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The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III is, as the title would suggest, the third game in the popular Van Helsing series from NeocoreGames!
Right, let me get this off my chest straight from the start – I am a complete noob to the Van Helsing series. More than that I’m a complete noob to action RPG’s. Torchlight resides in my Steam collection, but like a lot of games in there, I’ve never played it. So my review of this game will be that of someone new to this genre because I am! I’m open-minded, though, and I’m willing to see if Van Helsing can convert me to the cause.
Upon firing up Van Helsing, I was greeted by a very sparse looking title screen. Presentation, though, isn’t everything and that’s fortunate because Van Helsing’s isn’t exactly enticing.
Being a noob, I wanted to delve straight in. Apparently there are 6 new character classes but I just went for the one who looked the most bad-ass. (The class, which had the character, that looks like Van Helsing with the hat and all – Hunter class I think)
I found the main menu and options screen could only be navigated by joypad, which is always welcome, but also alien for a PC game. I presume keyboard controls would have kicked back in if I unplugged the joypad, which I didn’t feel inclined to do, but I just found it was strange for the game not to give you the choice to use both inputs. Most PC games switch on the fly when you touch the keyboard or joypad during game play.
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III – hands-on gameplay – PC Gamer
There is a distinct lack of polish to the proceedings – the title menu previously mentioned earlier, for one. When launching the game, the screen went black for a while before a tiny egg timer came on the screen to reassure me the game hadn’t crashed. I encountered the odd bug, too: I got stuck in the haunted forest area when I beat the boss. Apparently, I was waiting for the cut scene to trigger and eventually it did. I then made the mistake of returning to that area and couldn’t get out as there was no cut scene to trigger but the level wouldn’t let me proceed back through it to get to the teleporter(!)
Input via joypad in the game would sometimes feel a little laggy. The rig I was running the game on couldn’t be to blame as it was a core I7 with a GTX970 fitted. Another oddity were crates and barrels lying around the levels. They would be highlighted with a Left Trigger icon when you approached them, but they would refuse to break open when pulling the left trigger – instead your character would usually fire off a gunshot over the crate or barrel or do nothing at all. Walking away and distancing yourself from the crate, then shooting with the A button on the pad would then break open the crate. Why the game insisted on highlighting them with a LT I don’t know. Turning over dead downed characters littered around the levels with the left trigger also seemed to do nothing more than turn them over. No loot ever forthcoming, as I thought it would when turning someone ala Assassins Creed.
The game is still on an early build though and the developers are making updates. My game updated from 1.0 to 1.01 during play so bug fixing is still ongoing.
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III Walkthrough Part 1 Let’s Play Gameplay – Jonlaw98
Graphically, this is a pretty game. If you’re used to playing Call of Duty games then the overhead view and small characters on the screen may initially put you off. Take some time with the game and you will marvel in the attention to detail. The levels are varied and you can see how much effort is put into them; the monster models show imagination and their designs are intricate, while the colours and effects from spells cast look spectacular too.
This is an action RPG so you have the opportunity to level-up your character as well as upgrade your weapons and your companion. Yes, you have a ghostly companion with you named Lady Katrina who is quite useful, actually.
If you’re new to the series, then when you delve into the menus you will be confused. I was confused! There is all sorts of stuff to upgrade. These menus are tabbed so clicking through them with the shoulder buttons opens even more menus. There are also menus for Lady Katrina where you can upgrade, too. I upgraded attributes for both of us and set my partner to become a ranged attacker as previously she was set to ‘melee attack’. The problem was, when faced with overwhelming odds, she would be prematurely taken out of the fight.
I have thus far effectively bumbled my way through the menus and so far so good. I’m able to make progress through the game. Whether this will be enough on later levels, only time will tell.
Go to page 2 for more thoughts on this game.
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III – Release Trailer – NeocoreGames
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