Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Fortunately, Buffy is not alone. Her friends help her solve mysteries and watch her back. Fans of the series will recognize the voices of favorite characters including Angel, Xander, Willow, Cordelia, Spike, the Master, and Giles.

Players fight a range of enemies including Spike, the Master, Drusilla, demons, zombies, and other supernatural creatures that threaten mankind. All of Buffy's favorite haunts are richly detailed: Sunnydale High School, the cemetery, the Bronze nightclub, and the library, which is the portal that sits atop the Hellmouth. Special supernatural effects such as morphing creatures, eldritch explosions, dynamic fogging, and arcane spell casting enhance the dark, mythical setting of the game. An intelligent combat system allows enemies to perform counterattacks and learn from character's fighting techniques.

Customer reviews:

A LICENSED GAME THAT'S ONE HELLUVA RIDE 8.5 OUT OF 10, 2008-09-22
As most gamers know, licensed games have a tendency to be craptacular failures that should have never been created, hell, the worst game I ever played is a licensed game (Casper: Spirit Dimensions for PS2... Ugh). Since most of these games are complete garbage, gamers don't buy them, but unfortunately because of such fears of playing crappy games, a lot of times the good licensed games get ignored by gamers and not a whole lot of people get to experience them as they should. Luckily, this game not only garnered critical success, but also had moderate commercial success. I never watched the show, but I heard this game was pretty good, so I picked up and it was a lot of fun.
WHAT THE GAME IS: It's basically a brawler with some nifty weapons and hordes of the supernatural. A girl named Buffy has the powers of the slayer, which is only given to one girl in all the world to stop the forces of darkness. Buffy is a teenager in Sunnydale, California who is gifted in slaying the supernatural. A supernatural force threatens to plague humanity with vampires, demons, and zombies and Buffy most stop this force from destroying humanity.
GRAPHICS: The character models look great for a game from 2002, but the rest of the game isn't going to blow you away. The environments sometimes are boring to look at, and there are texture problems. The lip-synching is pretty good.
MUSIC: This game really knows how to set the creepy mood and despair, another highlight in this highly polished licensed game.
SOUND: Punching, kicking, stabbing, dying screams, good voice acting from the lead actress of the show and the rest of the characters.
GAMEPLAY: The developers really focused on the gameplay. This is one of those games that really gives you a sense of what it's like to punch and kick and enemy brutally. You can also use weapons like stakes, rakes, shovels, holy water, a crossbow that fires regular and holy water bolts, and a gun that fires Hellfire and Holy Water. Simple puzzles are also part of the game and aren't really very difficult to figure out. You can also upgrade your health and slayer power with special crystals you find in the game.
OVERALL: This game has highly polished gameplay, an interesting story and great music. It's definitely worth an investment if you have an old Xbox around. This is indeed one of the best licensed games out there and few can be superior. This game was made by the same folks behind the upcoming Silent Hill: Homecoming (360, PS3) so that game will end up being really good.
THE GOOD: Brilliant hand-to-hand combat, lots of weapons, lots of enemies to kill, not very difficult, great music, good voice-acting, simple puzzles, and decent environment designs.
THE BAD: Graphics have not aged very well, sometimes you'll be wandering for long periods of time trying to find out where to go.

Not Quite A Gamer, 2007-09-21
I'm not a gamer. Other than dabbling with the occasional "Crash Bandicoot" and "Dead or Alive", I haven't really played that many games. But, being a Buffy fanatic, I had to scoop up this game when I saw it at Game Stop for a mere five dollars.

The controls are exceptional and the story line is pretty interesting. The voices are good (I love the fact that most of the Buffy actors voice their characters here) and each level definitely brings on the fun. Killing vampires is easily the best part--the dusting effect is nicely done--and the parts where you can interact with Buffy's friends will make any fan of the show squee with glee. Overall, the game is very playable and the good graphics make it easy on the eyes. The only real complaint that I have is that there is one particularly hard part where you simply wander through a maze and try to navigate with a very misleading light. That part was overly hard, I thought. But other than that, I really have no qualms at all about this game.

So, I say this to Buffy fans who aren't really big on games: Get this game. If you like the show, this will surely keep you entertained, if not enthralled. Perhaps I'm biased. Hell, I'm sure there are games out there 100 times better than this. But, this is for the Buffy fans, and they'll enjoy it. I know I did.

9/10