Neocore Games should be commended for putting out such a high-quality experience where their story is equally outlandish, silly and serious – I’m personally looking forward to the recently announced sequel.
Overall, I had fun with Van Helsing and it provides a lot of gameplay for a title that can be had for under $20. If Diablo style games aren't your thing, you'll want to give it a pass, but otherwise it's worth adding to your game library.
After Titan Quest, Sacred, Sacred 2, Torchlight, Torchlight 2, Diablo, etc., I was hesitant to pick this up, and that would have been a big mistake. This is the most fun I've had with a hack n slash in a long time.
Besides being challenging in all the right ways, it has a fantastic atmosphere and a great sense of humor.
Highly recommended.
An excellent game, much like Diablo 2 and Torchlight. Good story, great combat, superb skill tree, excellent companion mechanics, excellent voice acting, very good graphics (like dungeon siege). Highly recommended.
The game really doesn’t do anything new, but the things it does are done extremely well. If you are a fan of Torchlight II and Diablo III, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is the next great game in the same genre of games.
The Incredible Adventures of van Helsing is a really nice surprise. The game has a unique gothic atmosphere, a well designed character development system, dynamic combat, storyline with decisions to make and some tower defense elements. Unfortunately there are some errors and issues - a silly economy model and weak epic items, for instance. Still - Van Helsing isn't a game visibly worse, than other hack'n'slashes out there. If you like gothic mixed with strange machines, it's worth checking out.
The gameplay is well-executed, albeit it gets increasingly repetitive as you move on with the story (which, as we’ve already said, leaves a lot to be desired).
Very good game. Very interesting. Very fun to play. Very good story-line. I recommend this game to people from 12 years to 25 years. i love this game so much
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing
A Great games who’s flaws come out the longer you play
You’re a monster hunters, you start the game choosing your character and entering the van helsing world to you want monster hunters do... hunt monsters.. And you do so with your ghost companion Katarina
The game can be played solo or with up to 4 players online, but the online community is fairly empty... no one joined my game the entire time…
The online is great and runs smoothly even with the worst connections…
This is a top down hack and slash game with both close and long ranged weapons…
for the first half of this 10-12 hour long campaign it’s a genuine joy running around doing missions and side quests.. Slicing through the different creatures... picking up their dropped loot…
exploring the, at first interesting maps… finding its secrets and treasures... managing your inventory…
selling your unwanted weapon and gear or dismantling and combining them to craft new weapons...
leveling up and dumbing your points in the vast skill and perk trees…
This is a very deep game full of combat customizations to make you character feel uniquely yours
and your ghost companion feels uniquely yours... I had 0 complaints…
and then the final stretch of this game...
is just awful…
The maps go from beautiful to generic and grey… and the way this game tries to challenge your ruins the gameplay…
This game has all sorts of magic and special moves you can assign to commands for combat that at first feel like they have a decent cool down time.. And then you’re in the final chapter and all of the balance this game had for the past 8 hours disappears
the games idea of challenge isn’t having you dodge attacks of larger enemies or using strategy to take them out...
its throwing dozens on top of you to frustratingly kill you over and over, forcing you to have to use all of your gold to respawn anywhere but back in the lair or town…
while you desperately try to take out 1 or 2 of the enemies per respawn…
And your ghost companion is dying instantly.. Practically having no reason to even be there…
getting no kills... just really being a distraction while you try to get some heavy ranged attacks in there because close combat weapons are useless at this stage of the game…
She practically just follows you around for 12 hrs. and nags you about how nice it would be if you put some of your health potions in her inventory.
Put water into a bucket with holes? No thanks.
This spam attack of enemies got so bad that during one of the final missions that the frame rate dropped to 1 frame per second if not less.
The final stretch is near unbearable…
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is a great game for those that love diablo style gameplay…
But be wary before you go in thinking you’re gonna be some sword swing tank…
you’re gonna have a hard time getting to this games credits without a friend…
I Give The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing
a 7/10
I decided to play The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing after viewing the trailer, and getting some exhaustion from Diablo III and Torchlight 2. This one seemed to be a decent Hack & Slash, with a nice twist regarding the setting of central Europa and possibly legions of **** foes.
In this game, you play a single character, Van Helsing, who is followed by a ghostly teammate, Katarina. You don't have to choose a class before playing, and just develop your character along the way, using several skill trees.
Basically, you can eradicate a significant amount of monsters by using either a sword or a gun. Each weapon has its specific skill tree with numerous styles of slashes and shots. Each one can be leveled up, or customized with additional powers, triggered by Rage. Also, you can wander in the side of magic by learning strikes blending physical and magical damage, even pure magical damage. If not enough, you can learn passive abilities and active spells, that can take advantage of some specific situations or simply save your butt - leaving you with a fair amount of combinations to craft.
The amount of damage you do or can endure is proportional to basic weapon and armor stats, plus the different levels of your character stats and skills, combined with the multiple bonuses you can get from gear. Very similar to Diablo 3 or Torchlight 2. So don't fall in love with that particular weapon or gear if the next one is seamingly up a notch, the impact could be tremendous.
On top of that, your translucent female sidekick is not only witty, but can be used either as a melee fighter, a ranged shooter or a decent support. She also can level up and has her own gear and skill tree to become a tactical partner or a stat multiplier.
At this point, it's pretty clear that this game targets an audience that loves to analyse how hundred skills relate to each other, carefully crafting the most badass character possible, something like "hit once, obliterate many". It's a good thing to have a significant amount of depth that way (remember Titan Quest !) but for me it was just like "too much". So I decided to focus on a restricted number of skills, low enough to keep me focused on the actual map cleaning.
The game is linear, with some quests on the side. The levels are not really beautiful but varied, and the enemies compensate lack of intelligence by sheer number. Luckily, the dialog between Van Helsing and Katarina are funny so you can have a good time playing them.
Something that kinda puzzled me was the introduction of a micro-game of Tower Defense. Not that it wasn't interesting or refreshing, but it seemed that the developers decided to put everything remotely cool in the game, thus pushing it in the Land of Blended Genre where chances of survival are slim. Luckily, the Tower Defense micro-game is nicely done, but too much thin for consideration.
Overall, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is a good Hack & Slash, that can satisfy seasoned players, but could be daunting to newcomers.
Van Helsing is basically a Diablo 2 clone with clumsier controls, duller scenery and fewer options for character customization. The story is reasonably interesting and many of the boss encounters are remarkably well designed, but the frustrating controls taint the experience and the limited character customization options - you basically get to choose between "Van Helsing with a sword" and "van Helsing with a gun" - ruin the replayability.
If the game weren't so bugged, I would have given it 8/10. Unfortunately, I have hit three separate circumstances where I was unable to continue the game because triggers had failed. The first such case was early in the game. Five bosses guard an inkgate in Gallowsbog. To continue, you have to defeat them and then use the inkgate they're guarding. In my case, the bosses were unresponsive, and just stood there. They could not be targeted, and the inkgate itself was inactive. Fortunately, Neocore offered a hack that activated the inkgate and got me past the problem, but I never did get to fight the bosses that were guarding the Gallowsbog inkgate. The second time I got stuck, I read on the Neocore forum that they don't have a hack to get around it yet. So I cannot finish the game. Okay, I decided to spend some time playing the high-level scenarios until Neocore comes out with a hack. Alas, the second scenario I tried was again bugged and unfinishable. Too bad Neocore didn't invest in more comprehensive testing. It could be a pretty good game.
Which is worse spending money on a game that turns out to be not worth playing, or spending money on a game that is worth playing, but so broken that you cannot finish it?
SummarySet in a gothic-noir universe resembling a fantastical 19th century Europe filled with monsters, magic, and weird technology, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing will follow the son of the famed hunter, known in-game as Van Helsing, in a tale wrought with wry humor and snappy dialogue. Van Helsing, a larger-than-life hero possessing...