Vampire Slayer: The Resurrection

Genre: First-Person Shooter

Players: 1-8 Team Competitive (Local Wireless), 2-12 Team Competitive (Online)

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Review:

Despite being a $3 game, Vampire Slayer: The Resurrection has a surprisingly long and circuitous history. From what I can tell, this team-based multiplayer-focused First-Person Shooter began its life as a mod of the original Half-Life on PC back in 2001, with a port of that game packaged for release selling on the Xbox 360’s Xbox Live Indie Games marketplace in 2012. Now in 2023, the game has been remade with updated visuals and gameplay, releasing on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch (with the Nintendo Switch version adding optional gyroscopic motion control) before coming all the way back around that same year in a port to the PC.

The premise behind Vampire Slayer is that one team plays as vampires and the other team plays as vampire hunters, with each having their own unique abilities. Vampires are faster, can jump higher, have abilities to enhance their stealth, can heal themselves by biting the bodies of dead hunters, and will resurrect if not finished off with a stake within a few seconds of being shot down, but they can only attack with melee strikes. Vampire hunters, on the other hand, play more like traditional First-Person Shooter characters, armed with guns and a stake to finish off the enemy. Hunters have unlimited ammo, but must stop to reload when their gun is out.

While the game does give vampires potential for stealthy play, this game doesn’t feel like a cat-and-mouse sorta’ situation so much as a “divide and conquer” sorta’ situation – no matter which team you play as, you’ll be more effective if you stick together as a group, especially since there are no objectives to reach or defend, nor are there any area-effect attacks like grenades to worry about.

This is one of the game’s bigger flaws – there’s no variety in the game modes here, it’s all just a team last man standing deathmatch. There are only four character builds to choose from, too (two vampires and two hunters), which also feels like a missed opportunity. That’s not to say that there aren’t some good options present in this game. Players have a pretty good selection of maps to fight in, and can fill rooms with bots if need be, even practicing with an entire game full of bots. However, the bots can be a bit dumb, and I’ve even seen them get bunched up and stuck in doorways. Also, be aware that when I played this game, there were a few live players hanging around, but mostly I found myself facing up against bots, so if you want real competition, you may have to convince some friends to get the game too.

The presentation here is pretty terrible. Even though this is a remake of the 2012 game and not a straight port, it still looks very dated, with simple 3D environments and characters, backed by some choral and organ music when it’s not just environmental noises. I suppose at the very least, the framerates and resolution both seem pretty smooth, but even so this game looks extremely unimpressive.

Despite a lack of options and dated graphics, I still find myself liking Vampire Slayer: The Resurrection quite a bit. The gameplay premise is fairly unique, and at a price of only $3, I think you could do far worse. If you’re looking for a cheap asymmetrical online team-based First-Person Shooter and don’t mind the terrible presentation, this game is worth a look.

tl;dr – Vampire Slayer: The Resurrection is an asymmetrical multiplayer-focused team-based First-Person Shooter that pits a team of vampires up against a team of hunters, with each team armed with their own unique abilities. The game is lacking in options and game modes, and the graphics are archaic, but for only $3 this is still a fun take on the genre.

Grade: C+

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