Rayne works for the covert Brimstone Society, an organization doing their best to protect civilizations from all things creepy. It's pre-WWII, so there are Nazi's (okay, I never get tired of killing nameless, faceless Nazi's) searching for spiritual artifacts to aid their quest of world-domination. That means there's plenty of work for the Brimstone Society and BloodRayne, our main character's code name.

Your journey takes you to Louisiana swamps (a popular vampire hangout) Argentina and, of course, Germany. Most of the locales in BloodRayne are nicely done, with lightning and storm effects lending a dark, dangerous feel to your environment. The animation of characters on screen, however, is choppy at best and downright inhuman at worst. If you can be distracted from Rayne's endowments long enough to care, it's obvious very little effort was exerted in making her movements look natural. The "puppet-on-a-string" appearances take you out of the game world no matter how moody the surroundings.

But it's billed as a "Mature" action game, so if the fighting, violence and puzzle solving is up to snuff then fluidity of animation is secondary. Unfortunately, the game consists of typical jumping puzzles (many of which use the "vampires don't like water" axiom over and over) and repetitive combat. Mostly combat. Go here, kill this group, go there, kill this group with the same moves. Rayne has access to several weapons, including her huge, gut-draining forearm knives, but there are only a few attacks and stringing together the same combos over and over isn't very entertaining.

Sure, it's fun to slice the heads off Nazis and zombies, and there's lots of blood and gore. But it would be nice if the game let you learn new ways of doing it as you progress. Instead you get a "rage" mode that basically just speeds up your regular attacks. There's also "dilated perception," which slows down those around you, like Max Payne's bullet time. You'll have so much access to it, though, that it loses all it's freshness. If you can use it almost all the time, it's not an edge, it's just how you get the level over and done with. For those keeping score, add BloodRayne to the list of games with annoying cameras. All the bad angles, getting stuck behind walls and in corners is here. No amount of bullet time or violence makes up for not being able to see where you're going or who you're trying to eviscerate.

And then there's the blood sucking. Like the jiggly juggs in DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball, it's one of the main draws. The only thing game babe Lara Croft hasn't done is jump on a bad guy like it's prom night and groan as she drinks his blood. For those looking forward to that, here you go. She's got red hair, fangs and more leather, but other than that she's right on the money.

Aside from the cheesecake, there's little reason to watch the cut scenes. No one expects Sir Olivier, but even he'd sound terrible if the recordings sounded like they were done in a locker room, with constant echo effects that seem intentional. To make matters worse, characters often talk around and on top of one another, as if they aren't listening to each other. Some conversations are hard to follow, some are tolerable, but none of them are interesting or anything you haven't seen in bad horror flicks.

BloodRayne seems to be the result of a brainstorming session that decided to use game elements from popular titles (Max Payne, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Tomb Raider, just to name a few) and mix them with a vampire ho who wraps her legs around her victims to suck their blood and moan as if she's auditioning for Harry Met Sally 2. Just like some people enjoyed DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball and BMX XXX, some people will enjoy BloodRayne. Those people could have played it last year on any of the current consoles and for a lot less than what it requires from a PC.