Play the dummy

Another big change from the previous game is that you no longer only assume the role of Buffy. While there was nothing wrong with playing the entire first game looking only at Buffy’s backside (nope, nothing wrong!), Eurocom aimed to mix things up a little bit by letting you experience the story through multiple characters. In Chaos Bleeds, you’ll get to play as six characters: Buffy, Xander, Willow, Spike, Faith, and – get this – Sid the Dummy.

It’s a 3D beat-em-up

As with last year’s effort, Buffy’s game world is primarily composed of hand-to-hand combat. Buttons are assigned to the role of punch, kick, jump, action, and stake. Various combinations will yield you neat looking attacks and throw, but the average enemy that you’ll encounter can easily be taken care of with some button mashing magic. Besides having to slay tons and tons of vampires, there are small puzzle elements to Chaos Bleeds, mostly consisting of finding keys and flipping switches. The left analog stick is used for moving your character and the right stick controls the camera. Even with the ability to guide and center the camera, there are still issues. The camera acts as if it were a solid entity, meaning that it’s unable to pass through solid objects in the world. This becomes a problem when you find yourself cornered or in a narrow passage.

Graphics

We’re not sure if Eurocom had access to the same assets and resources that The Collective used on its game, but we wouldn’t be surprised if much was shared. Chaos Bleeds looks a lot like the Buffy game from last year, making it slightly dated in the visuals department. By PlayStation 2 standards, Chaos Bleeds looks quite decent, but you can just feel the untapped power when playing on the GameCube and Xbox. While the levels are rather simplistic, the character models are well done. Since much of the game’s story relies on its ties to the Buffy universe, having authentic looking characters is a must. You won’t be mistaking the in-game models for the real people, but you’ll definitely see the resemblance.