Here's the embarrassing part, lets get it out of the way. I freely admit that in my entire life I have watched a total of ONE episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on TV. I never saw the film that the series is based on either.. whether or not that makes me less or more likely to offer a unbiased opinion, well who knows but the fact is Buffy on Xbox is a damn good game and one that after completing, I will definitely play through again.

Buffy is a third person beat em up that pits you against vampires, demons and other nasty spooky critters. In a nutshell Buffy's worst enemy, 'the Master' is being resurrected and its up to Buffy and co. to try and stop it from happening.

The game sports some exciting action moments along the way which to be honest was a nice surprise as most games based on TV shows or movies are generally pretty bad but Buffy is a rare example of a game based on a TV show that is actually entertaining and fun to play. Hats off to developers 'The Collective' for making a button mashingly simple arcade beat em up that is accessible to anyone, fan of Buffy or not.

The gameplay in Buffy pits you in one on one situations and also throws multiple baddies at you as well. The controls are very easy to get the hang of and in no time you'll be turning vampires to dust by driving a nice 'wooden pointy thing' right through their rib cages.

Buffy contains a pretty in depth combo system that is powered by your 'Slayer Power' meter and weapons range from stakes, a crossbow, vials of flaming hellfire through to garden implements like rakes and shovels. You also get access to a cool water pistol that you can fill with holy water and also hell fire to help you kick vampire butt. One thing I really loved was grabbing a vampire in a hold and throwing him onto a plank of wood sticking out of a bin or a pile of rubble and letting it do all the hard work! Its little bits of environment interaction that make Buffy very enjoyable to play. You can also throw your wooden stakes and later on you get a double edged blade for carving your way through all the zombies and vampire beasties.

There aren't many puzzles in the game which leaves more time for fighting which is good because this is where Buffy rocks. The fighting mechanics are incredible. You start off with access to a few combos but as you progress through the game Buffy's mentor, Giles adds pages to your log book with instructions on performing new ones. It takes a bit of practice to nail the special 'slayer moves' but when you pull them off they look pretty cool. One in particular is a matrix style-slow motion jump in the air with a triple kick. The boss levels are nice and hard and some involve puzzles as well such as opening sun panels and forcing them into the sunlight to help kill them.

Overall while Buffy does get a touch repetitive (as there are loads of bad guys to take out) the fighting moves keep you entertained all the way through it as there's so many ways to take the baddies out and plenty of weapons to play with. There were a few instances of the camera causing problems but not as many as in Spiderman and it must be mentioned that in the game Buffy cannot swim so try to avoid falling off the pier in the dock level.

Fans of the show will be happy to know that Buffy looks awesome. The other characters make an appearance and all look very faithful but it's easy to tell most of the time and attention was spent on getting Buffy looking spot on. The levels look good and there are some great lighting effects but I found some of the texturing on the levels to be a little bit uninspired, soft and washed out.

Generally though the levels look good and there's heaps of variety. Jaggies do make an appearance in Buffy though and if a touch more time was spent on the level artwork and fixing the small jaggy issue Buffy would have definitely looked much more like a next-gen game but everything does its job pretty well and overall it's a great looking game.

All the stars from the show have contributed their voices to the game except one; the voice of Buffy in the game isn't by Sarah Michelle Gellar but to my ears and limited Buffy exposure sounded close enough to not be an issue at all. Buffy has plenty of one-liners but like any game, after a while you've heard them all and then they become somewhat repetitive. The sound effects and fighting sounds do the job nicely and the music is very good as well.