Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Sacrifice review

After a six-year hiatus, the Sardonic Slayer of Sunnydale returns to our screens in this low-budget beat-’em-up, but the years haven’t been kind. Indeed, here she moves more like Buffy The Bricklayer: gone are the athletic somersaults and cartwheels, replaced by a more plodding punch/block/kick fighting style that grows old pretty quickly.

In an attempt to spice up the flawed combat, the developers have included a large assortment of weapons and combos. But long animation frames mean Buffy is almost always vulnerable to counter-attacks, so you’ll end up resorting to the simple punch/block routine whenever you think you can get away with it.

You can also call upon Willow to cast magic spells on your behalf by scribbling symbols onto the touch screen, but this is a fiddly process. As such, we always ended up casting the ‘Get punched in the face by a vampire’ spell. We’ve yet to find a decent use for that one. The backdrops are fixed-screen, flick-scrolling affairs, similar to the early Resident Evil games, which does make orientation an issue, but this can be worked around with perseverance. You’ll also be called upon to whip out your crossbow for some decent first-person shooting sections, although there’s an inordinate amount of duff mini-puzzles, too.

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Buffy: Sacrifice is overly frustrating and fairly repetitive, but the amusing script and the familiarity of the Season Seven settings should just about find it favour with fans of the series. Others, however, might find themselves rooting for the vampires.

Apr 24, 2009