Ryu’s Musings – The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing

Put on your wide-brimmed hat, grab your weapons and embark on an incredible adventure in the gothic-noir world of Borgovia, where mad science threatens the fragile peace between monster and mortal. Be Van Helsing, monster-hunter extraordinaire and save the day with your charming and beautiful companion, Lady Katarina (who happens to be a ghost, by the way). Explore the savage wilderness in the mountains and the soot-stained brick districts of a grim metropolis twisted by weird science, and don’t forget: you might never know who the real monsters are!

• Enter a memorable gothic-noir universe filled with monsters, magic and weird science.
• Play through a refreshingly unique story, spiced up with wry humor and snappy dialogue.
• Fight fierce battles against supernatural foes with diverse skills and abilities.
• Use the special abilities and tailor the skills of your remarkable follower.
• Customize your character through a detailed level-up system where you decide which skills and abilities you’ll need for the hunt.
• Modify your skills on the spot with a unique power-up system.
• Learn the secrets of mystical alchemy and forge powerful items.
• Build and develop your hideout and place traps to defend it from waves of terrible monsters.
• Become the greatest monster slayer of all time while playing a cooperative multiplayer monster hunt up to four players.

What can I say, I have loved this game since it was released, warts and all.

As a hack and slash game it doesn’t have anything special to make it stand out from the crowd, but if I’m honest I don’t feel every game needs to be an innovation. It’s perfectly fine for a game to be nothing more than a good entry of the genre.

So what makes this game so enjoyable to play? For one it has a nice graphic style, rather than the cartoony Torchlight style it’s gone for a more normal art style. Personally, I think it fits it the setting and story very well. Cartoony is fine if you’re going for a pure fantasy realm, but since this is based on an alternative history story, the normal style lends itself really well.

That’s not to say it’s all straight laced art, because it’s not. we do get a few creatures that have a slightly more cartoony vibe which certainly do add a bit of ‘colour’ to things. Graphically it’s not amazing, but neither is it an ugly game. The various settings are really well depicted, and the character models are in general really well done. Admittedly some of the character models leave a lot to be desired, since they’re minor ones it’s easy to forgive them.

The combat animations are a bit lacking however, and I do wish they’d added a few more variations so as to vary the combat a bit. It’s worth noting that the four styles of physical combat have a great feel to them. Dual wielding swords, 2handed swords, dual pistols or a rifle; all have a got bit of oomph behind them giving some great feed back. The guns and rifle however do have a bit of an anaemic sound to them, but the visual feed back is good.

The recently added Thaumaturge class adds a whole new dimension to the game, and not one I personally really liked. While the combat is certainly different enough to warrant starting a new playthough, I feel it’s only really going to appeal to those that enjoy playing mages.

The story is loosely based on the Bram Stokers Dracula, and if you’ve read the novel you will see the similarities. But it’s not a ‘direct’ comparison and the changes made work really well. Neocore picked up the lore and ran with it, and surprisingly ran in a good direction.

Those that know me know that when it comes to Neocore I’m very critical. I Bought both King Arthur games, all the DLC’s and genuinely felt that they crapped all over the fans, given how buggy those games are. So much so I swore I’d never buy another Neocore game again. So when this game was launched I was on the fence, part of me wanted it due to the story, and the fact it was a Van Helsing game, and I’m a huge Helsing fan. However it was a Neocore game, so I was terrified they’d crap all over my dreams again, like the King Arthur games.

After launch the reviews on the steam forums were varied, with a lot of hate but some love as well. A lot of the hate seemed to be aimed at the multiplayer aspect of the game, which never really appeals to me anyway. So I decided to take the plunge and bought the game along with it’s first DLC.

As far as I’m concerned Neocore have more than revived their reputation in my eyes. I’ve spent over 40 hours in Van Helsing and I’m still playing the game now on my third playthrough. So with that in mind I consider it to be more than a successful venture and a very successful release from Neocore.

That is not to say the game is perfect, because it frankly isn’t. There’s still a large number of issues, in both the game play and the mechanics that stop the game being brilliant.

Firstly, you can set the game up in such a way that it automatically uses your abilities, and your health potions. this means you don’t have to do anything other than hold the button down; the game will play itself, which is dull. However because of the way the UI is set up, and the way the way the actions are placed on the UI, it’s really the only effective way to use them without giving yourself eyestrain. This is partly because of the way the UI is laid out, but also due to it not really scaling with the size of your monitor. If you’re running a full sized HD monitor the UI is tiny, and hard to see.

Another problem stems from your partner, Katarina, she’s supposed to back you up in combat. However from launch to now she’s borked and will almost always get stuck, and just stand around and soak damage till she ‘dies’. This is mitigated a bit however through the use of her skills, which give a lot of passive boosts to your main character which can make up for the loss of the back up. However playing as a thaumaturge where you really need her, especially on the harder difficulties, is damn hard and you will die a lot to cheese.

With the release of the Thaumaturge class we got a host of new issues that make the class nigh on futile to play. This is because you can make a better spellcaster using the base hunter from the original game because the Thaumaturge skills a re bugged and not working right, and some aren’t balanced right.

I’ve not really put any major time in the Thaumaturge because after playing it for a few hours I realised it wasn’t a class i could enjoy. for me this game was very much about the story and the Thaumaturge deviates to far from my vision of Van Helsing.

One of the biggest problems the game has however is no New Game+. For me this was a huge let down, as a loot whoreing game New Game+ is essential, hunting down that full set of equipment, or that rare drop. But since the game doesn’t have re-spawning monsters, as in once you kill everything on a map, that’s it, and no New Game+, there’s no way to really do that.

In reply to fan request they added a ‘scenario’ mode which is a level 30+ area which can be used for farming. However, this isn’t enough. Simply getting the equipment isn’t enough, people want to use it to kill the big bad. This is why games like Diablo are so popular, you spend days/months hunting that last bit of sexy loot and then go smite the bad guy on the insane level. Van Helsing doesn’t have this and it’s the weaker game for it.

It’s also lacking in the equipment area. The loot drops are varied, but they’re uninspired and there’s no sets. Which are once again a big part of a loot game. The loot we do get doesn’t really have a lot of variation to them. Loot wise i was very disappointed with the way it looks.

The gam does offer diversity with the way the skills are set up. I do like the way they’re done, however i also dislike the way you unlock skills. It’s a progression based system. Wherein you unlock the next tier of skills by reaching a certain level and dumping a number of points in the skills before. While this is the normal type of progression, it’s something that I’m finding more and more dull as time goes by. I would love to see changes, as in all skills available from the outset and you genuinely get to pick and choose the ones you want.

The 2 active skills are attached to the left and right mouse buttons, and as i said you can set it up so that the special abilities automatically activate when you’ve got enough rage for them. You also get to have Aura’s and tricks, which give you various passive perks and abilities. you get to have two of each of these at anyone time.

Perks, are unlocked on reputation levels and when you reach certain ability levels or hit mile points with skills. These Perks give you a significant boost in the area they apply to, but due to their scarcity, you need to use them wisely. Especially since you can not reset them like you can your skill points.

Yet, despite these bugs I have spent over 40 hours in this game, because it does have some very charming points. The banter between Van Helsing and his ghostly partner, Katarina, is just amazing. The various homage’s to film and game characters through out the game are just hilarious (such as the Indiana Jones one), and the simple fact that the combat is satisfying despite it’s lack of variety.

The scenario mode is great for just mindless slaughter, which is always a good thing now and again. But what’s really sold me on this is the way Neocore are listening to the fans of the game, and working on implementing things based off of the feedback. this alone shows a huge change from their King Arthur days and as a result are now deserving of my money.

Overall, if you’re a fan of HnS games such as Diablo or torchlight, I would recommend giving this game a whirl. I’d also recommend you pick up the first DLC, Blue Blood, since this makes Katarina more versatile. I would however wait on the Thaumaturge for a while until they work out the kinks.

The Game can be purchased from Steam for £11.99, the Thaumaturge DLC is £2.99 and the Blue blood DLC is £1.49

You can however buy limited editions from Neocore website which have bonus DLC in them. as well as a bonus character skin. These packs range from $15-$150