Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Review: Can Indiagames’ take on the cult television series drive a stake in bad licensed games?

January 5, 2005 - The end of 2004 saw a surprising upswing in the quality of licensed games. The category in mobile gaming had been iffy at best, but some late-breaking hits stemmed us from immediately groaning whenever we saw a licensed title appear on the decks. The India-based developer/publisher has been responsible for a few licensed games of its own, from the superlative Predator to the dismal Garfield. Will their new Buffy the Vampire Slayer title, due on handsets very shortly, keep this exciting trend alive?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is, of course, based on the ultra-successful television series starring Sarah Michelle Gellar — which was based on a campy cult movie starring Kristy Swanson. (Which of these starlets have you heard more from lately?) The show’s smart writing, which expertly mixed high school angst with creepy chills, may no longer be in production, but the enthusiasm from fans is as tough to keep down as one of the vampires that lurked in Sunnydale.

Game slip into Buffy’s tight pants and head into a dark, five-level mansion to seek out Oz. Oz has been kidnapped by the evil Drusilla, and unless the Buff can hack and slash through wave after wave of bats, zombies, and vampires, Oz is doomed. Well, you know how those two felt about each other, so leaving Oz to die (again) is hardly an option. Buffy is not exactly alone in her quest, either. Willow chimes in from time to time with hints, as well as explaining some of the story in cutscenes.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer will remind you a lot of Gameloft’s Prince of Persia series — particularly the most recent chapter, Warrior Within. A very healthy combat element is balanced with platformer-puzzle game play, such as timed jumps, ducking under traps, and finding special items. Escaping one imperiled room only leads to another.

Fortunately, Buffy has multiple weapons at her disposal. You begin the game with some simple chops and kicks, but before long, you upgrade to harder weapons, like blades. Buffy’s melee attacks are fairly weak and difficult to use, thanks to her frame appearing so small on the screen, that it is a very welcome occurrence to find a blade — or even better, the crossbow so you can ventiliate the undead from a safe distance. To successfully land a punch, you must walk right up to an enemy — instantly exposing you to an attack if you aren’t immediate with your fists of fury.

The platforming elements are solid, but unspectacular. Buffy’s jumps and chain swinging feel somewhat floaty, and it’s very possible to launch yourself off a platform unless you find the sweet spot to jump from. More than once, we leapt before we looked and found ourselves in pits or sailing over the tiny ledge we wanted to reach.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer has that Indiagames look. If you’ve played some of the firm’s recent games, like Predator, you know exactly what we’re talking about. The characters are smoothly animated with respectable detail. The backdrops in Buffy the Vampire Slayer are a little more bland than Predator, but that could be because Buffy is trapped in a mansion while the Pred had an entire jungle and military complex to make run red with blood. This mansion is a lot of gothic wallpaper and moonlit windows.

Closing Comments

Fans of the television series will get the most mileage out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Honestly, I did not follow the show, so some of the minor details were lost on me, but checking fan sites — and yeesh, there are a lot of them — confirmed Indiagames’ near religious adherence to the source material. While not as good as some of their previous actioners, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a respectable way for fans to keep the flame alive and proves that Indiagames should always be a contender for film and television companies looking to leverage their content in the mobile space.