Ever imagined you were a leather-clad Shakira lookalike packing swords? Well wait no longer, your time has come! Now, imagine this character busting loose in a world full of Nazi soldiers who don't like South American pop music! That's what's on offer here.

BloodRayne blends a strange potpourri of fictional worlds and game genres to spectacular effect. You play a half-vampire heroine who has been pitted against the entire Nazi war machine by some mysterious monks. It's like Oni, Max Payne and Mortal Kombat rolled into one. Many games have aspired to this ideal - a slick combination of melee combat and run-and-gun action - but to a large part this title succeeds where others have failed.

BloodRayne plays rather like Tomb Raider, except with a tasty hand to hand, or melee, combat system. You're typically running towards a pack of SS soldiers, peppering them with ammo from two guns, until you're close to striking distance and begin serving up a hard-boiled mix of swords and blazing martial arts. You drain your enemies' arteries, riddle them with bullets, blow them to pieces and vivisect them viciously... all without messing up your hair.

All vampires get hungry, and at feeding time you leap onto enemies with a single button press, activating a cool 'action cam' view. Wrapping your long legs around your prey's torso, you ravenously start sucking out their life juice to earn health. Other kinds of foreplay include yanking them off their feet with a chain or just savagely beating them to the floor.

Once you've stored up enough energy by killing people, you can activate Blood Rage. This is a trippy red mist not unlike Max Payne's Bullet Time where you can slice and dice enemies as if time were standing still, sending limbs and red gravy sailing in all directions like it's discount night at the local carvery. This bending of reality continues in various forms of perception, such as an ethereal view where objectives and monsters show through walls as shining beacons.

You are given a lot of freedom of movement in the twisted BloodRayne world. One moment you'll be performing anti-gravity leaps in the vein of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the next you'll be sprinting along power lines, tightrope style. You can spring about at will, to the top of every building and obstacle in the landscape, which enhances the illusion of roaming.

But BloodRayne's weakness lies with its repetition. You relentlessly track down your Nazi foes and eat them, creating an outrageous mess. Some variety to break up the constant intensity of vampire battle would have been welcome, but sadly it's not really evident. Although there's something uniquely compelling about a bloodthirsty vampire belle wielding a heavy historical machine-gun... These people know what we want and have made a good attempt at serving it up.

1. Blood-soaked battles
2. Characters look great close up
3. Good graphics

1. Missions lack variety
2. Heavily repetitive

Power
BloodRayne presents a great vision of hellish combat in a nicely detailed world.

Style
Like a supernatural Max Payne - atmospheric, acrobatic and bloodthirsty.

Immersion
Tends to get a bit samey but if you like the style you'll probably stick with it.

Lifespan
More of a hack and slash than a puzzle teaser but the blood will keep gore fans satisfied.

Summary
BloodRayne is a good evil counterpart to Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Worth a punt for the bloodthirsty.