Rayne (BloodRayne)

Rayne
BloodRayne series character
File:Bloodrayne 2.jpg Rayne, the protagonist of the BloodRayne series, as seen in FMV mode in BloodRayne 2.
First game	BloodRayne (2002)
Created by	Majesco

Rayne, (sometimes referred to as "Agent BloodRayne") is the protagonist in Terminal Reality's third person video game, BloodRayne franchise. She also stars in the movie franchise, based on the video game. Rayne makes a cameo appearance in Majesco's PSP game, Infected.

Her voice actress is Laura Bailey, a Texas-based voice actress primarily employed by Funimation Studios. She is portrayed by the actress Kristanna Loken in the movie BloodRayne. In the sequel, BloodRayne II: Deliverance she is replaced by the actress Natassia Malthe.

Concept and creation

The beta version of Rayne.

It is implied that Rayne was originally going to be Svetlana Lupescu, a Dhampir from a previous game from Terminal Reality, Nocturne. Svetlana is a dhampir that fights supernatural creatures, using twin blades similar to those used by Rayne and works for an organization called Spookhouse, whose concept is similar to the Brimstone Society. Early screen shots for BloodRayne showed the title character dressed almost identically to Svetlana, suggesting that the game was originally planned as a sequel to Nocturne.

The final version of Rayne may have been partially inspired by the character of Durham Red from the comic book 2000 AD, although that has been denied multiple times by the TRI representatives. In a posting on the then active BloodRayne.co.uk fan forums Joe Wampole, a developer for BloodRayne, had this to say,

"Durham Red looks like a cool character but we've never heard of her. It is coincidence that her and BloodRayne look so similar.

The symbol on the hair is similar but looks more like a target, while Rayne's looks a little like Prince's symbol. Also, it looks like Durham is set in some alternate super sci-fi future.

I think it is just natural to put a vamp chick in black leather and either color her hair black or red."

Personality

Rayne is a very complex young woman. She is intelligent, knowledgeable, witty, seductive (when need be), exetremly confident in her abilities, sarcastic, mostly independent, and somewhat dispassionate, rarely showing any sign of anger, alarm, annoyance, surprise, or distress. Due to her upbringing as an assassin, Rayne is also strong-willed, stubborn, foul-mouthed, somewhat tomboyish, tenacious, resourceful, persistent, and enduring. However, Rayne still has an ever-present dark side that is constantly shown throughout the series. Due to that fact that Rayne was raised to be a powerful vampiric assassin that isn't supposed to show any sign of weakness to her opponents, she can seem cold, aloof, brooding, and even callous at times. Rayne is also bloodthirsty, ruthless, kills without much concern, derives pleasure and fun from death and destruction, behaves somewhat sadistically, often decapitating and dismembering her opponents, and is uncaring towards the victims even though she stated that she "doesn't approve of senseless killing" in the second game. She is also rather cocky and flirtatious, and frequently converses, taunts, and belittles her opponents before killing them. Though she has been shown to actually care about a few people, Mynce and Rayne's mother are notable examples. Despite her somewhat flirtatious personality, skimpy clothing and seductiveness, it is assumed that she has never had a romantic relationship and may still be a virgin. This may stem from already losing her loved ones over the years and her dedication to her job.

History

Rayne is a bloodthirsty American Dhampir, born c.1915-1916. Her mother was raped by her vampire father, Kagan. Kagan later murdered her mother's entire family so that the only family member Rayne could turn to is him. This wasn't cruelty, but a policy for all of the Dhampir he "created", possibly so that humans wouldn't revolt and use the Vampire/Dhampir weakness of the sun, holy items and water against them.

Circa 1932, she spent her teenage years trying to hunt down and kill her father, to get revenge for her family. It was a search that led her to Europe, where she committed a series of murders of Vampires along the way before being apprehended. Claiming that her victims had been vampires, she was disbelieved by the authorities, but quickly managed to escape from them and continue her hunt.

She was recruited into the mysterious Brimstone Society via an invitation. The Brimstone Society sent her on missions to eliminate supernatural threats to the world. One of these missions required her to use her vampiric powers against the Nazis, who were on the verge of using magical artifacts to bring Hitler to power. Rayne also learned of a plan to use demonic parasites called Daemites against the enemies of the Nazis, after they had been tested on prisoners. The background to the story is influenced by the existence of various historically real Nazi occult groups such as the Thule society.

Benevolent half-sister?

Most of Rayne's family is evil, however it is hinted she may have had a half-sister who was also either a Dhampir or a Vampire, but was not under Kagan's control. In the opening cut-scene in the first game, Mynce mentions Rayne being just as impatient as her half-sister. In the second game, in the flashback that shows Kagan breaking into Brimstone's HQs looking for the Vesper Shard, he mentions Prof. Trumane having stolen yet another one of his offspring, and raising it as his own. However, this probably could be a reference to the previous Terminal Reality game Nocturne character Svetlana Lupescu, who is a dhampir and has a story similar to Rayne, except that Svetlana never learned the identity of her father. This is either an in-joke for the game designers or has relevance to the story. This can't be confirmed until there is a third game, which is unlikely due to Majesco's (Publisher) financial problems, evidenced by how there was going to be a PSP game, but was cancelled due to financial difficulties.

Developer Note: This was a character we planned to introduce in BR2, however due to time pressure many levels were cut, including the ones involving this character. She was actually modeled, a luminous nude woman with very long hair covering up parts of her body appropriately. She had powerful psychic powers and was going to help Rayne.

Abilities and Weapons

File:FMV Rayne.jpg

Rayne, as seen in FMV mode in BloodRayne.

BloodRayne

In the first game, Rayne is highly athletic and versatile, due to her Dhampir nature as well as a lifetime of training. In addition to her ability to jump more than 20 feet into the air and running unnaturally fast, she is also strong enough to fire assualt rifles in each hand at different targets and pull her foes towards her using a wrist-mounted harpoon in order to feed on their blood, though she is also able to jump on enemies close-range and then feed on them with her legs wrapped around the enemy. Her melee weapons are a pair of blades mounted on her forearms and pointed stilettos on her boots.

Rayne has four vampiric powers in BloodRayne:

• Aura Vision - Allows her to sense enemies through walls, as well as highlight mission objectives.
• Blood Rage - Rayne temporarily inflicts more damage, moves faster and can use different attacks with her blades.
• Dilated Perception - Rayne slows down time by processing information in her mind faster than normal.
• Extruded View - A first person view in which Rayne can zoom in on distant targets.

BloodRayne 2

In BloodRayne 2, Rayne's athletic abilities are severely cut. She can only jump moderately higher than her enemies and some generic foes can even out run her. This may be because motion capturing was used and the internal engine of the game was modified to make the game as a whole look more realistic.

Developer Note: Her run was reduced to keep the player from being able to speed past too many encounters, and the jump was reduced to keep her in the world space, however many acrobatic abilities were added in the second game, including vertical and horizontal bar moves, rolls, flip series, and a wall cling. This was going to be a wall jump/run, but was curtailed after the marketing department saw what was planned in the first Prince of Persia (which was in development at the same time, but was going out first), and didn't want us to appear to copy them too much.

Rayne is no longer able to pick up weapons from her enemies. In the BloodRayne 2 story line, Rayne acquires two replacement ranged weapons, the Carpathian Dragons. The dual handguns fuse blood with chemicals in order to make lethal projectiles. They gain their blood-ammunition supply by draining it from Rayne's victims and storing the blood in their reservoirs or when empty, drawing it directly from Rayne herself. They can only be used by Dhampirs, though it is not explained how or why, and have numerous lethal upgrades from their base Blood Shot (single shot) firing mode, including Blood Stream (fully automatic fire), Blood Spray (shotgun fletchette like shot), Blood Bomb (a time-delayed explosive round), Blood Flame (bursts of fiery material) and Blood Hammer (high-explosive).

Rayne's Physical Appearance

Rayne's character design is highly sexual in nature. Her outfit in BloodRayne is a revealing, formfitting black and red leather corset-like top and skin-tight black, red striped leather-pants, with sewn in boots. Her primary costume in BloodRayne 2 is an updated variation of her original outfit, though shinier, similar to vinyl, but she also wears a variety of different attires, all of which are very revealing. In both of the games she is always seen in 6+ inch metal stiletto heels.

File:Rayne compairision.jpg

Rayne, from Bloodrayne 1 and 2.

Rayne's physical appearance went through a serious renovation from Bloodrayne to Bloodrayne 2. Her face has changed, body is now more proportioned, and looks more realistic overall due to motion capturing and renovated engine.

Reception

Rayne is the first video-game character that appeared in Playboy Magazine, in the October 2004 U.S. edition as part of an article entitled Gaming Grows Up. She has also made appearance in MTV's "Video Mods", which a music video portrayed her performing Evanescence's song "Everybody's Fool". "Having BloodRayne as one of the premiere 'performers' in MTV2's 'Video Mods' show is a testament to her popularity and appeal," said Ken Gold, vice president of Marketing, Majesco. "We are thrilled to see BloodRayne star in a music video and we applaud MTV2's creative blending of entertainment mediums and properties." The BloodRayne train was going strong, with numerous apperances, including comedy sketches on comedy central shows parodying the game and its PR spots, mostly the playboy apperance. All of which died down very quickly following the movie BloodRayne, which due to several problems, was lack luster at the box office and recieved poor reception from fans and critics alike.

External links

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