Blood Omen 2

[Kink3bird]

Foreword

Sometime after Bram Stoker's epic novel, Dracula, was published and sometime before Stephenie Meyer made vampires into a sappy melo-teen-drama with her Twilight series, there was Kain. The Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen series revolves around it's title character Kain, a vampire that Van Helsing wouldn't even dare track down. This Playstation 2 cult hit has been overlooked by many gamers and underestimated by even more. The truth is, when it comes to vampires, Blood Omen is absolute monarch, king, and Czar!

Story

The fourth game in the Legacy of Kain series and squeal to Blood Omen (the first Blood Omen being on Playstaion). You play the role of Kain, (Once an arrogant noble murdered and revived as a vampire) who has been in a coma for about two hundred years. As you awaken, a female vampire named Uma does her best to try and catch you up on what you've missed. Overall you've managed to lose your former control over all of Nosgoth and your most prized possession, the epic soul consuming blade Soul Reaver, to your most hated enemy: The Sarafan!
With red dead vengance on your mind your quest begins to seek out the Sarafan Lord, take back your sword, kill him, and reclaim your rightful place as ruler of Nosgoth! Sounds pretty simple and straight forward except for the fact that in the past two hundred years you've been napping, vampires have been hunted to almost extinction!
With that said, nothing here is fabulously original but it does have it's perks. Unlike other Legacy of Kain games, in this one, you don't need to have played any of them to fully enjoy and grasp the storyline since it's all explained over the coarse of the game.
Just to recap, your a powerful and very, very, very, pissed off vampire that wants to take over the fictional nation of Nosgoth and will butcher your way through humans, vampires, spiders, and even aliens to do it!

Game play

The game play itself is reminiscent of Soul Reaver's, only stripped of Soul Reaver's more-original mechanics, though Blood Omen 2 does have a few of its own. Unlike in Soul Reaver 2, which emphasized puzzle solving over action elements, Blood Omen 2 is primarily an action game. As Kain, you'll have to slaughter countless human and inhuman foes with either your claws or a number of different melee weapons. Combat is pretty simple--at the touch of a button, you turn to face the nearest foe, at which point you can either attack or block. There's an optional blocking mode that forces you to properly time your deflections of enemy attacks, but you can also set it so that you can press and hold the block button to repel just about anything the enemy throws at you. You'll just have to look out for the occasional slow but unblock-able attack, and since most enemies follow simple patterns, soon enough you'll learn to exploit them.

Aside from hacking at them, Kain can grab his foes, hoisting them up off the ground by their necks. Depending on which weapon he's carrying at the time, Kain can then perform all kinds of wicked acts on the struggling enemy. When he kills a foe, Kain can suck his or her blood, drawing it out of open wounds telekinetically. This restores Kain's health, and it gives him experience points that can increase his maximum health--so basically, you have to suck the blood out of every foe you kill. Tougher foes later on have lots of blood, so according to our best estimate, Kain will have guzzled between 3,000 and 3,200 gallons of blood during Blood Omen 2, depending on how many times it takes you to get through some of the tougher parts. How he retains his slender figure after drinking so much blood is anyone's guess. The blood-sucking effect is well done, the infamous invisible straw technique is something you'll never forget!

You use several of Kain's "dark gifts" only in combat to deliver more damage than you normally could. Kain also starts with the ability to blend in with the low-hanging mist you'll find in most of the game's 11 large levels. In mist form, Kain is practically undetectable. He can sneak behind all but the most alert foes to deliver a fatal attack (some of which, depending on your weapon, are really brutal). One of Kain's other cool abilities lets him leap extremely long distances, either to get to out-of-reach areas or to deliver a crushing blow to someone on the receiving end. Later, Kain can also charm weak-minded characters, an ability that the designers exploit in a few obvious situations. For instance, you might mind-control a guy behind a gate to get him to open it for you. He also gains a telepathic ability that's used mostly just to push buttons from far away. The mist form and the jumping make for some nice moments,

Overall the game play is simple and fun to exploit. Ripping off countless heads, grabbing hearts out of bodies, and even slamming spiked clubs through the groin of your foes are just some of the unique executions you wish were in Gears of War.

Visuals/Sound

The artwork found in Blood Omen 2 is Gothic and dark mix with steam-punk characteristics. Most of the enemy characters you'll face look crude, though a few of the later foes are daunting. Kain himself looks good and even wears a few different outfits over the course of the game, some of which resemble those in the original Blood Omen. The PS2 version of the game runs haphazardly, never quite maintaining a completely smooth frame rate. Annoyingly, sometimes the animation seems to skip a beat as the system loads in new scenery. The game's bleak environments can sometimes look attractive, but scurrying rats and some dynamic lighting are probably the most notable visual details. The later stages aren't quite as mundane as the earlier ones, but they are still just made up of long hallways and big, wide-open rooms. If nothing else, you'll be impressed by how big some of the levels are.

Overall, Blood Omen 2 sounds great because of Simon Templeman (the voice actor for Kain who does a amazing job at portraying him), but the rest of the audio isn't remarkable. Enemy soldiers make the same grunts over and over, though the sounds of guzzling blood and Kain's light footsteps are convincing. There isn't enough music in Blood Omen 2, and what little can be heard is mostly quiet and ambient. Later in the game, an effective, percussion-heavy battle theme starts up when you raise your claws for the attack. There should have been more like it.

Verdict

Although it carries some flaws in the sound and technical section, the true joy of the game is how bad you can be. Your neither a hero or anti-hero, your just plain Kain, a psychopathic, vengeful, murdering, vampire! Running through the game killing anyone you want, however you want is always personal and exciting. Whether it's chasing after a crawling villager begging for their life or taking up the Mist form and grabbing the heart of your enemy out of their chest, it's truly a personal experience of killing you can't find anywhere else! The game is also extremely cheap by now (only about five American dollars) and can still be played on the 360 or PS3. If you want, finding it online can probably even be free!

Story - C+
Game play - Gory, cruel, and a hell of a lot of fun!
Visuals / Sounds - Crude with some bad frame rates at times, the voice acting is what really makes this department shine
Verdict - 75% to be fair, the game does lack in some departments but the enjoyment of playing a true blue (or red guzzling and ultra violence seeking) vampire make the game worth playing

[jango]

man .. these reviews just keep coming, and are getting more enjoyable to read each time. awesome stuff kink .. if i was able to i'd throw u more +rep i would, but sadly i've given you too much rep-love recently. the game looks kinda interesting too .. gj on the review mate.

[Subb]

Well thanks for another great review i really enjoyed reading it. Can't wait for the others to come. +rep for u

[Charlotte]

well, the graphic not interesting to me yet it's a vampire game. not my favorite...
but it's a good review...

[BobTD]

The Legacy of Kain storyline overall is pretty amazing. Tying two series together. Basically in this game you play the Young Kain, but in other games he is ancient.

I beat Blood Omen years ago but still remember it fondly. I don't recall any aliens however, just demons.

there was one particular even in the game, outside a large monastery where I encountered two men talking in some fog, and snapped ones neck, and the other kept talking. The body didn't fall over for some reason either, until it was the dead mans turn to speak. To this day I haven't been able to reproduce that event.

[Kink3bird]

The Legacy of Kain storyline overall is pretty amazing. Tying two series together. Basically in this game you play the Young Kain, but in other games he is ancient.

I beat Blood Omen years ago but still remember it fondly. I don't recall any aliens however, just demons.

there was one particular even in the game, outside a large monastery where I encountered two men talking in some fog, and snapped ones neck, and the other kept talking. The body didn't fall over for some reason either, until it was the dead mans turn to speak. To this day I haven't been able to reproduce that event.

Yea man the execution sequences are so awesome and the game sets it up so you can kill people mid conversation hahaha

 

(and I thought the Sarafan were the aliens...