Rayne (BloodRayne)

Rayne
'Bloodrayne series character
File:Rayne1.jpg Rayne as shown in during game-play in Bloodrayne.
First game	Bloodrayne

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 off the video game. Rayne makes a cameo appearance in Terminal Reality's PSP game, Infected.

Her is 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 screenshots 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.

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 are 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 Kegan 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 have 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 (Publisher) financial problems, evidenced by how there was going to be a PSP game, but was cancelled due to financial difficulties.

File:Bloodrayne 2.jpg

Rayne seen in FMV mode in Bloodrayne 2.

Abilities and Weapons

File:FMV Rayne.jpg

Rayne, as seen in FMV mode in Bloodrayne.

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, run unnaturally fast, she can also fire one gun in each hand at different targets, use her "Aura Vision", a type of vampiric sensitivity to detect mission-specific targets enemies and their strength, 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. She can also heighten her reaction time using "Dilated Perception" which is slowing down time, by information going though her mind so fast that everything appears slow. She has one final ability dubbed "Extruded View", which allows her to zoom in on distant targets with her eyes like a sniper scope. She also wears swiveling blades mounted on her forearms and metal stilettos on her boots.

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

In the Bloodrayne 2 story-line, Rayne acquires two replacement range weapons, the Carpathian Dragons. The weapons 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 isn't 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).

Weakness

While Rayne has Vampire-like strength, durability and reflexes, she also shares at least some of their weaknesses on a lesser scale. For example, standing in water burns her, causing her gradual damage, while it immediately incinerates full-blooded vampires.

On the other hand, she seems unaffected by holy items. While sunlight inflicts damage roughly the same as exposure to water, it also will not instantly kill her as it would full-blood Vampires.

She is also highly immune to disease. She drinks the blood of the infected towns people in the first game, and shows no ill effects 70 years later in the second game.

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 the 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."

External links

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