Review: Vampire Rush (Xbox Live)
Score:
70%
There's a rush of games at the moment in the gaming world of Windows Phone which are taking two styles of game and using them to make another. Nokia pushed another of them, Vampire Rush, out and I've been happily hunting vampires ever since.
Version Reviewed: 1.1
Buy Link | Download / Information Link
In a similar way to Pocket Craft last week, Vampire Rush takes two game genres and pushes them together to make a new game. In the case of developers A-steroids, they have taken Tower Defence and a traditional 'button mashing' rpg style game (think Golden Axe or Double Dragon).
It's actually a pretty smart choice, and I want to highlight two reasons why it works.
The first is that, unlike Puzzle Craft, the two game genres being mashed up here are relatively close together stylistically. Each of them is based around stopping countless enemies reach a goal - for Tower Defence it's the mythical target, for Golden Axe it's the player's health bar. That means that there's no stylistic shift when playing that needs a player to mentally change gears. Good, I can focus on playing the game.
The second? It also takes care of one of my complaints about the Tower Defence genre, which is the sheer inflexibility of the rhythm - you build, they attack, you build again, they attack again. And just a single critter sneaking through can sometimes be enough to fail a level.
Not in Vampire Rush. Yes the towers employed fire a little bit slower, so there is a bit more 'leakage' of the enemy (the titular vampires), but now you (playing as Captain Greg) have a sword, and you can swing into action, roam the game playing area, and strike the vampires dead with your own leading edge. So now there's a slice of action to go along with the tactics. Which suits me fine.
The virtual stick used here is reasonably accurate, but what helps make this a bit more 'pick up and play' is that, instead of a lot of complicated attack buttons, there is just one, and your attack style is determined by the number of taps you make. An easy and forgiving way to cope with multiple options in battle.
I love the colour palette of Vampire Rush as well. it's all gothic purples, old god greens, and muted secondary colours for the characters. In other words, the sort of colours you expect with a Hammer Horror film starring Peter Cushing (although, if you look closely at Captain Greg he's got a lot of Vincent Price in him...).
Even with the action going on, it's still relatively clear what's going on, with a good contrast between the background visuals and the undead forces looking to get through to the gateway at the end of the level. While the playing area is much larger than the screen, you do have a radar at the top to help see where things are so you can plan accordingly, which potentially stops you feeling lost at higher difficulty levels.
Neither is it all swashbuckling. part of your role as Greg is to maintain the towers during the levels, which of course costs money. And thankfully vampires carry money with that. When they die and disappear, the coins are left behind! Pick 'em up, buy first aid kits for yourself, purchase supplies for the tower, and get yourself through the level.
And if you need a bit of a boost, there are temporary power-ups you can purchase between levels to help your game.
Perhaps there's just a little too much swashbuckling going on here, I certainly biased my gameplay to the hack and slash approach with Captain Greg, which diminishes the tower defence part of the game. So this does feel a bit more arcade like, maybe 70/30 split towards the Golden Axe model rather than a straight 50/50 approach. This does make Vampire Rush more accessible to new players, but I think it takes away from the longer term potential.
On balance Vampire Rush is a fun game, but it's not going to set the gaming world alight.
Reviewed by Ewan Spence at