Bloodmoon Episode 4: BloodRayne Part 4
Last one of these for a little bit, but only because I need to record another session and get back up to where I left off because I lost this save file. Thinking of doing some other videos in the meantime though: I was gonna do one on Raiders of the Broken Planet and Metroid, but I found myself far less inspired by that game than I was hoping I would be. I could do Quake Champions, but that would just be me getting humiliated and curb-fragged over and over again. Maybe I’ll just end up gushing about Warriors All-Stars for an hour or two because, to paraphrase one of the achievements, it has in fact become my life. I’ll have to see how things go.
Check out previous entries in the Bloodmoon series to catch up if you wanna: Here’s Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.
I’m pleasantly surprised at, and very appreciative of, by the way, the reaction this series has gotten (really, any reaction at all). This project is not at all remotely what I originally envisioned it to be, and I’m glad people still seem to like it.
Anyway, here’s yer edited text from the video description:
Bloodmoon is a series that looks at the evolution and apotheosis of specific themes and archetypes throughout various video games via the medium of full playthroughs with open discussion prompts.
Questions and observations:
Consider this visual. A half-vampire heroine haunts the ruins of an abandoned and flooded Louisiana plantation manor house overrun with gun-toting zombies.
Zombies are, of course, a key part of Voodoo (really, Haitian Vodou) belief, being corpses reanimated into slavery by necromancers. Another type of Zombie mentioned in Vodou is the “Zombie Astral”: The inverse of what we think of as a normal Zombie, this kind of Zombie is a disembodied spirit-fragment that can be used to bring people good luck. Zombies are considered part of the “harmful magick” of the bokor, Vodou sorcerers. Like magicians in other premodern belief systems (or traditions derived from premodern roots), bokor can do either good or evil, and no value judgment is placed on the magick itself, for magick is but a tool.
The old Beauregard house is adorned with portraits of men in, presumably, Confederate uniforms (though the lighting in the game seems to make them look more Union blueish than the real thing). And notice again the use of stock “Great Masterpiece” paintings, such as what appears to be “The School of Athens”. Of course, this could merely be a reused texture in a middle-shelf sixth generation video game, but it does also put one in mind of, say, a middle-class estate trying to look intellectual by displaying prints of famous works of art.
Plantation houses, obviously, would not have had automobiles (or working freight elevators, for that matter). That the Beauregard house has one (and a sizable car garage to boot) indicates it was either retrofitted at some point to accommodate it, or, perhaps, that it’s not even a real plantation house, but instead some sort of “revivalist” McMansion.
In one of BloodRayne‘s more peculiar concessions to “video gamey” design, there’s a boardwalk from the estate out to the abyss, leading directly towards a set of submerged power lines waiting to lead Rayne to the next area. An interesting confluence of oversignified design elements at the end of the last era where such a thing was possible.
Mods used:
As always, if you liked this or any of my other videos, do please check out the rest of my channel, and consider subscribing if you want to see these as soon as they come out. I also have a Patreon to cover this and other expenses I might accrue while doing this kind of work.
With that, I’ll see you next time…
