Yes, if you have seen any of my posts then you'll see that the Legacy of Kain is like Casablanca, Citizen Kane, and King Kong rolled into game form. I loved them all; they were possibly my first console games. Most had Crash Bandicoot and even Pacman; I had Blood Omen for the PC. I've always been a fan of Vampires, I'm not exactly a gothic tart, I just like them for some unknown reason.
So naturally when I first picked up Blood Omen, with its complex story line and engaging characters, I felt like I was flying on a bed of soft marshmallows and Asian super models. So naturally as soon as I picked up Blood Omen 2 I felt my heart fly out of my arse at how pleased I was, I quickly flipped the box to see Kain in 3d, with all of his Albino splendor and mystery, that guy may well be the Guardian of Balance but he's still a kick ass Vampire god who has inspired me my whole life in my writing and my general life. Water kills Vampires is a lesson that has help me in many a difficult situation.
Having refused to sacrifice himself to the Pillars of Nosgoth, Kain, being the self involved and ambitious hipster that he is decided to go out and conquer the whole of Nosgoth with a Vampire army constructed by him and his green buddy Vorador, also known as the all knowing git who is pretty much, and believe me even I know how puerile this sounds, 'The Shit'. Next thing we know? Kain is lying in his bed, having been unconscious for two centuries. He learns that his plans of conquest were stopped by a group of Vampire Hunters known as the Sarafan, more specifically their leader the totally originally named Sarafan Lord, who strikes down Kain and seizes his weapon, the Soul Reaver.
He is soon accosted by a Vampire named Umah and this is where the game play officially begins, you see my friends, straight after Umah converses with Kain and tells him how he got there, and more importantly, the state of the world. You see it turns out that after the Sarafan stopped Kain's army they went onto conquer the whole of Nosgoth, more importantly the capital city of Meridian, and they developed a new magic known as Glyph Energy, which was, surprise surprise, toxic to Vampires. Umah tells Kain about the Cabal, a rebel order of Vampires who're supposedly the good guys in all this (I mean it's not like they drain Humans of blood or anything)
Kain follows Umah, who had now scampered down into the City, claiming to be able to teach Kain all of the tricks he had forgotten. She first teaches him how to jump, a simple movement of muscles you would think any self-respecting sentient being would know, but hey, who am I to judge? I can barely get out of my chair at this point. At this point you're probably saying "Hey this guy is Yahtzee without the charm social grace or glass half full mentality, wait, you're Yahtzee!" But no my friends you're mistaken there because A.) I am in no way trying to act or sound like Yahtzee, my lack of punctuation in places is due to me being stupid, and 2.) I haven't made a penis, tits, or gay joke yet, I like Yahtzee's humour but to be honest I don't think I could duplicate it if I capture Yahtzee himself and tortured him Evil Genius style until he told me his secrets.
Ok, back to the game. As you follow Umah through the City you learn how to block, attack, walk, eat, go to the bathroom, and make tea. The most important of the things you learn is in my opinion the selling point of the game, the Dark Gifts. Kain's first Dark Gift is quite a handy and cool ability called Mist, which obviously allows him to blend into Mist to perform Stealth attacks, whether it's onto his enemies or onto gourmless peasants who seem to get a kick of standing in misty cemeteries is entirely up to you. The second is Fury/Rage, the standard "Damage Boost" found in any game with a mediocre Combat system.
That's right! I found a flaw with my Golden Game, I find the combat mediocre and at some times boring, it can best be described as in Tekken, when you find out the formula for grappling and blocking all the skill is best described as who is stupid enough to stop holding down square long enough to attack. Sure it's fun for a while but when you lose your stealth and the Sarafan descend like the arm of a casually sleeping Gamer who had one too many Heinekens it can get monotonous, think Assassin's Creed without the option of running. However Combat CAN be spiced up with strategic dodging, and the use of the more fun dark gifts later in the game, a prime example would be "Berserk", a gift that makes your attacks speed up ten fold for a few awesome seconds.
A prime flaw in the combat is this: WEAPON DECAY, that's right, you can't move in Meridian for help of broken Swords, Daggers, and Clubs. Once your weapon is broken you can either jog to a new weapon, or continue with your claws, which to be fair are PISS WEAK. This can be particularly annoying during bosses, but to be fair there is only like two bosses who require to be hit constantly, this game still carries on the tradition of doing special things to hurt bosses: These include ringing a church bell to deafen one of your enemies and attack them, activating a Furnace which your enemy jumps on top of, and trying to stop an item called the Nexus Stone from being destroyed.
I'm not going to go further into the storyline because literally Spoiling the game for you would be the ultimate Sin and I don't want to do that to any prospective Gamers who may see it on sale and say "Hey, that weird guy was ranting about this game for quite a while, might as well see what the fuss is about" and then get their minds BLOWN. This may be called Fanboyism, but honestly, can you tell me that jumping across a massive gap with a sword to behead your enemy on landing isn't awesome then what is? The Voice Acting is wonderful, the Story Line is very immersive and the Graphics are strangely good considering the time it was made in. Both the Date and how quickly it was made.
Personally, using the Escapists version, I give it a Buy It, and here?s why: You hardly get original games nowadays, and Legacy of Kain is original enough to be considered controversial, sure there have been five Legacy of Kain games, but to be honest each one has brought something new to the table, the ~Soul Reaver series gave insight into a broken and tortured Soul in the form of Raziel, one of Kain's former Lieutenants, and Defiance gives you control of both, and on top of that it lets you use telekinesis to throw enemies onto spikes, look me in the face and tell me that isn't kick ass.
It's been fun folks,
Marc -x-
So naturally when I first picked up Blood Omen, with its complex story line and engaging characters, I felt like I was flying on a bed of soft marshmallows and Asian super models. So naturally as soon as I picked up Blood Omen 2 I felt my heart fly out of my arse at how pleased I was, I quickly flipped the box to see Kain in 3d, with all of his Albino splendor and mystery, that guy may well be the Guardian of Balance but he's still a kick ass Vampire god who has inspired me my whole life in my writing and my general life. Water kills Vampires is a lesson that has help me in many a difficult situation.
Having refused to sacrifice himself to the Pillars of Nosgoth, Kain, being the self involved and ambitious hipster that he is decided to go out and conquer the whole of Nosgoth with a Vampire army constructed by him and his green buddy Vorador, also known as the all knowing git who is pretty much, and believe me even I know how puerile this sounds, 'The Shit'. Next thing we know? Kain is lying in his bed, having been unconscious for two centuries. He learns that his plans of conquest were stopped by a group of Vampire Hunters known as the Sarafan, more specifically their leader the totally originally named Sarafan Lord, who strikes down Kain and seizes his weapon, the Soul Reaver.
He is soon accosted by a Vampire named Umah and this is where the game play officially begins, you see my friends, straight after Umah converses with Kain and tells him how he got there, and more importantly, the state of the world. You see it turns out that after the Sarafan stopped Kain's army they went onto conquer the whole of Nosgoth, more importantly the capital city of Meridian, and they developed a new magic known as Glyph Energy, which was, surprise surprise, toxic to Vampires. Umah tells Kain about the Cabal, a rebel order of Vampires who're supposedly the good guys in all this (I mean it's not like they drain Humans of blood or anything)
Kain follows Umah, who had now scampered down into the City, claiming to be able to teach Kain all of the tricks he had forgotten. She first teaches him how to jump, a simple movement of muscles you would think any self-respecting sentient being would know, but hey, who am I to judge? I can barely get out of my chair at this point. At this point you're probably saying "Hey this guy is Yahtzee without the charm social grace or glass half full mentality, wait, you're Yahtzee!" But no my friends you're mistaken there because A.) I am in no way trying to act or sound like Yahtzee, my lack of punctuation in places is due to me being stupid, and 2.) I haven't made a penis, tits, or gay joke yet, I like Yahtzee's humour but to be honest I don't think I could duplicate it if I capture Yahtzee himself and tortured him Evil Genius style until he told me his secrets.
Ok, back to the game. As you follow Umah through the City you learn how to block, attack, walk, eat, go to the bathroom, and make tea. The most important of the things you learn is in my opinion the selling point of the game, the Dark Gifts. Kain's first Dark Gift is quite a handy and cool ability called Mist, which obviously allows him to blend into Mist to perform Stealth attacks, whether it's onto his enemies or onto gourmless peasants who seem to get a kick of standing in misty cemeteries is entirely up to you. The second is Fury/Rage, the standard "Damage Boost" found in any game with a mediocre Combat system.
That's right! I found a flaw with my Golden Game, I find the combat mediocre and at some times boring, it can best be described as in Tekken, when you find out the formula for grappling and blocking all the skill is best described as who is stupid enough to stop holding down square long enough to attack. Sure it's fun for a while but when you lose your stealth and the Sarafan descend like the arm of a casually sleeping Gamer who had one too many Heinekens it can get monotonous, think Assassin's Creed without the option of running. However Combat CAN be spiced up with strategic dodging, and the use of the more fun dark gifts later in the game, a prime example would be "Berserk", a gift that makes your attacks speed up ten fold for a few awesome seconds.
A prime flaw in the combat is this: WEAPON DECAY, that's right, you can't move in Meridian for help of broken Swords, Daggers, and Clubs. Once your weapon is broken you can either jog to a new weapon, or continue with your claws, which to be fair are PISS WEAK. This can be particularly annoying during bosses, but to be fair there is only like two bosses who require to be hit constantly, this game still carries on the tradition of doing special things to hurt bosses: These include ringing a church bell to deafen one of your enemies and attack them, activating a Furnace which your enemy jumps on top of, and trying to stop an item called the Nexus Stone from being destroyed.
I'm not going to go further into the storyline because literally Spoiling the game for you would be the ultimate Sin and I don't want to do that to any prospective Gamers who may see it on sale and say "Hey, that weird guy was ranting about this game for quite a while, might as well see what the fuss is about" and then get their minds BLOWN. This may be called Fanboyism, but honestly, can you tell me that jumping across a massive gap with a sword to behead your enemy on landing isn't awesome then what is? The Voice Acting is wonderful, the Story Line is very immersive and the Graphics are strangely good considering the time it was made in. Both the Date and how quickly it was made.
Personally, using the Escapists version, I give it a Buy It, and here?s why: You hardly get original games nowadays, and Legacy of Kain is original enough to be considered controversial, sure there have been five Legacy of Kain games, but to be honest each one has brought something new to the table, the ~Soul Reaver series gave insight into a broken and tortured Soul in the form of Raziel, one of Kain's former Lieutenants, and Defiance gives you control of both, and on top of that it lets you use telekinesis to throw enemies onto spikes, look me in the face and tell me that isn't kick ass.
It's been fun folks,
Marc -x-
