Vampire Night

The Good
The PS2 really needed a HotD style frantic shooter since HotD3 is going to X-Box and this fills the void reasonably well. Shooting action is fast and furious as you'd expect and some nice innovations are included. One such new feature of VN is the innocent civillans. In VN they are possessed by strange growths. Shoot the growth off of them and they return to normal but if you hit them instead then they turn into vampires who you must then destroy. There are different pathways through the stages that change depending on what you do and the game is a fair length for a gun game. Extra training modes are great and enhance longevity and a two player function is included for those with two guns. It's also worth noting that the game supports the G-Con 45 as well as the G-Con 2 so your old PS1 lightgun still comes in handy.

The Bad
As is always the case with these types of games the voice acting is apalling but here I think we've found a new low. Even HotD2 can't touch this one for poor voices, at least in HotD2 the voices were funny, in this they are so bad that they really start annoying you. This game is definately in the same vein as the legendary HotD series by Sega but if you were hoping for a PS2 equivilent of HotD2 then you won't find it here. Everything about the game is much weaker. Levels are fairly uninspired and towards the end they make little to no sense at all. Visually the game is okay but nothing amazing and there are far too many cheap shots where enemies are invulnerable for no reason other than to make the game harder up until a split second before they strike so you have to peg them at the last moment. Likely you'll be hit by them even though you hit them first , just you hit them sooner than the game wanted you to and so they don't die.

The Bottom Line
A good light gun shooter for fans of the genre to pick up but if you're okay with just a few gun games then I recommend picking up Time Crisis 2 for PS2 or for a monster style gun game grab House of the Dead 2 for Dreamcast (you bought one right?).