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Posted June 26, 2013 by Ryan Villanueva in Gaming
 
 

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing Review

This week I had the opportunity to try out the game, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing. No, its not a game based on the movie that starred, Hugh Jackman a few years ago (a movie which I happen to like), this is based on Van Helsing in Bram Stroke’s novel, Dracula.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing Game Art

In the game you play as Abraham Van Helsing, the son of the original Van Helsing. Van Helsing has been asked to investigate the town of Borgovia, a town that was liberated by his father and now he’s trying to live up to legacy of their family name. The story is nothing original, its your cliché’d RPG story, a town in distress and a hero is summoned to get rid of the evil that has befallen them, sounds familiar right? In this adventure you will be joined by a ghostly companion, Katarina, who according to the story had served the Van Helsing family for years. Katarina is your ghost-sidekick; she helps you out in your battles against the monsters of Borgovia. As you go along your adventure you’d enjoy Katarina and Van Helsing’s banter, they’re hilarious, Katarina is an opinionated and talkative ghost.

The first thing I noticed about Van Helsing is the the graphics, from the rich detailed environment, character and monster designs, this game is visually stunning.  With that being said, you need a powerful graphic processing unit to fully enjoy the beauty of this game. Without sounding too technical, my current hardware wasn’t able to play this game on high settings. I was able to run Van Helsing smoothly on low-medium settings without having to experience lagging during battle scenes especially when being swarmed by a horde of monsters. My hardware’s not up to date and I seriously need to upgrade my pc soon to enjoy or even play upcoming games.

Gameplay Screenshot

Van Helsing’s gameplay is your traditional point and click RPG, similar to that of Diablo and other similar games. What makes Van Helsing unique from other games is you can switch between melee and ranged fighting styles. Since you’re only playing as Van Helsing, you don’t have the opportunity to choose a particular character class, so you get to have a taste of everything. Your ghost companion, Katarina, isn’t just a mere pet like the ones you have in Torchlight, Katarina not only could carry additional items for Van Helsing, you could even set her as your tank or a ranged support, or may be both, your choice.

The leveling system of Van Helsing could be a challenge. It’s complicated in a way that since you can switch between melee and range, you would also need to decide which skill tree to use your skill points on. You can focus on being a particular type of fighter or balance your skills to enjoy the best of both worlds. Also, you’re only limited to 2 skills at one time depending on your play style, unlike other games that uses a set of skills per character.

Van Helsing Game Art

I played Van Helsing for around 6 hours now and I’m enjoying it so far. The game also offers a multiplayer mode however I haven’t tried it yet. I’d have to say that Van Helsing is a good game, it has the same elements that made Diablo and Torchlight successful. Van Helsing is not a groundbreaking RPG but it’s definitely a fun and enjoyable game. If you’re looking for new games these days, Van Helsing is definitely a good find. The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is available for the PC.


Ryan Villanueva

 
Your resident all around Flipgeek, from comics,movies,games,toys,music and even sports. A big Spider-man fan raised in the ways of the Jedi,who listens to punk rock and a sucker for chick flicks.