moves that will help you succeed in killing the creatures of the night. I had a blast actually staking vampires, and the game offers the same 'turn to dust' effect as seen in the TV show. I also enjoyed playing as the different characters -- when you play as Willow or Tara you get to use magical spells instead of the more physical attacks of Xander or Spike.

Now for the problems. The game levels are large, and offer no chance for the player to save their progress in the middle of a level. True, the game offers 'continue points' that help you re-start in the middle if you get killed, but if you decide to quit in the middle of a level you can't save your game and continue from that point. This means you'll end up playing a level for 30 minutes or more before you can save the game at the end of the level.

Another frustrating thing is some of the puzzles. I've never been a big fan of 'find the key to continue' style of games, especially when the puzzle relies on one solution only. For example, at one point Buffy is inside a dungeon, and the only way to get through the gate is to find a torch in another area of the dungeon and place it into the torch-holder to open the gate. After walking around for 30 minutes, I still couldn't find the torch (which only activated by walking near it in a certain position). Another example -- the only way to get out of one building is to open the locked fire door, but you can't start a fire to activate it (I thought that was a cool way to do it). Instead, you have to find your way to a fire alarm on the other side of the building and 'break the glass,' which then opens the door.

In fact, at one point the Buffy character says 'I hate puzzles,' which caused me to laugh out loud and say, 'Me too, sister' at the video game.

Speaking of character voices, it's another mixed bag. Only some of the cast contributed their voices to the game -- so you'll only recognize Tara, Giles, Xander, Spike, Ethan Rayne and perhaps Faith (tough to tell whether it was the real voice of Eliza Dushku). The voice of Buffy is OK, but the voice playing Willow is so bad that you'll end up cringing. It's too bad that they couldn't get everyone to do voices on the game, but I guess that's how the business works.

If the game offered more save points and less puzzles, I would be happier about this game. If you have an hour or two to spend on this game, it's worth it just to get your thrills in staking some vamps.

Reviewed by Keith Shaw