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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
Whilst out on a mission, you will come across characters that will ask for your aid. You can choose to help or not. If you do pick up quests along the way, they can be completed along side the main campaign or revisit a level to complete them afterwards. When I completed the first mission I returned to my Lair. I tried to give a man a weapon to upgrade but I wasn’t sure what else I had to do to get him to finish it off. It wasn’t obvious and that is a problem with this game, or maybe it’s just the noob in me that makes unable to fully understand what I’m required to do. The game leaves me feeling like it was made for those who already played the first two in the series and therefore would have a clue what to do. Saying that, the game should make more effort for those like myself who are playing the game for the first time.
I continued to wander around the Lair and found I had a Chimera beast that I could send out to complete its own missions. Effectively, the Chimera would go missing for a period of time and while I was out, I’d get a message to say it had returned, and for me to check out the rewards it had reaped for me, if it completed a mission successfully. Wandering around some more, I found I could send a General and soldiers out on timed missions to in a similar vein to Assassins Creed Brotherhood, where you would send out your assassins to complete missions, levelling them up with each success.
If you get tired of playing alone, you can play 4-player co-op online. You can also play PcP if that floats your boat. Being a co-op game, as always I’d love to see it arrive with some fettling on the Wii U with local 2-player co-op, perhaps as a Nintendo’s store release. I own How to Survive on PC (remember that un-played Steam collection) and Wii U, but I’ve only ever played the latter version as I was looking to play a local co-op game on Wii U to make use of its pad. Apparently, Van Helsing was previously on Xbox 360 as well as PC so perhaps a Wii U version wouldn’t be totally out of the question. A 2-player local co-op version for the Wii U, rather than the 4 player online of PC, would help with the Wii U’s lack of grunt. (I’ve given this some thought). I can live in hope. As for the co-op mode on PC, I selected the option and it sent me to the Lair to await more players, I presume. Nothing happened so I went back to single player. Maybe I missed something again, but like I said I’m a noob and this game isn’t noob friendly.
As I played though, the games simple charms drew me in helped by interesting NPCs, the games storytelling, monsters that vary hugely depending on location and even vary within each location too. What initially felt like a chore to play became more compelling. Strange, as the gameplay itself seemed to involve nothing more than facing a number of enemies repeatedly shooting at them from a distance and backing off as they got closer then return to shooting them again. This ‘retreat’ style of attack would sometimes lead you to stumble across more enemies resulting in all hell breaking loose as you become swamped from all sides. Sometimes this will result in you had biting off more than you can chew. If you died at this point you are given the option to respawn from where you were or from the last check point or your lair. The first 2 options will cost gold to respawn and returning to your Lair is gratis.
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III Classes – Elementalist & Protector – NeocoreGames
The music deserves a mention, as it is suitably atmospheric and fitting with the cyber steampunk theme. The characters’ voice acting, with their banter going back and forth, also helps draw you in to the story. The sounds of the guns and elemental spells combined with the howls, screams, growls and mutterings of the various beasts, monster and entities all contribute to the game’s atmosphere. The voice acting of the NPC characters has a humorous slant to it, too, which adds to the game’s charisma.
For all its faults, I actually quite enjoyed The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III. So much so, I even went to purchase the previous two that I’d seen on sale on Steam, only to find I’d missed the sale. So I added them to my wish list with the intention to pick them up when back on sale. That’s right Van Helsing 3 made me a convert, and I want to play the whole series in the correct order.
If, like me, you’ve never played this type of game before then the menus can be daunting. I’m sure there could be better ways of laying them out, but work through them and you will be rewarded with a fun game with a beautiful detailed world, magical characters and a screen full of pyrotechnics when taking on the evil denizens.
If you’re like me and you’ve looked at the standard bearer, Diablo, and considered dabbling and thought bugger that I’m not paying that sort of money for what some would consider old school graphics and gameplay, then you could do far worse than cutting your teeth on the Van Helsing. There is less up front to outlay. When on sale, you could get this and when 1&2 are on sale have all 3 for less than the price of Diablo. With Diablo, the whole dungeon-crawling setting was always a little offputting to me, too. The setting of Borgovia and the lore in Van Helsing along with price is a more attractive choice to me. I may get lynched for saying this, but having played Van Helsing I’d be more inclined to try Diablo now, but only after playing all three Van Helsing games first. Previously, that wouldn’t have been a consideration so it appears The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III has won a game of Top Trumps with its archenemy.
And if you’re a fan of action RPGs then I can recommend this as it managed to make me one.
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III is available now on Steam for PC.
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III Classes – Umbralist & Phlogistoneer – NeocoreGames
Important info:
- Publisher: NeocoreGames
- Players: 4 co-op, PvP
- HDTV options: up to 1080p
- Dolby Digital 5.1 sound: Yes
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GRAPHICS SOUND GAMEPLAY POTENTIAL |
7.5 6.5 7.5 6.5 |
| OVERALL | 7 |
I’m all about the Games and Gadgets. Rumoured to have been born with a mobile phone in his hand. (It’s not true. It was a Gameboy) You want to know more about my business? You better invest in it then hadn’t you.
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