Amelia’s Gaming Retrospectives: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Chaos Bleeds

I first played Chaos Bleeds when I was twelve. It was in the regular rotation of the games I’d rent from Blockbuster to while away my weekends on. Running around Sunnydale, kicking ass, and making sarcastic comments helped me deal with the upheaval of being thrust into a prepubescent life with an abusive step-father. I’d pretend every vamp I dusted in game was named Sam and that beating the game would fulfill my Slayer world-saving duties and I could go back to being happy. I mean, a twelve year old killing The First Evil to ever exist? I think that warrants kicking a dickhole step-parent to the curb.

Ah, but the path of the Slayer isn’t a happy one.

I continued to rent Chaos Bleeds every now and again (to live out my vindictive, childhood fantasies) until I was thirteen and moved away from my local Blockbuster. For nearly four years, Chaos Bleeds was in my life as only a memory, a save spot on my 64MB memory card to be precise. I came into my very own physical copy of the game verging on my seventeenth birthday.

Ironically, it was due to Sam that I got my hands on this vampire themed beat ‘em up again. When he was pulled over for drunk driving, a warrant was dug up for his arrest in a city over three hundred kilometres away. When my mother drove there to deal with that shit-show, she happened to stop into an EB Games just to kill some time. That’s where she found Chaos Bleeds in decent used shape. The box is a little rough, the cover a little water damaged, but it still had its manual, and Mom figured it would be good to appease me. Yes, I needed appeasement. It was exam time in high school, I had two science classes to study for, and I was left alone to look after my little brothers, one of which had a habit of crawling into other people’s beds and peeing in them.

My fucking life, amrite?

Good thing Chaos Bleeds was always good for relieving my tension.

Story:

Chaos Bleeds opens on a surprise birthday party for Buffy. It’s at the Magic Shop and all her friends are there: Willow, Xander, Spike, Giles, Anya, and Tara. It’s turning out to be a terrible party though and not just because in the cutscene that plays there’s no decorations, food, or presents. The place is vampire infested.

Shit gets weird in Sunnydale pretty quickly when Sid the Dummy shows up to give Buffy some cryptic information. Shit gets weirder still as Kakistos raises some hell in the graveyard and starts up a blood factory. Kakistos was the only thing Faith was ever scared of so Buffy thinks to investigate that angle. Ethan Rayne beats her to the punch. He’s broken Faith out of prison for a very specific task.

A wager against The First. That’s right, Ethan Rayne, long worshipper of the dark magic of the Lords of Chaos, has placed a bet with the primordial evil of the universe. Literally all evil that has ever existed. This seems like a good idea. Very sound.

Ethan has bet that his chosen champions can beat it’s chosen champions. If Ethan wins, he becomes a Lord of Chaos himself. If Ethan loses, he becomes the whipping boy of the lowest toadies of Hell. Willow raises the sarcastic point: “We wouldn’t want that to happen.”

Problem is Ethan has already chosen his champions. The bet is on no matter what Buffy, Faith, Willow, Xander, and Spike have to say about it. Just as they all begin to poof away to the First’s own dark, alternate dimension, Giles informs Buffy that she can’t defeat the First without Hope’s Dagger. Buffy stores away the information and grabs onto Ethan to bring him along with her. It’s only fair he tag along, after all.

In the First’s alternate dimension, the five chosen champions, an alternate version of Sid, and a very unwilling Ethan search some hospital records of the original owner of Hope’s Dagger, which is a magical dagger crafted from the first ray of sunlight to ever touch the Earth.

Doesn’t this raise a shit tonne of questions? Why was the first ray of sunlight to ever touch the Earth still around come the 11^th Century when Cassandra Rayne forged it into a dagger? How did she forge it? The bogus explanation of it being ‘magically gathered’ is given, but what the hell does that mean? And, here’s the biggest quandary, why would this medieval warrior woman have a file at the modern hospital of this alternate reality?

All that aside, they learn that Cassandra became immortal because of Hope’s Dagger so the First had to dismember her and scatter her limbs among his chosen champions. They find her eyes in the hospital but there’s still five other pieces to collect.

The gruesome scavenger hunt across this twisted dimension begins!

Each of Ethan’s champions goes to a different location to defeat one of the First’s champions and claim a bit of Cassandra back. Xander is sent to Sunnydale High to fight Anyanka for one arm, while Willow is sent to the mall to fight vampire Tara for the other. Faith goes to a quarry to fight Kakistos for the right leg and Spike goes underground to the Initiative to fight Adam and get the left. Buffy is in charge of the torso and is sent to the Sunnydale Zoo.

They seriously fuck up the zoo though, and I’ll tell you why. There is a whole storyline in season one revolving around the zoo and hyenas. And yet here in this evil dimension where there are zombie penguins that feast on dead zebras, there’s not a hyena in sight. How do you mess up something that easy and perfect?!

Once all the pieces of Cassandra are reassembled in the grossest puzzle ever, she leads them to the First’s lair. It’s a fortified castle. Cassandra herself can’t weld Hope’s Dagger any longer, but Buffy is more than qualified as a Slayer. Faith brings up a good point: “You don’t gotta be a virgin, do you?”

Apparently, that’s not a problem. She’s a more liberal, immortal, medieval woman. Good for her. Good for all of us!

Buffy fights her way through the surprisingly well-kept castle of the First before confronting the entity in the Grand Hall. The First has possessed Ethan, but that doesn’t stop her from swinging a sword at his smug face.

The bastard goes down with less fuss than Adam from the freakin’ Initiative does (that’s no lie, Adam’s fight is tedious shit, the First goes down like a bitch in comparison) and Buffy and her friends are magically transported home as the winners of the bet. Ethan doesn’t get his prize though. Instead, he’s left behind in the dark dimension, with only one change of underwear and his immortal, goodie relative to keep him company.

Chaos Bleeds ends on one last cinematic of Ethan, alone in a dark, dank medieval prison cell, leaning against a wall and… masturbating?

I’m pretty sure that’s what he’s doing. So… good. Great. A happy ending for everyone!

Characters:

All the Scoobies are here in Chaos Bleeds! Playables include: Buffy, Faith, Sid, Spike, Willow, and Xander, and more in multiplayer. Giles, Ethan, and Anya are the only long time Buffy characters that you don’t get to swing your fists around as. Disappointing much? Imagine Giles delivering a high kick to a vamp’s face? I need that in my life.

Of these characters, most have their true Buffy voice actors–yay! But of the ones that don’t, you can tell. Buffy, Willow, and Anya are not voiced by their live-action counterparts, which is ridiculous! Sarah Michelle Gellar is too good to record dialogue for a videogame but not too good to be a part of a fart scene in the live-action Scooby-Doo movie? Where is your logic there?! And don’t even get me started on Alyson Hannigan! She was present for the first Buffy videogame but not this one? C’mon!

While the ones “too good” for videogames were off doing whatever it is you do when you’re too good for videogames (I guess smugly believing yourself to be better than the rest of the world) Giselle Loren filled in for Buffy and Anya and Kari Wahlgren filled in for Willow. If the name Giselle Loren rings a bell it’s because she was going to be Buffy in the never-picked-up animated series and fills in for Buffy in all the games. She’s god awful in the first game, but has really improved her Gellar impersonation for Chaos Bleeds.

Now, I don’t watch Buffy regularly enough to pick up on any vocal differences between the show and this game, which is a good thing for me! I can absolutely pick up on the terribleness that is the line delivery from Willow though! Who is this Kari Wahlgren woman and why did she think she could be an actress? It’s just so astoundingly bad, like someone verbally explained Willow’s voice pattern but didn’t have any recordings of it available to actually listen to.

Okay honestly, a lot of the regulars phone it in too. Tara is breathy and I guess thinks she’s being cute. Is she always like that? Spike doesn’t really give a shit, which I guess he is always like. The only one giving it their all is Nicholas Brendon as Xander. For once in your life Xander, good job!

Of the vocal performances, don’t think that you’ll get away from these performances by skipping the cutscenes. Playable characters are constantly talking throughout the levels. Mostly to themselves as you traverse the land and try to pick shit up and open doors. Throughout the twelve levels, prepare to hear the same lines ad nauseum until your ears are bleeding and your very soul is shredded!

Some of the most repeated include:

“Just what a girl needs. A nice, long shaft. Wait… that didn’t come out right.”

“Great. A medi-pak. Now if I could just find a cute doctor to go along with it.”

“A medi-pak. Now I can be nurse Willow. Tara’s gonna love this.”

“A medi-pak. Time to find Anya and play naughty nurse.”

A lot of these are sex based. It’s the worst to hear over and over again. Like, okay Willow, we get it, you would rather be boning Tara than looking for a dead chick’s arm in a vamp infested mall, just shut-up all ready!

“Locked. What’s with the security around here?”

“This place is harder to get into than the girl’s locker room.”

“My mom always said my natural charisma would open doors. I guess just not this one.”

“Why are you locked? What did I ever do to you?”

A metric shit tonne of these quotes are also about locked doors. If Chaos Bleeds has anything, it’s a fuckload of locked doors that will never open for you! And I’ll be damned if every time you try one they don’t need to make a comment about how locked it is!

“Fancy meeting me here.” and/or “Fancy meeting you here.”

“A bottle full of Hell. Next thing you know, they’ll be selling condoms down there.”

“I’ve always wondered what the blood of a Slayer would taste like. Looks like tonight I’m going to get my chance.”

That last quote, it comes from male vampires, and I’ve usually laid them flat on their backs and staked their sad asses before they even finish saying it!

Based on that fine, curated selection of constantly looping quotes and sayings, you see how all that could get a little tiring!

Now, I mentioned the Big Bad characters that make an appearance at the end of levels as boss fights, but what of the ordinary bad guys prowling the levels? The ubiquitous villains in Chaos Bleeds include vampires, bat demons, zombies, bakemono, giant spiders… escaped mental patients wrapped up like mummies with knives…

Yup, I sure remember all those crazy blade welding mental patients in the show. Never doing anything wrong, just in the background. That’s probably why you can’t bring any of them to mind. And the bakemono? They’re Japanese demons and I definitely don’t think they were done justice here. I mean, they’re in your way during Xander’s level because they keep eating your magic suppressing rabbits! That’s it! And don’t even get me started on those teeth!

Gameplay:

The gameplay of Chaos Bleeds is a beat ‘em up with puzzle and fetch quest elements strewn throughout. You’ll make your way through each level as the respective character(s) and kick a bunch of ass in the process! Well, kick a bunch of ass in between the locked door syndrome and getting stuck solving some of the more convoluted puzzles. I’m looking at you, Willow in the mall level!

As far as the puzzles go, they’re either small things like hallways that end in a locked door so you have to smash a window to get out, or a level wide scavenger hunt for shit like candelabras to stick in a wall to open a secret passage. None of these puzzles pose much of a mental challenge, just good old fashioned frustration as you struggle to find a door that opens to the next part of the level so you can find the fucking modem so you can unlock the security doors. Again, I’m looking at you, mall level!

For the punching parts of the game, you’ll have a variety of attacks available to you based on combos of kicking and punching, but will more than likely just button mash either or, having no finesse for the mixing and matching and just wanting to hit things.

I’ve just given away my whole technique! That’s pro game strats right there!

To combine with physical attacks you’ll also find some pickups throughout. There are things to throw (Hellfire and Holy Water), a few ranged weapons (Holy Water Super Soaker, flamethrower, and crossbow), some medieval shit (battle axes, swords), and some good old fashioned blunt objects (baseball bat, wooden spikes, pool cues). My personal favourite weapon is the shovel. The sound of the blade slicing through the air before the solid and satisfying thunk of it hitting an enemy? Bliss. Absolute bliss.

Of the six playable characters, Buffy, Faith, Xander, and Spike have more or less identical play styles (hit it until it stays down), Willow is physically weak but has magical attacks, and Sid is just a mess. Don’t get me wrong. I love Sid and playing as him is fun… until more than one bad guy is on top of you. Zombies are fine because they’re weak and hardly fight back, but vamps? They’ll swarm if you don’t deal damage quickly and that’s not good for a little wooden puppet. Though things do change in your favour when you find the sledge hammer.

Hammering a vamp in the knees is almost as satisfying as embedding a shovel in their head.

As far as the differences in the fist fighting characters, there’s none that I can tell. Except that Spike is slower than the other three. I honestly can’t tell if it’s because he hits heavier because his solo level is a drudge through Hell and I just want to get it over with as quickly as possible.

The enemies that you fight have two styles: if they’re as tall as you, they’ll punch or kick. Sometimes vamps will suck your blood, or throw fire at you if you’re too far away, but that’s about the only variation. If they’re small enemies (bakemono or spiders) they attack your shins. And nothing more. You don’t see a lot of small enemies, so if your legs bruise easily, don’t worry about it too much.

As the levels progress, difficulty increases, as is the case with any good video game. The thing about the difficulty of Chaos Bleeds though is that the enemies don’t get any more challenging, they just get more frustrating. Because these enemies turn into big, fucking babies and they cover their faces and block all your blows. So you’ll pummel them with a bunch of button mashing but it won’t do a fucking thing to their health because they’re arms were covering their faces. Putting your arms up over your face shouldn’t protect you when someone is wailing on you with a shovel! That isn’t just me thinking this, is it?!

One last note about gameplay, something that’s troubled me since I first played it, the tutorial. To learn how to do things like interact with the environment or have new spells to cast, a voice over of one of the other characters will speak directly to the character you’re playing as. Like Buffy will talk to Spike like she’s standing beside him saying “you gonna let that table stand in your way?” to teach you not to take guff from your environment. Is Spike just constantly narrating his own thoughts with Buffy’s voice? God, I know he turned into a needy bitch around this time in the show’s narrative, but this is just sad.

Setting:

Chaos Bleeds is one of those games where you’re dropped off at your particular level destination and then pulled right out of it when you’re done. There is no exploration, at least not beyond finding a small branch off the main path that leads you to a hidden item or two. Fight your way through the linear levels, reach your end goal, go to next linear location.

As negative as I just made it sound, the design works for the game. The way you get around the world so rigidly even makes sense, what with being magically transported around. The places you’ll find yourself in are:

My personal favourites include the quarry with Faith and the hospital with Sid. The quarry and the hospital have the best atmospheres. The hospital is truly gruesome, feeling post-apocalyptic with boarded up doors and waiting room chairs filled with bloody corpses. The quarry on the other hand feels haunted. Tight hallways, no natural light, and a run-down quarry house on top of a hill. I actually used to hate the quarry level because the Kakistos boss fight was a royal pain in my ass, but nowadays I love it.

Least favourite levels? The First’s Lair is a big maze of medieval courtyards and castle hallways that all look the damn same, and the fucking Initiative. I hate The Initiative. It’s one of the most straightforward levels in regards to puzzles, and definitely short… until you account for the boss fight with Adam. This shit will drag on for ages and you will forget that this is supposed to be fun as zombies get in your way during the one clean shot of Adam you’ve had in five minutes. Plus, there’s a gun turret section. A fucking turret section! Because guns have always been so important to Buffy!

Much like how we all felt about The Initiative in the show: fuck it!

Graphics:

The graphics of Chaos Bleeds aren’t great. By modern standards, they’re actually god awful. But it’s an early PS2 game and a licensed game at that, so a little leniency is needed to fully enjoy it fourteen years later.

In cutscenes, everything is pretty alright. Character likenesses are there, if not a little dead around the eyes (and in Faith’s case, her boobs), and textures and objects look decent. Textures and objects look pretty decent out of cutscenes too, though things like colours fall a little flat and character movements can get a little jerky.

The most egregious offence graphically in Chaos Bleeds is that it’s licensed. Which is a nice way to say it’s lazy as fuck. And because of this laziness, when you do the task of staking a vampire (which is a constant activity, what with you fighting against vampires and all) your action doesn’t line up with the foe you’re fighting unless they’re standing directly in front of you. As it is though, you’re going to be knocking them onto their backs a lot. My favourite move is to just grab and throw the fuckers onto their backs. No muss, no fuss with that move.

But then you go in to finish them off with a stake to the heart and the animation you get doesn’t land your stake anywhere near the vamp’s vital organ. If that vamp is on the ground you’re either dusting them via their kneecaps, or in the case of all the male vamps, their dicks. Don’t get me wrong, that is fun to do, but it doesn’t exactly fit into the lore of Buffy, does it?

Music:

I hope you’re not looking forward to a good soundtrack with Chaos Bleeds because it’s definitely lacking in the music area. It’s nothing horrible, it’s just not anything great. Pretty much instantly forgettable.

Until I discovered a twenty-six song playlist on YouTube, I honestly would have told you that Chaos Bleeds only had two or three different tracks, repeated over and over again. And it does that thing when battle music will kick in when there’s more than one villain around. It’s not a gentle fade in and out either, you will notice it every single time. Whether or not it’ll annoy you can only be answered by you. But the answer will probably be yes.

Weirdly, some of the tracks can be heard sliced up in other media. The weirdest one I can bring to mind is a low cello tune. It’s ominous and kind of freaky. So imagine my surprise when I heard the exact same tune during an episode of Mythbusters when their experiment failed and some drama needed to be injected into the scene. There have been other instances that I’ve heard it, including in one of the television series of Scooby-Doo, but Mythbusters is the one that always sticks out in my mind.

Listen to the first ten seconds of the below video and then watch the episode of Mythbusters where they put a plane propeller on train tracks to cut up another plane and you’ll hear it. Then, like me, you won’t be able to stop hearing this tune everywhere! If I have to suffer, so do you!

Multiplayer:

Along with the main story, there’s also a small selection of multiplayer levels to try your slaying hand at. Choosing from sixteen characters, including some you have to unlock by discovering secrets in levels, and one of the characters being Joss Whedon himself, there are four multiplayer options. Survival is player-on-player combat for the most kills, Bunny Catcher has players compete to collect rabbits, Slayer Challenge has Player 1 defeat baddies while Player 2 is a baddie, and Domination has players control magical pentagrams, King of the Hill style until time runs down.

These games aren’t skill based and I’ll tell you why: the random power-ups. These power-ups, which can include “points switch”, “invincibility”, and everyone’s favourite “instant death for the player that picks it up” are distributed from question mark blocks like Mario Kart. These stupid little fuckers are the reason the multiplayer shouldn’t be played if you think you’ll win it on skill alone. It comes down to pure luck. Absolute luck.

The only fun of this comes from convincing someone to be Joss Whedon and then beating the snot out of his fake feminist ass!

Chaos Bleeds stands as my favourite Buffy game! But considering I never played any of the other Buffy the Vampire Slayer games, maybe that’s not saying much. There was a Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the Game Boy Color, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Wrath of the Darkhul King for Game Boy Advance, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Sacrifice for the Nintendo DS, all of which I never played because there are so few adventure type games that work as Game Boy games. I mean, did you ever play that GBC Tomb Raider game? Just atrocious.

Then there was Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the Xbox, never played because I have never and will never own an Xbox, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Quest for Oz which was a mobile phone game from 2004. Do you remember the state of mobile games in 2004? You couldn’t pay me to sit down and try to play this!

So, instead of comparing Chaos Bleeds to its spiritual relatives, let’s just look at it as a whole. The visuals stand on neutral ground for me, being neither good enough to praise in the long run or terrible enough to tear apart, they really are fine for what they are. Same with the voice acting. Willow is god awful and some phone in their parts because I guess people on WB shows just think they’re better than voicing videogames, but again, it’s fine for what it is.

The gameplay is pretty fun, though it’ll get repetitive if you play Chaos Bleeds with any regularity. The story continues to entertain me and holds up, feeling like a narrative that would have gotten a two-part episode to close off a season. And beating the tar out of vamps? It’s a great stress reliever!

Oh, and if you’re wondering when I play nowadays if I still imagine every vampire as my abusive, white trash step-father? Of course I do! Why would I ever stop that?