Let's Talk... Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing

Action-RPGs in the vein of Diablo or Torchlight are some of the few games that I can infinitely enjoy, even if it brings nothing new to the table. Perhaps it’s the lust for an endless loot grind, or maybe it’s simply my fondness for stats and basic number-crunching. Van Helsing is definitely one of those games for me. It may offer very little in the way of original ideas and may suffer from some uneven design, but the core loot-driven experience is still well intact here and the $15 price tag can easily make up for a lot of the game’s rougher edges.

From the outset, the gameplay appears extremely familiar and standard, but there plenty of interesting concepts and quirks.

Aside from the ability to freely activate one-time “PowerUps” which give your next attack an added effect, such as increased damage or an area of effect bonus, the game features nothing that makes it really stand out from any other standard action-RPG/Diablo clone. Something that should probably be noted right away, since Van Helsing is by no means a game-changer and is very much a just competent and very standard ARPG. The core gameplay is essentially a combination of everything that makes an ARPG of this type work well. And if you’ve played any sort of hack ‘n’ slash-type game you’ll know what to expect from Van Helsing’s hordes of monsters and array of disproportionate Area-of-effect spells and abilities.

Van Helsing does make some attempt to venture outside the norms of a well-worn genre, however, by not featuring any of the standard classes you’d expect to see. Instead of being given a choice between some obscure extension of a warrior or a mage, the game simply has a default jack-of-all-trades template for you to specialise into a number of different playstyles. The game’s “PowerUps” allow you to effectively combine keeping enemies far away with slows and snares, and bunching them up and simply clobbering them all together. It’s this freedom that allows Van Helsing to play as dynamically as its rivals and competitors without following the standardised Mage, Warrior, Rogue trope.

Loot. So much damn loot.

The game also attempts, somewhat successfully, to have a fairly distinctive art style and direction. The Flintlock weaponry, the spinning cogs and rising pistons that fill the HUD and countless industrial environments indicate a clear Steampunk-inspired visual style right. And yet this is quite heavily contrasted with the Fantasy world of magic and mythical creatures. A blend of Steampunk and Fantasy is an interesting (and potentially really cool) combination and, although not entirely original, it would certainly help the game stand out amongst others. It’s just a shame that it feels out of place more often than it fits, but when it does work the combination of Steampunk and fantasy can actually be quite compelling (see enormous industrial drill/giant worm boss fight, for example). In most cases, it’s the enemy design that’s fun and imaginative whereas the environmental design often lacks that same creativity.

The game has a great visual style with some excellent art direction and feels somewhat like a blend of the semi-realistic-looking art direction of Diablo 3, and the Steampunk-vibe, creative monster design and fun weapon design of Torchlight 2. The game has some pretty good sound design with a decent soundtrack and voice acting of varying quality (Van Helsing and his spectral companion sound pretty great, but the supporting cast sound a little rough). And although some of the environments can leave a lot to be desired in terms of design and originality, they do look quite excellent.

Dynamic skill trees and interchangeable weaponry allow for multiple play styles

If you’re a fan of the genre, or just looking for a fun and relatively quick co-op game, then Van Helsing is just the thing for you, but if you’re looking for something fresh and more original then you might want to look elsewhere. Van Helsing is neither really good nor really bad; for the most part it’s just a serviceable and somewhat forgettable experience in places. And the price of $15 is well worth the length and replayability the game has to offer. 

Let's Talk... Darksiders

 Darksiders is a game that is very much walking a fine line between being a corny and cringe-worthy experience well-worth dismissing and actually being something totally awesome. The game’s Angels vs. Demons setup and notably hammed up character models wielding impossibly large shoulder plates and gauntlets set off immediate warning signals. Along with the corny-looking aesthetic, the game threatens to present a tired and completely unoriginal gameplay formula with plenty of direct inspiration (bordering imitation) from many of gaming’s classic, such as The Legend of Zelda and Portal. However, it becomes quickly apparent that Darksiders’ well-realised world and unique interpretation of borrowed mechanics make it an exciting and well-crafted homage to The Legend of Zelda and all 3^rd Person action games.

Combat has a nice weight to it, and is not too dissimilar to God of War or Devil May Cry

Although Darksiders may borrow many of its mechanics from The Legend of Zelda, it by no means borrows the bright and colourful tone of fairies and elves. Darksiders instead opts for a darker and very bloody approach by putting you into the shoes of War (yes, really), one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse as he gets caught up in a raging war between Heaven and Hell, a war in which humanity was all but decimated. War aims to figure out how and why these two armies were called to fight one another whilst also clearing his own name of any misplaced blames in the process. It may be a little slow to get going but the game eventually tells a pretty good story of revenge and redemption, if not an entirely unique one, that concludes in a satisfying manner that aptly sets up for a sequel.

Darksiders makes no secret that its mechanics and formulaic gameplay are overtly borrowed from other games, mainly The Legend of Zelda. But if you’re a fan of the Zelda games, or any games of a similar vein, then Darksiders’ use of Zelda mechanics in a more mature setting should seem quite appealing. The game follows a very standardised “Metroid-vania” formula in that you must acquire particular items and learn new mechanics to progress. The game sends you across on Overworld-like map through dungeons that require you to use a particular mechanic, or combination of, to proceed through puzzles of increasingly complexity before fighting a great big boss fight. The formula is by no means original, but the subject matter and its presentation are enough to keep it fresh and exciting.

Darksiders loves its bulky, over-sized characters

One of the major ways Darksiders manages to keep the gameplay from getting stale is through its excellent and reasonably complex combat system. Darksiders features a lot of combat throughout and in-between its many dungeons, and the game does a great job of maintaining a steady stream of tweaks and alterations in the form of new that keep it from getting stale. Much like God of War or Devil May Cry, the combat features numerous of knock-ups, air combos and a lot of attack, pause, attack-type combos, as well as some awesome looking execution moves. Your main tool of destruction is your 6-foot-tall-beefy-as-hell monster of a sword, which is customisable with a number of obtainable upgrades and enchantments that change its impact and effect. Along with your main weapon, you are slowly kitted out with a number of different weapons such as a large scythe, power gloves, a very Zelda-esque boomerang, and a fairly useless pistol. Unfortunately, most of the boss fights are underwhelming and feel over-simplified, with each boss adhering to the classic rule of three (somebody on the dev team was clearly major Nintendo fan). Much of the hype built up around certain bosses is let down by a lacklustre spectacle of a boss fight.

The game looks pretty great for 2010, in part thanks to the striking art direction and beefy aesthetic of many of the character models share. A great visual style is accompanied by an excellent soundtrack and some really stellar voice-acting. The writing does a great job of preventing the setup from coming across as very corny and hammed up. War comes across as a tough guy without making you cringe and Mark Hamill puts in an expectedly wicked performance as The Watcher. The game controls refreshingly well on keyboard + mouse for a 3^rd person action game and I actually preferred it over a controller.

There's a nice variation in the types of environments you'll visit along your 15 hour journey

Overall, Darksiders could easily be dismissed as an unoriginal game that relies too heavily on the mechanics and formula of other games whilst. But its dark and bloody tone, bulky and brutal character models, and a unique and well-realised world make it a thoroughly enjoyable and well-designed experience worthy of any fan of the classic Zelda games. However, if you’re looking for something deeply original and innovative then Darksiders most certainly is not that.

Let's Talk... Injustice: Gods Among Us

For anyone who’s played the 2011 Mortal Kombat title, parts of Injustice will feel wholly familiar. NetherRealm Studios makes no attempt to hide the fact that they made the 2011 blockbuster. The excessive super move clone the madness of MK’s fatalities, the graveyard-like challenge mode, and King of the Hill and Survivor online modes make the game feel very similar to MK. But it’s the game’s crazy environmental interaction and hilariously over-the-top super moves that make Injustice also feel like a separate game from MK.

This game may as well be called Batman vs. Superman, because that's pretty much all it is

At first glance the combo system appears to be relatively simplistic, but behind the accessible button combinations and easy-to-activate super moves there lies a reasonably high learning curve. Combos use a three button system that essentially has you mixing light, medium and heavy attacks along with your standard uppercuts and air-based juggling. It’s this simplistic control scheme that allows new players to easily chain powerful combos whilst simultaneously opening the door for more experienced players to do perform some seriously crazy combos. The game also just straight up provides you with a moves list on the pause menu for whichever character you’re playing as. It’s some of the deeper and more complex areas, like the clash system that allows you to wager parts of your EX meter for either health or damage, are what prevent it from feeling too simple and certainly keep it from getting stale.

Along with the combo system, each character has their own character power button which will activate whatever their character-specific power happens to be. For example, Deathstroke’s button will increase the effectiveness of his abilities by giving him longer bursts of gunfire for a few seconds, and Wonder Woman’s will swap her Lasso with a sword and shield. Whilst some have a very basic effect, such as Superman’s, will simply increase damage done.

There's a decent amount of playable characters, of whom I have heard of none.

The game also has a fondness for environmental chaos in the form of environmental interactions, such as kicking dudes into a helicopter that’s just hanging out in the background, that give the game a great 2.5D feel. There are also ways of knocking your opponent straight through the environment into entirely different arenas, some which are pretty incredible. The one for Arkham Asylum, for example, has you throw the opponent through a wall into the Scarecrow’s cell, to then have him inject him/her with his special stuff and then proceed to crush him as an 80 foot tall nightmare. The same craziness goes for the game’s amazing super moves which really are one of the best parts of the game.

The story mode uses a formula almost identical to the later Mortal Kombat games. The narrative has you play as a series of different characters fighting 3 or 4 opponents before moving onto the next dude. Naturally, the story throws you into fight after fight with every character imaginable, and the seamless transition between cutscenes and fights is truly impressive. The story itself is a little crazy and it can be extremely hard to keep track of all the different factions, the different versions of different characters, which is the good Batman, and just generally what an earth is going on, especially if your DC knowledge is as profoundly limited as mine.

The game's hilariously over the top super moves are one of the best things this game has going

If you can follow it, however, the story generally creates enough of a setup to have Batman fight Superman, which is really all you need for a fighting game. It essentially has Evil Superman become a tyrannical dictator and wrecking the Earth, because he’s evil and that’s what evil does. Naturally, every single character in the DC Universe is drawn into the fight and you’re left with two, interchangeable it would appear, factions of good and bad doing lots of fighting. It’s a good length for a fighting game story mode, and balance between cutscenes and actual is pretty nicely split.

In terms of multiplayer, Injustice has a lot of the traditional MK online game modes and features to offer. A King of the Hill game mode allows a room of up to 8 players battle it out to see who the best player is. Whoever beats the king cashes in the exp reward, and spectators can bet on fighters for additional exp. Exp is, of course, used to level up and earn more character skins and profile customisation. There’s also an online practice mode that allows players to demonstrate moves and combos to each other, which is a neat addition. Alongside all that there’s an online Survivor mode, which is effectively the same as King of the Hill except players do not regenerate health after each round.

The game's online King of the Hill mode, where players can bet against who will beat the King

There’s also a challenge mode not too dissimilar to the graveyard mode from MK. There are dozens of challenges that include every character in the game, with each character having around 10 challenges each, which have you doing all kinds of crazy things. Like winning a match without jumping whilst fire bursts out of the ground in random spots, or more obscure ones like slice a bunch of debris flying towards you without being hit 5 times. It makes a nice break from standard fights and the challenges actually tell their own smaller stories, although a lot of them are extremely rudimentary scenarios like “the bad guys escaped from Arkham Asylum! Beat ‘em up!”.

The game’s character models look pretty great (although in cutscenes they loom a little muddy) and the various crazy environments look sharp. The game’s has some satisfying sound design, with some nice physicality to the impacts, and some of the story’s voice acting is pretty hit or miss: some of voices are a pretty great (Kevin Conroy retains his role as Batman) and some could certainly be better. As for the game’s control scheme, its simplistic nature gives the game a refreshing accessibility for a fighting game, but some of the movement feels a little sluggish and a little slow for my liking.

There's a nice variety to the arenas, each of which features two different starting areas and can be freely transitioned between during a fight 

Overall, Injustice manages to excellently balance accessibility with depth to create an experience that is both manageable for newcomers and complex and intense for more seasoned veterans. Its unique combo system makes it stand out from the crowd, and the ridiculous nature of both the excessive environmental interactivity and the incredibly ludicrous super moves make the game appealing on their own. The wealth of online modes and features and the reasonably lengthy story mode maintains the game’s appeal for a good long while.

Let's Talk... LEGO Marvel Super Heroes

It’s refreshing to see LEGO games take a huge franchise and actually use it to craft their own story If you know the standard affair for these games then LEGO Marvel will feel perfectly familiar, and that’s exactly what makes the game’s quality so divisive. Its frequent use of overused and simplistic mechanics can either feel highly enjoyable or just painfully dull. Nonetheless, the game’s large and open world is easily the most enjoyable part of the game, and can make up for some of the rather dull and repetitive story missions.

The story features Dr Doom and his “Bricks of Doom” or something to that effect. Stop the bad guys from being evil basically. It’s suitably dumb setup that perfectly serves as being an excuse to include everyone from the Marvel universe in some form or another. And it’s easy to see that storytelling isn’t exactly the biggest strength of the LEGO games, especially when it comes to telling their own story. Even though the writing is generally alright, the inclusion of a fully voiced script in a LEGO game feels somewhat disloyal to the spirit of past LEGO games, but I guess it’s quite difficult to tell their own story without any dialogue. Plus the voice acting itself is rather corny and pretty hammed up.

The large open world is full of tons of side content, even if not all of it is inherently satisfying

Just like the latest LEGO Batman game, LEGO Marvel features a fully fledged open-world, full of quests, vehicles, and just so many god damn coins. Surprisingly, roaming around the reasonably large city is some of the most fun I had with the game, and it certainly beats the rather dry and repetitive story mode. The open world also gives a nice change of scenery from the tight and enclosed story missions that often feel very restricting. Although, some of the side quests suffer from some frustrating design flaws, like the far too frequently occurring and completely unenjoyable escort quests that force you to babysit the AI. Nonetheless, flying, running and driving around a busy and thriving New York City is still a lot of fun, and there are a lot of pieces of great side content to be found.

The combat is somewhat more complex than in previous games (it’s still button-mashy as hell though) with the inclusion of a quasi combo mechanic that effectively multiplies the worth of coins for each enemy killed. Although the combat itself is still as simplistic as was in other LEGO games, at least there’s now an incentive to kill enemies as fast as possible to maintain the multiplier. However, combat takes second place to the immense quantity of pretty rudimentary puzzles that litter the dry and quite tedious story missions. These puzzles usually require you to simply use one character to help another character overcome an obstacle using their character-specific abilities. If you’ve played a LEGO game in any capacity you’ll know exactly what to expect, and if you’ve played a considerable quantity of them then the tired formula can become exhaustively tedious pretty quickly.

The Lego appearance of characters are all well captured and faithful

 Although some of the story missions can be a bit of a drag, they are worth trawling through just to open up and unlock the impressive wealth of playable Marvel characters that are available. Roaming around as one of many recognisable faces is ultimately satisfying even if you only appreciate the Marvel universe from a distance. What makes it so entertaining is not only seeing how great the charming Lego figures are for every character, but also seeing how well the game captures and uses the many, many different powers and abilities that each hero and villain has, and just seeing how every character has his or her own unique capabilities. Every character feels faithfully and accurately portrayed in Lego form and it really puts a light-hearted spin on everything.

The game generally looks pretty good with some pretty good-looking, and very shiny,

character models, but performance can get a little choppy at times and its consistency

certainly feels a little spotty. Aside from the corny voice acting, the sound design is generally pretty solid and certainly sounds suitable for a LEGO game. Unfortunately, LEGO still don’t have even the most basic of mouse support and the keyboard controls are pretty nasty, which makes playing without a controller a real rough experience.

There are a lot of playable characters

Overall, LEGO Marvel is exactly what it sounds like: the Marvel universe combined with the unflinchingly standard formula of the LEGO games. Unfortunately, the game suffers from a lack of variety and often a tedious reliance on mechanics that have been central in LEGO games from the very beginning. And although the game’s open world is one of the better parts of the game, it feels a little flawed in execution with its repetitive and dull nature of the side content. However, the charming representation of the Marvel universe and all its weird and wonderful characters make the game’s rather dull story mode worth getting through just to see which character will show up next. 

Let's Talk... Tomb Raider

The reboot opts to go for a significantly bigger story focus than previous Tomb Raider entries, with an even bigger emphasis on Lara Craft as a character. The story itself sees a young and inexperienced archaeologist Lara Croft and her team of painfully stereotyped crew crash land onto a mysterious island in the pacific. The crew are in search of the lost kingdom of Yamatai and, more specifically, the legendary “Sun Queen” Himiko, who supposedly has shamanistic powers. Naturally, the crew crash land on the very same island that the very same Himiko once inhabited and the game immediately introduces you to the “Others”, who come straight out of LOST. The rest of the game follows Lara as she is brutally beaten to within an inch of her life every 10 minutes in her pursuit to get her and the rest of her presumably incompetent friends off the island.

It’s all pretty well done and decently written, but any attempt the game makes to develop the rest of the characters is defeated by the fact that they’re all just great big stereotypes. You get the classic survivalist expert/friend of the father type,      the self-obsessed archaeologist, and even an obnoxiously bad mouthed tough-guy Glaswegian. The sheer stereotypical nature of the characters makes them easy to forget, and difficult to tell them apart from one another. Also, there’s a significant disconnect between some of the story elements and Lara’s character, and the ridiculous nature of the gameplay and the some of the brutal set pieces that throw Lara around and just generally tear her to shreds. The game paints her as this inexperienced and vulnerable person who shows sincere remorse for killing a deer early in the game, but then follows up with her brutally mowing down dozens of dudes with ease. It can be a little jarring, and it certainly makes it hard to take the story seriously at times, but it’s a video game, so what do you expect?

The reboot paints Lara Croft in a much grittier, more serious light

Along with a shift in tone, Tomb Raider takes huge liberties with the gameplay you’ve come to expect from the series. Although you’ll still be jumping, climbing and scaling cliff-sides the frequent environmental puzzles come few and far between this time round. The game instead opts for an emphasis on Uncharted-like chaos, with Lara frequently scaling collapsing buildings, planes, bridges, anything that might collapse really. The game uses a very automatic and fluid climbing system that basically just requires you to just hold down the button for one direction whilst she does her magic, but you’ll also be grabbing ledges, latching onto walls you can scale with your pickaxe, and whizzing down self-made ziplines. It’s fast-paced and it’s manic, and it’s such a huge leap from the tone and pace of the previous games that if you removed Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider name then you’d never even suspect this game belongs to the series. It’s something that will inevitably put off and probably anger hardcore fans of the previous games.

The game also opts to follow in the footsteps of Uncharted again with its heavy emphasis on third-person combat. Your four hugely upgradable weapons, including a bow, will be you’re most heavily relied on tools as you traverse this hectic, and incredibly dilapidated, island. There is a lot of combat throughout this game; the game can barely go ten minutes without throwing a handful of enemies at you, which certainly keeps you alert at the very least. The combat really is your standard third-person shooter with some smart cover mechanics that will automatically put you into cover when you approach adequate cover, which is helped by the fact that Lara moves in a crouched stance in combat anyway. It’s perfectly serviceable combat and there’s certainly an element of satisfaction to it, but the game puts perhaps a little too much emphasis on what really is just pretty okay combat. Although the sheer amount of combat is balanced out by enough exploding set pieces to make you assume this game was designed for god damn maniacs.

There's enough high-octane action and fast-paced chaos to last you a year

Despite some of the major changes, Tomb Raider still stays loyal to its roots, even if those roots have been largely downplayed this time round. These roots of course being environmental puzzles and platforming, which appear in the form of general level traversal and optional tombs that contain more complex puzzles. A lot of the puzzles involve fire, with fire frequently being used to light torches or burn cloth in some capacity. The puzzles certainly aren’t majorly difficult, and perhaps aren’t as hard as ones that appeared in previous games, but they’re still fun and engaging. The puzzles will seem fine for anyone new to the series, but anyone who has played any of the previous games will likely be disappointed at how simplified or “dumbed down” the puzzles are in the reboot.    

The game looks pretty great, with a very great rugged look to everything in the world that adds a nice touch to whole survival aspect of the game. The PC version boasts its ridiculous “tressfx” that come with the vital addition of Lara’s more “naturally” behaving hair, as you can probably imagine it looks kinda dumb and in some cases her hair looks less natural than it does by default. The game runs pretty well, averaging a decent 40-50 fps at the lowest settings on rather out of date systems. The game also features some pretty good sound design, with some pretty performances and some alright sounding weaponry.

Fire plays a huge role in the game's mechanics and a lot of the puzzle sequences

The reboot of Tomb Raider does a pretty great job of essentially modernising the series, for better or for worse depending on who you ask, in a way that can appropriately be called a reboot simply because of how radically different the game is from its roots. This major departure from what made Tomb Raider the game will be either the best thing about it or the worst, and as someone who never really liked the older games the complete change in tone and pace is a refreshing turn for the series. Ultimately, Tomb Raider revitalises the series by taking it in a bold new direction whilst still adhering to the roots of what made the series so popular.

Let's Talk... Contrast

The idea that the very shadows of your surroundings could be used to solve puzzles within the same environment may be an interesting one, but it’s also kinda clunky by nature. Whilst Contrast may combine a potentially interesting gameplay concept with a grim, noir-filled world, some of the disjointed mechanics and rough physics make the whole experience feel experimental at best.

The story takes place in a noir art deco atmosphere. There’s a slightly dark undertone to the jazz filled air thanks to the bizarre Tim Burton look of the protagonist and the surrounding world, as well as some of the rather surreal floating platforms and structures. The story itself follows Didi, a young girl who lives with her Cabaret-performing mother, who desperately wants her father to come home after it’s revealed that there’s been some family dispute over some of his quirky “get rich quick” schemes. It feels sort of generic and done before, but it suits the game’s shady undertone and, at times, the story can feel somewhat inconsistent with Didi wanting her father back one moment and then not wanting him back and she wants him back again.

For some reason, only the protagonist and Didi are physical entities 

The basic premise of gameplay involves using shadows to perform simple platforming and solve basic puzzles. It’s a neat mechanic but feels a little rough, and once the novelty of manipulating light and shadows to solve puzzles wears off, some of the puzzles begin to feel somewhat disjointed and a little rugged. Mostly with some of the platforming-heavy puzzles that require you to move shadows yourself, where there often doesn’t feel like there’s an exact solution but rather you’ll simply reach a “close enough” point where you can essentially game your way through with the games dodgy physics.

There’s some interesting cohesion between story set pieces and gameplay, where the game requires you to traverse the shadows of the looping conversation to get to the next objective. It’s an interesting method of character development and filling in context for the game, and it sort of feels like audio logs that are also used to solve puzzles. There’s some interesting variety in the gameplay, including one section where you’re required to re-enact a puppet show (that plays out in a way that’s extremely reminiscent of LIMBO, it even has a giant spider) but it’s mostly basic things like taking a box into the shadows to activate a button to open a door.

Some really interesting gameplay ideas are buried under their shaky execution

What feels like a bizarre and interesting world is unfortunately rather poorly fleshed out, and almost no context is given for why you are not a shadow but everyone else is, why only Didi can see you, or even what the hell luminaries are (collectible items required to solve puzzles and make progress). The game has a great art style with some striking lighting effects and excellent manipulation of shadows; it looks great and runs smoothly. There’s also voice acting of varying quality, mostly pretty decent though, with some rather iffy writing to accompany it.