An improvement over the original and despite its problems, still fun to play.
The first major improvement was the graphics. In the first game, the graphics seem murky and bland. In BloodRayne 2, the graphics are much more refined with more color and detail. The levels were much less bland looking than the original, which does go a long way in making a game fun to drudge through. The music had a much bigger presence in BloodRayne 2. It was just relegated to the background and simply fades away like in BloodRayne. I was glad to see that BloodRayne 2 retained the ambient sound effects. Each level has its own unique sounds like the sounds of a party or police sirens, ect.
The combat system is better in BloodRayne 2, but still has a few problems. The enemies seemed to get in cheap shots often and the method of evading your opponent caused me some frustration. While you are locked on to an enemy, you can use the jump button to evade the enemy by flipping behind them or side stepping. The problem is this wouldn’t happen the way you wanted it to. I tried to flip over to get behind my opponent, but instead I ended up just jumping behind them. By the time I managed to turn around, I was getting the crap kicked out of me. This seemed to happen often. At least fighting enemies was more fun with melee attacks than the original. The bosses weren’t as frustrating to fight; I absolutely hated fighting the last boss in the original.
BloodRayne 2 is a definite improvement over the original in every way. It still could use some refinement, but at least it is moving in the right direction.