http://www.talkxbox.com/review86.htmlIntroduction: Its that time again, when the summer movies are about, and companies are spewing out licensed games faster than you can say mediocre. Van Helsing is the newest big budget movie, and of course, there has to be a game with it. As it turned out, the movie is pretty mediocre according to critics, and a lot of Van Helsing fans were burned by it. Since the cinematic interpretation of Van Helsing was less than stellar, one might have a small glimmer of hope, that the game be a decent affair, which surprisingly it is.
The Van Helsing game takes place simultaneously along with the movie, as to expand the movies experience. One odd, and somewhat unsettling thing is that the story in the game is not as developed as it should be. I found myself thrown into the game, pretty much ignorant of what was going on, and it was pretty confusing as I was trying to comprehend the story. From what I knew and was able to deduce, that Van Helsing is a medieval monster hunter, who hunts famous monsters such as Frankensteins monster, the Wolf Man, Dracula, and more. The story is probably more evolved than that, but you wont learn about it from the game, but its not really needed to enjoy the game, but an exceptional story wouldve helped it a lot more.
Gameplay:Van Helsing does a good job of throwing you right into the action, which is what most gamers want from a good action title. Van Helsing has a few guns at his disposal to dispatch his enemies with. You start off with dual revolvers, and can get shotguns, gattling guns, electric guns and more, plus you also have your melee weapons called Tojo Blades, which are basically saw blades, which do a decent job of adding variation. If two sets of weapons were not enough, you also have finishers, which are limited (unlike your unlimited regular weapons) powerful weapons. All your weapons have inifite ammo, but stronger ammo types can be purchased, which have a limited supply. This game plays like your everyday, run of the mill third person shooter, but instead of a regular third person camera, Van Helsing uses a fixed camera. The fixed camera and the style of gameplay, exploration, and puzzles is reminiscent of Legacy of Kain: Defiance, so fans of that game will probably be pleased with Van Helsing. In the early parts of the game, Van Helsing is a typical third person shooter, where you kill everything you see, and flip a switch or two. Van Helsing is your typical third person shooter, it doesnt do much innovative, but its a solid game, and its pretty fun to play, which is the goal of any game. The decision to extend the story of the movie in game form, was a wise decision because it allows you to square off with all the legendary monsters that the movie boasts. Its a nice change to be able to fight all the of the classic monsters as Gabriel Van Helsing who does a pretty good job of dispensing them. Gabe is a pretty badass character when eliminating all sorts of enemies in many different ways.
While the standard formula of shooting anything that moves wouldve worked fine, around halfway through the game, the game focuses more on exploration and simple puzzles, which are more of a problem than they should ever be. A lot of the puzzles are confusing to complete, due to shoddy and uninformative objectives. Due to the game having a fixed camera, you will sometimes miss important items, and for some reason, youre given no first person view, so you can walk by important rooms or objects without even noticing that theyre there. At one point, there was a grappling point off screen, high above me where I needed to go, and I discovered it by accident, when I was messing around with the grappling hook. Its frustrating and needlessly annoying to have a completely computer controlled fixed camera, especially when you cant even go into a first person view to see something important. It was nice to see that the grappling hook could be activated at any time, and even used to attack enemies, or make a quick getaway, which is something that even Batman games unfortunately lack. The grappling hook, which carried an immense amount of potential is limited due to the fact that you can only aim straight ahead, and itll automatically shoot up if you are near an important grappling point. The grappling hook wouldve had immense possibility and offered much freedom to this linear killfest, had you been able to aim at will and follow it a la Spider-Man. Had Van Helsing had a proper third person camera, or at least the ability to go into first person view, it wouldve been much easier to play.
The combat is a great part of Van Helsing, because of its ease combined with strategy. Certain weapons will do more damage to certain monsters than other monsters, like how the crossbow will hurt a vampire type monster more than a zombie type monster. As you dispose of enemies, you pick up crosses in order to regain health (red crosses) or use as currency (green crosses) to purchase new weapons and upgrades. The core gameplay action is good, but the camera does put a damper on the action. Having the fixed camera does give the game a more cinematic experience, and if youre willing to work with it, youll find that with some practice, that its decent to work with. There are also secret hidden elements of the game, that allow you to unlock cheats and such, and these will require you to find egg type objects and bring them to a portal which allows you to compete in a mini game to unlock something. These mini game elements are a mixture of fun and tedium, but mostly the latter. One mini game requires you to run through a maze of portals and randomly in order to get to the end, while another requires you to have enemies fly into statues to destroy them, all within a time limit of course. The gameplay couldve been a bit more varied, but its not bad at all, just somewhat tedious and repetitive, especially when trying to figure out puzzles.
Graphics:Most licensed games are just shoved out the door, as an attempt to make a quick buck on the latest popular movie or TV show. Since most licensed games are mediocre, I was surprised by how nice Van Helsing looks. The level of detail in this game, is very great, and all of the character designs are very well done as well. The game is pretty much devoid of jaggies, and everything is smooth and has a very nice look to it. The real time cutscenes (no CG at all in this game) look very good as well. When it zooms in on Van Helsing, you can even see stubble on his face, from where he shaved, and the facial expressions also look very good as well. The animations are well done, which adds to the realism of the game, since Gabriel and all the enemies move so well. The levels are extremely detailed and that only adds to the realism and immersion factor of the game. The bosses are very detailed as well, they look just like youd expect them too, except maybe a bit more menacing. The bosses and enemies are unique, and their designs are very well done in all ways.
Audio:The audio is another shining factor of this game, which is due to the fact that it was based on a big budget movie. All of the voices are well done, believable, and you can tell that they are movie quality. The voicework is stellar and shows that lots of time and effort went into creating the best audio experience possible. The sound effects are also very good, and they help create the atmosphere very well. Each item or weapon makes a very unique sound, like the grappling hook grabbing something or blasting an enemy with a shotgun. Sometimes youll even have to rely on sound to figure out where enemies are coming from, because you cant see them. Sound is an integral part of the game, and its great to see it done so well.
Controls:The controls in Van Helsing are pretty good, but not great. Sometimes they can be bewildering to use, and can put a damper on the gameplay experience. The controls are a bit odd to use since its from a fixed camera and there is lock-on aiming. Sometimes its a bit hard to execute a roll correctly or see where you are, due to the fixed camera, but once you get the hand of the controls theyre pretty good. The weapons and inventory arent the easiest to operate, and they take some getting used to, in order to get them done quickly and efficiently. The controls are as follows:
Left Trigger - Alt weapon
Right Trigger - Aim
Left Thumbstick - Move
Right Thumbstick - Nothing
A- Jump/dodge
B - Action/grapple
X - Weapon 1 (range)
Y - Weapon 2 (melee)
Black - Finisher
White - Weapon select
Replay:There are certainly some levels in Van Helsing that I would enjoy replaying, but for the most part, its like most other 8-10 hour action games; play through once and youre done. For everyone hoping that the Live bar on the boxart meant something important, youre in for a big disappointment. Van Helsing doesnt support anything on Xbox Live, aside from Scoreboards, so you can post your best level times and scores online. Its very disappointing that Van Helsing doesnt even support downloadable content. Once the main game is over, theres little chance that youre going to be coming back for more, considering its a relatively short game, with no multiplayer and very little valuable unlockables, youre probably not going to play this one again, unless you really like trying for the high score on Xbox Live.
Summary:Van Helsing is a solid action/adventure romp for the 8-10 hours it lasts. Sure, its not the best licensed game on Xbox, nor is it the best third person shooter game, but it is a good game, and it is fun to play. Van Helsing is in dire need of a regular third person camera, as the fixed camera it has, it pretty annoying and can be a detriment to the quality of the gameplay experience. The graphics and audio in this game are excellent, and it really shows the production value of the game. With decent controls and an okay amount of replay, Van Helsing is quite good for those in need of a solid third person shooter. For those of you whove already beaten games like Legacy of Kain: Defiance, and even Metal Arms, Van Helsing may be perfect to fill your third person shooter crave.
Scores:Gameplay - 8.1
Graphics - 9.2
Audio - 9.5
Controls - 8.4
Replay - 6.8
Overall - 7.7
This post has been edited by Barnolde: May 27 2004, 04:11 PM <
