Blood Omen 2

"Legacy of Pain (in the Gluteus Maximus)"

Oooh, disappointment, you have returned in the guise of Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen 2. BO2 fell so short of the mark that I had to write my first ever game review about it.

Story ?/10

Tell you the truth, I had no idea what was going on. Kain was in a canopy bed, and there was a vampire chick with weird sideburns, and then some stuff happened. It didn't have the ability to draw me in like Soul Reaver or, for that matter, Simpsons Road Rage. (Breathe deeply - inhale the sarcasm.) In the first of many comparisons to Soul Reaver in this review, I will say that the story here seems like an excuse for the game and not an integral part of it; it doesn't have the epic feel of LoK:SR and it definitely doesn't make you feel like a part of the story, like you're actually participating in something mythic and fantastic.

Graphics - 8/10

The game looks pretty decent, with obsessively rendered structures and backgrounds, weird retro-'technology' and the strange, devolved ''English'' signs in the towns, but the characters look like they were plucked from a freeware 3D rendering program and dropped right in the middle of the game. Kain looks pretty ridiculous (put on a shirt, tough guy!) but relatively convincing compared to the non-player characters (Generic Man Type 1, Generic Woman Type 1, Thug Type 1, Guard Type 1, Faceless Green Energy Herding Dude Type 1, etc). The subtle but VISIBLE twinkling indicator over items you can use is nice. The way the brown-gray switches are hard to pick out against the gray-brown walls is not so nice.

Kain's blood-hwarfing routine (call it a super airslurp) is cute for about 3 seconds, then turns into an annoying distraction; it completely lacks the eerie beauty of Raziel's soul-snorting in LoK:SR. Plus, I keep imagining Kain at parties, using his power to slurp beer out of other peoples' mugs from across the room. It's distracting.

The mist-body is pretty nicely rendered, but the graphics just lack something; maybe they're a bit too realistic and they don't have the monolithic, surreal quality of Soul Reaver instead settling for a post-industrial medieval gothic hellhole circa 1880.

Sound - 7/10

Inasmuch as I care about sound in games, it's impressive. The voice talent is overall pretty strong (they ham it up, but this is a hammy kind of game after all) and the effects are convincing if not overwhelming. My one complaint would be that there's no option to run text of the dialogue along the bottom of the screen - I likes to rock out when I play games, and it's really quite irritating to have to turn down the music every five seconds to hear what Umlaut, Frodus, or the townspeople are saying - and good lord are they saying a lot. Although considering the totally linear level design, if you miss something it's generally not a problem... you just walk around until the level directs you to where something happens.

The music sucked. I turned it down after about 2 seconds of gameplay. Generic, EEEEVIL muzak stuff.

Controls - 4/10

They respond pretty well, I suppose, but the layout sucks. I don't want to hold R1 down all through combat, nor do I want to remember to hit L2 and try and select my Dark Energy Lore Power (whatever) on the fly with the analog stick, which tends to ignore your suggestions as to what Dork Gift you want to use. It's just clunky and annoying. LoK:SR was pretty intuitive and you could pick up the controls quite quickly; I think I'll be done with Blood Omen before I can really get the controls down. And I'll admit that I'm semi-retarded when it comes to blocking attacks; in Soul Reaver, I just ATTACKED-ATTACKED-ATTACKED and it got the job done. In this game, I'm getting my butt kicked by janitors.

Gameplay - 4/10

A low score because essentially I feel like this game should've been held back another 6 months and worked on; the SOBNR element, where you have to Sort-Of But Not Really point at an item, body, or door to get it to light up and become usable is really irritating after 5 minutes or so. Can I use this door? Let's see. Point Kain at it. Tap the analog stick to the left. Now the right. Now back to the left. Now just a bit off-center. Ahh, I CAN open this door. Super.

The weapons wear out after a while, which is quite irritating. Sure it's more ''realistic'' but since they don't seem to make much of a difference in combat, what does it matter? They could've easily replaced this 'feature' with an auto-face-enemy setting that worked reliably and I would've been much happier.

The boss battles really didn't impress me - get your ass kicked, figure out the gimmick, use it. And a one, and a two, and hit a switch, and a four. And Kain waddles around like a pregnant, tranquilized baboon about to drop triplets. Waddle waddle, block, block, block. Kick, punch. It's all in the mind - and in the ability to mash them buttons down. And, as has been mentioned, Kain's devastating combo (there is only one) involves hitting the square button three times in a row. Might want to exercise those thumb muscles in advance.

Plus you have to move boxes. And I HATE MOVING BOXES. Especially when the box-moving controls are so wonky (you can move the box forward or backward, not side-to-side) and counterintuitive.

I'm probably being a little harsh with this game but I found it severely disappointing, especially after reading so many positive reviews; Blood Omen 2 feels like something that needs to be finished. Something with glaring flaws that really hold it back from being more than a low-average game. Aside from the issues with the poor programming, one hoped something would've been learned from the poor response to the similarly boring, linear level layout in Soul Reaver 2.

And in retrospect, I apologize for comparing Blood Omen 2 to Soul Reaver 1 so often, but Soul Reaver is really the peak of the series so far. It's a lot to live up to, and I'm beginning to wonder if any other game in the series will come close.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 04/06/02, Updated 04/06/02