Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2
Oh Rats! No I’m serious actually…and bats as well. Just like a bat out of hell Dracula has furry friends in both low and high places. Awaken from an extremely long eternal night and find some nice necks to chomp on. Whip your blood back and forth (Whip it real good). Explore Dracula’s back to the future adventure. Talk about a miserable pile of secrets. You are the prince of darkness! The dragon Dracul! What a terrible night to have a curse.
This is the direct sequel to Lords of Shadow 1, which was one of my favorite Castlevania games. It feels like you are playing a medieval version of God of War. If you liked the GBA/DS SoTN style Metroidvania ones you might not enjoy this one.
– Real player with 62.1 hrs in game
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I think I need to add this to the “games that most people hated which I actually enjoyed” list. Admittedly, I’m biased because I really dig Castlevania, enjoyed the first Lords of Shadow and Mirror of Fate, and am a sucker for the idea of playing as Dracula himself. But even at its most frustrating moments, Lords of Shadow 2 isn’t nearly as bad as Edge Magazine (which gave it a 4/10) or any of the other mainstream reviews would have you believe.
Bloodsucking awesome stuff:
- I feel like combat’s speedier and more responsive than it was in the first Lords of Shadow, and there’s less reliance on quicktime events. This might have to do with the fact that I’m just more experienced with the combat system after playing through the first game and Mirror of Fate, but I had a lot of fun beating up some of the bosses, which leads me to the next point…
– Real player with 42.0 hrs in game
BloodRayne 2: Terminal Cut
So Bloodrayne 2 has the distinction of being one of my most beloved, yet absolutely hated games, out of all the games I have ever played before. Never has a single game left me completely divided on how I felt after playing it. Even as I was playing this Terminal Cut, in full, for the first time, I kept thinking “I can’t review this.”
So the good first. BR2 in a nutshell, is a modified BR1, but with everything cranked up to 11. So many new features and ideas are brought to this very creative sequel. Feeding fatalities, gymnastic platforming, environmental death traps, new characters, tons of voice work, tons of powers, tons of costumes, tons of BLOOD. It’s wild just how much of an upgrade BR2 is compared to its original.
– Real player with 16.9 hrs in game
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If the first BloodRayne is like an easier Max Payne that’s not well-made but still delivers fun and some cheap thrills, then BloodRayne 2 is like a Devil May Cry that does not understand what makes Devil May Cry great. Also BloodRayne 2 itself is not fun, and it doesn’t even deliver cheap thrills.
–-
The first BloodRayne was not a well-made game. Animations were janky, damage feedback was poor, environments were boring, and the final boss was frankly terrible and became downright impossible to defeat if you took too long. However, if you could forgive those faults, what you would find in this game was the experience of becoming a frantic, unstoppable, killing machine. You could be like Max Payne on steroids. It’s no exaggeration that you could essentially dance around your enemies whilst attacking, whether you’re firing your guns or attacking with Rayne’s sick arm blades. You became a frenzied speed demon of death. Also, to add more to the Max Payne comparisons, you have a Dilated Mode which is essentially infinite Bullet Time, so yeah.
– Real player with 13.7 hrs in game
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III
Firstly, this is an EARLY review, written on the very first day of release.
[And then updated excessively week after, with some 70h of gameplay]
And to say this first, game is not FULLY completed - you can play story and scenarios up to level30. More features (Neverending Story, levels up to 60, probably a few completely new features). If this bothers you, wait a while, instead posting negative review.
Rather than continuing leveling from VH2 - (characters can be imported, but they don’t keep levels and items, they DO keep glory points and are given Epic item at start), the game offers whooping SIX classes, some redesigned builds from earlier games, but some rather unique to the whole genre, as is strength-based-stealth class I play.
– Real player with 157.9 hrs in game
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I’ve now beaten the game with the Constructor and Elementatlist classes and I’m still going. I’ve tried out the Bounty Hunter and Phlogistoneer. I expect I’ll finish the game with the Phlogistoneer next, it and the Constructor are my favorites so far. The Bounty Hunter is a fun unique diversion, but feels ill handled for spawning mobs that a few enemies can throw at you - probably better to play in multiplayer. The Elementalist became quite enjoyable as soon as I added Frost wall to my skillset.
– Real player with 44.5 hrs in game