Countdown: Vampires
Bandai's somewhat infamous attempt at cashing in on the 90's survival horror craze kickstarted by their rivals, Countdown: Vampires tries its own spin on the formula by taking a dash of classic gothic horror and sloshing it about with both Dusk til Dawn's monstrously sexy vampires and Resident Evil's B-movie bioweapons. Reviewers were rarely kind to C-list also-rans without a strong gimmick to set them apart from the pack, and the game's sloppy localization, comical English dubbing, stiff controls and infrequent difficulty spikes no doubt contributed to the avalanche of middling to subpar scores. For all the negativity surrounding the game, it really isn't that awful, though it helps illustrate how just being "good enough" couldn't, by itself, keep the genre alive.
The story follows maverick cop Keith J. Snyder in the fictional "Sea Rim City" (somewhere in the same area of Nevada that inexplicably plays host to the ruins of medieval castles) who has been assigned to escort duty for VIPs as punishment for some suitably generic backstory involving a dead partner and numerous departmental violations. Attending a glitzy casino party alongside a number of other disgraced or unreliable law enforcement officers - all of whom are critical to the overall plot and yet completely vanish after the introduction and fail to re-appear until the game is replayed in "Special Mode" - our shirtless hero leaps into action as black goo floods the premises, turning hapless partygoers into bloodsuckers. Misato, a young Japanese cocktail waitress - whose greatest ambition in life is, like all Japanese women, to get knocked up by an American - soon falls under his protection, only for Keith to discover her involvement in an ancient prophecy concerning the resurrection of a vampiric Emperor. Cue the mysterious stranger, cults and corporations, mutants, ghouls, experimental monsters, classy hotels, ghost towns and underground laboratories.
Anyone who's played a PS1 survival horror title will immediately feel at home upon starting the game. There are a few mostly inconsequential additions to gameplay such as choosing your blood type upon starting a playthrough - which allegedly influences enemy placement and behaviour - as well as being able to stun and "cleanse" the weaker, cannon-fodder foes to improve your final ranking (important for accessing the "true" story mode and ending). For much of the first half of the game you'll also have access to poker and slot machines, which allow you to gamble for currency to purchase maps and healing items. Whilst there's a good deal of puzzles, backtracking, and key hunting, the game certainly leans heavily towards action-oriented gameplay. On Normal difficulty, ammo and weapons are plentiful (with the exception of Stun rounds, which will only allow you to save around 80% of the corrupted human enemies you'll encounter) and new enemies will often repopulate cleared rooms according to story progression. In retrospect, I paid far too much heed to ammo conservation in my first run, tanking a lot of damage and barely touching any of the weapons introduced in the later areas. Whilst the awkward combat probably won't surprise many veterans of the genre, the final chapters of the game can be somewhat sadistic, in several cases spawning multiple enemies right next to area transitions for cheap shots. Being stunlocked by three giant mutants within a few seconds can certainly lead to some frustrating deaths. Still, even players who've been relatively libertine with their ammo shouldn't need to worry about replaying sections too often, with the probable exception of the Special Mode's final boss.
This "Special Mode" is the main source of replayability, adding new cutscenes and memos that help flesh out Keith's and his compatriots' backstories (though they feel more like basic plot points that were cut for no reason), whilst unlockable infinite ammo weapons and a melee-focused "Vampire Mode" help squeeze further blood from the stone. Judging from reviews and many players' recollections, most people weren't even aware of these features, though perhaps Bandai felt that journalists wouldn't have enjoyed further exposure to the badly translated script and bargain-bin VA. Production values in general received mixed reception, with some viewing the pre-rendered Casino environments as overly garish, and many more dismissing the soundtrack as "flat...repetitive" and "tedious". Discovering it for the first time in 2019, I'm not sure the game deserved such a drubbing. Though a model of mediocrity, I can't see why anyone without a pre-existing aversion to console games of the era wouldn't be able to enjoy Countdown: Vampires. Give it a whirl if you like PS1 survival horror, though you might want to download a save with the Special Mode unlocked to spare you a replay for the complete story. I only played it for Mira's huge breasts anyway.
