The original Blade had the distinction of being Marvel’s first character to hit it big in theaters, but it also turned into one of the worst games on the PlayStation. Blade II was a romping good film and now the PlayStation 2 steps in to see if the Daywalker’s luck with video games has improved. The visuals certainly match the movie more coherently with appropriate locales, and Blade himself is rendered with amazing detail. All that detail must have sucked up a lot of power; however, as the enemies look incredibly bland. To the game’s credit, the screen can fill with all manner of vampires that want to wipe Blade out. The soundtrack is also very true to the movie, but it seems like there are only three tunes that come up during the course of the entire game. They get old quickly as do the one-liners the bad guys and Blade spout at random intervals. The real kicker is that the gameplay engine has a lot of potential with some great ideas about grouped, 3D brawling. Unfortunately, it’s very slow, which doesn’t mesh with the M.O. of the lightning quick vampire hunter. Even taking the gameplay at face value, there are still flaws like horrendous enemy A.I. and a severely limited set of offensive and defensive moves. Blade II is a subpar game that will frustrate even die-hard fans.
