You are not going to believe my luck! I was actually given the opportunity to get a sneak peak at the sequel to one of my favorite games! I am such a nerd for vampire stuff. I still can't get enough, and I can't even tell you how many times I played
Dracula: Origin before. I even used it as an excuse when I was taking Victorian Literature to pretend I was "studying" since Bram Stoker was on the reading list.
Anyhow, back to the exciting news! The makers of
Dracula: Love Kills invited Casual Game Guides to play the first chapter. And since Anne and the group knew that I would probably go bananas if I wasn't the one who got to play it, they graciously let me have the first go at it. I have such nice friends…
So back to the game… I quickly grabbed myself a tall glass of fruit punch… red of course, donned my Dracula cape I keep in my closet for special occasions… who doesn't have one of those? And I was ready to play!
If you've never played the first one… do yourself a big favor and play it now before this one comes out. These games are very much story-based and Dracula: Love Kills picks up right where the last one ended. In the first one, you played as Doctor Van Helsing, professional vampire hunter extraordinaire, so you can imagine my surprise when I started this new game and I found myself in a new role… that of the Prince of Darkness himself -- Dracula!!! I may have squeaked a little in excitement when that happened… you can't prove it though!
Here's what the opening screen looks like!
For the rest of this review, I'm going to do something I've never done before because I know there are fans out there just like me who want to know every little detail about this awesome new game. I'm going to talk about it by categories… starting first with the story… my favorite!
What's the Plot?
What could possibly have happened between the old game and this one that would show Dracula in the opening sequence? Didn't we kill him? Apparently not! Dracula wakes up and is in the company of his faithful, if somewhat unsavory, servant Igor. After the final confrontation with Van Helsing in the first Dracula game, Dracula was wounded so severely that he had to sleep for a long time in order to recover, but he did not in fact die. Rather sloppy of Van Helsing to leave that little scenario a possibility, but well… He's Alive!!
Wounded and weak, Dracula awakens to find that the villagers have ransacked the castle, damaged his traveling coffin, and placed crosses across the road preventing Dracula from leaving. What's worse is that while Dracula has been out of the picture, that saucy Queen of the Vampires has moved in on his turf and spread a nasty rumor that Dracula, the Prince of Darkness is dead. Igor tells you that she plans on taking over the world and transforming it into a place fit for her rule. This doesn't sit well with the Prince of Darkness. He decides to take back what is his and get rid of this false vampire ruler once and for all. But the only way he can think of doing this is by following the secrets of the Order of the Dragon, the sacred Order created to fight vampires!
Without giving away too much, the story begins by Dracula simply trying to get out of his castle. Once you do this, and put together your traveling coffin, you will be able to travel to places like Budapest in search of the Order of the Dragon's shields. This will help you gain access to the Order's dagger which can help you kill the Queen of the Vampires. As you collect the pieces of the first few shields, you'll eventually find yourself back in London, and who lives there? None other than Mina… your lost love. But what's this… Mina's not home… and the plot thickens… who has taken Mina? And how did you find yourself side by side with your mortal enemy Van Helsing in a search to destroy the Queen of the Vampires, and rescue your beloved? You'll have to play the game to find out!
Characters
Dracula, The Prince of Darkness
The main character of this story and the hero….if you can call him that… It's not like he's gone all good or anything. But he does truly love Mina and wants to save her… plus the Queen of Vampires is much worse so Dracula is kind of the lesser of two evils if you know what I mean.
Igor, Your Loyal Servant
If nothing else you can't fault this guy for his loyalty. He is an ever faithful and loyal servant to the Prince of Darkness. Throughout the game, Igor can even give you hints to help you find hidden objects or figure out what your next step should be. He may not be much to look at, but good old Igor gets high marks for his value as a traveling companion.
Van Helsing, Your Circumstantial Ally
That's right, I said ally. In this game, you and Van Helsing aren't trying to kill each other. You are in fact wary allies trying to work together to save Mina and destroy the Queen of the Vampires. Van Helsing will sometimes take the place of Igor and help you with hints during your travels.
Mina, Your Beloved Bride
Although you don't get to meet Mina in the first chapter, you do discover that she has been kidnapped... so Mina plays the damsel in distress in this game... again. She is the beloved of Dracula, although her heart still belongs to Harker... although it you want the details of that story, go play the first one!
The Queen of the Vampires and Her Entourage
The Queen is one tough cookie that's for sure and her entourage of minions aren't much better. Although you don't physically meet the Queen in the first chapter, you do meet a few of her minions... but thankfully they are no match for the Prince of Darkness.
Graphics
If you played the first game, then you might have mixed feelings about the graphics on this game. I know I did. On one hand, they are still really beautiful, crisp, and the cut scenes like the one below had great details and smooth movements.
However, and I'll talk more about this in the game play section, the difference here is the scenery is all flat, much like today's hidden object/adventure games are. Everything is in first person, unlike the previous game that
actually showed Van Helsing's movements as he trod upon unholy ground… making his way ever closer to tracking Dracula down. So while the graphics are great, I do miss that feeling of watching the game unfold before me. I know the first person is supposed to help make me feel more apart of the game… but it just didn't feel quite as fun as the first one.
I did have one slight peeve about the graphics during some of the dialogue scenes that didn't cut to a movie. They kept showing the same images of the person talking… and the one with Dracula holding the glass of blood got a little old. I mean really is he just carrying that around with him everywhere he goes?
Ambiance/Sound
Ok, now let's talk about the sound and how it helps to set the scene. I'm not a musician, but the music in the background was both eerie and mournful, beautiful and just enough at times to lull you into a false sense of security. It wasn't intrusive on the game play, and really helped to set the mood with that old world kind of classical music you associate with old Dracula movies. So the music pretty much was perfect and the fit the bill of what you would hope to be in a Dracula game.
The sound effects were pretty cool too. When you find an item it made a swooshing sound almost like you would expect a magical spell being cast to sound. I also enjoyed the sucking noise whenever Dracula finds a vial of blood of sucks his victims dry! Kind of like a slurping sound as you try to get the last of your milk shake out of the straw.
Finally, let's talk about the voices… I am so torn… in terms of mechanics and voice quality, it sounded great… and Igor and Van Helsing were just as they should be. The perfect voices for their characters… but there was a little bit of a cheese factor with Dracula himself. Not that it was bad, and it wasn't even the sound of his voice, but the accent and the pauses he would take as he tried to spit a sentence out… just imagine the old Dracula movies… I vant… to suck… your blood… It just got a little old after awhile… just say what you got to say without getting all dramatic dude!
Game Play
As I said before, I was a little disappointed in the game play. I really wanted it to be like the first one… where you got to see Van Helsing interact with the world, and hear the confident sound of his footsteps as he walked into the darkness. The game play in this new game is very much like the current Hidden Object games of today. Where the play is flat and you are shown a picture where you just click on things to pick them up and they magically make it into your inventory. And that's ok… if you are a big hidden object fan, you will totally love this. Like I said, I just was a huge fan of the first one and one of the biggest reasons for that was the game play of moving Van Helsing around.
There are several parts to the game play. And everything is pretty intuitive and fairly easy to pick up. There is a tutorial that walks you through how to play and I had no problem after that. I know there were times in the first game where I just didn't have any clue what to do and I got "stuck." I never experienced that here, and it was a good and bad thing. Good because I never got super frustrated and I could always play through because the hints were there to help me and it wasn't too challenging… It was bad for all those same reasons. I like to be challenged… I liked spending hours thinking about the game and what I needed to do and what I missed… maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment…
One thing that was nice and made you feel good about yourself was the fact that when you did everything in a room or location, the message "Location Complete" appeared as shown below. At least you weren't second guessing yourself and wondering if you forgot anything. So that was a relief.
Once you fix your traveling coffin, you have access to the map and can travel to certain places. Again, if you have things to do in a location, it will be noted by a blood stain on the image of that particular place. See below. I still have things to do in London and Transylvania.
Throughout the game, you can also earn achievements, like the one I earned below for completing a hidden object section without a wrong click! There are a bunch that you can earn throughout the game, which adds another layer of competitiveness.
Hidden Objects Areas
Part of the game play involves hidden object games that will ultimately reveal one object that you need to continue on in the game. The hidden object sections are marked by a sparkling glow in the locations that you are in. If you click on this glow, it will take you to a new screen where you will have to find the hidden objects in order to reveal the object that you need. Overall, it was pretty easy to find the objects. I didn't really have to use the hints at all, which is really unlike me with these kinds of games and I tend to not notice the most obvious, right in front of my face, objects. Here's a few screen shots of some of the hidden object sections.
Puzzles
You'll also come into contact with some puzzle areas. These are a bit more challenging than the hidden object areas and I had to skip one or two before I threw the computer out the window. At least there was that option...otherwise I would have been in trouble. Some weren't that challenging once you figured out what you needed to do. If you need help, there's always the help button on the screen that at least gives you some direction on what to do.
Catching Your Victims
This is an interesting part of the game… as we all know, Dracula needs to feed to stay strong and powerful a vampire as he is. And there are times throughout the game where you will come into contact with the Queen's minions who are just appetizers as far as the Prince is concerned. But first he must catch them! This triggers a puzzle game where you are at one end of a maze and your victim is at the other end. In order to catch her, you have to click on your image and drag it through the maze. There's only one catch though… you can't hit the sides of the walls… oh yeah one more thing… the screen goes dark as soon as you start dragging the image. So you have to remember the path and try to navigate it through the inky darkness. If you hit the walls, you stop and you have to pick up from where you hit it. Just don't hit the wall too many times or you have to start the puzzle over again!
Once you catch your victim, you have the option of drinking her blood or letting her go. I'm not sure what the consequences are yet of doing either action. I drank one girl's blood and it says she will turn into a vampire… and then I let another one go, and I was still rewarded with blood because she was grateful I didn't drink her dry I guess. You need the blood to fuel your vampiric abilities. The first one and the only one I was able to play in the first chapter was Vampiric Vision. With enough blood in my system, I could reveal hidden objects or secrets throughout the game.
Conclusion
Overall, am I excited about this game? Uhhh duh… it's pretty awesome. I can't wait to play the whole game when it comes out! I was very upset when it told me I had completed the first chapter and there wasn't any more for me to do… so upset that yes, you guessed it… I had to go back and play the first one all over again… which is what I will be doing for the next few days if anyone needs me…
