Blood Omen 2

"Blood Sucking Can Only Carry A Game So Far..."

INTRODUCTION
Let's get something out of the way before I begin. I am a huge fan of the entire ''Legacy of Kain'' series. I remember when I first rented the original ''Soul Reaver'' and found myself completely fascinated by its plot and found myself checking the racks of almost every Playstation display I came upon in an attempt to find the original ''Blood Omen.''

Then along came ''Soul Reaver 2.'' I rented it, and decided that before I got any further with it, I had to pick up and play through the first two games. With something that's closer to luck than anything else, I was able to snag myself a copy of both games, played them, and days after finishing ''Soul Reaver'' I went out and picked up the next game.

Of course, I had eagerly awaited the arrival of ''Blood Omen 2.'' I thought, ''A new Legacy of Kain game, sweet! And I'm back to playing as Kain? Woo-hoo!'' There's a certain kick to sucking the blood out of the innocents, and for fans of the original, there are a few little things that you will doubtless appreciate. Other than that, though, this game is a horrible disappointment.

STORY: 4/10
The game takes place two hundred years after ''Blood Omen'' and several hundred years before ''Soul Reaver.'' But, instead of telling the story of how Kain built his empire, how he raided the Sarafan tombs to create his lieutenants, this game starts out with Kain's defeat in battle by the Sarafan Lord and waking up a few decades later. Kain learns that his sword, the omnipotent Soul Reaver, was taken by the Sarafan Lord, and he sets out to get it back and to set his dominion upon Nosgoth. Also, you find out that the Serafan are using some strange power, Glyph energy, to power their anti-vampire forcefields and other machinations, and so Kain must also solve the mystery of what, exactly, this Glyph energy is.

A few twists occur along the way, of course, with Kain aiding the vampire resistance called The Cabal because it suits his needs, and the continuity of the series, as set by the previous three games, gets thrown into bloody turmoil. Characters long thought dead turn out to be alive. It's almost as though the people who wrote this game forgot that the events of the original BO ever happened. Why? Because Vorador is alive in this episode (you learn this after the second level, and he’s even in the instruction booklet, so I'm really not spoiling anything here), while he should be dead, having been killed at the tail end of BO. His presence is never explained, and all I can hope is that the Legacy of Kain people pretend that the events in this title never happened, or that they explain this occurrence in future installments (which, taking into account the time-traveling nature of the SR games, is entirely possible).

The script could also use some work. It feels rushed and sloppy, which shows in the pacing of some of the dialogue. Overall, the story really failed to impress me, especially in the latter levels of the game.

GRAPHICS: 5/10
One word: Blah.

Of course, one word doesn't really cut it, so I'll elaborate on that a bit. First of all, this is no ''Soul Reaver 2,'' and that's a bad thing. I played SR2 and thought the graphics were simply gorgeous, with amazing locales and beautiful characters. When I saw the demo for BO2 on that disc, I thought ''It looks okay, but hopefully they'll work on it a bit more.'' No such luck. The graphics in this game don't look polished at all. The CG sequence at the beginning could have been a lot better (SR2's opening blows it out of the water and leaves nothing behind). The in-game graphics are also bland. Until the last few levels, you'll find yourself fighting the same enemies over and over again. The peasants (ie: non-combatants) look horribly ugly and bland. Really, you feel as though you're doing the world a service by killing these people and drinking their blood.

As for Kain himself, well, things aren't so bad. He's got the angular face thing going for him, and he definitely looks like a predator. But he also looks rushed and unfinished, as does most of the rest of this game. His costume for the first part of BO2 makes him look like a reject from some sort of S&M club (it consists of metal boots, black pants, two shoulder pads, and a pointless leather band across his otherwise bear chest); the latter costumes (armour with spider-leg-like appendages sticking from it, and a red disguise) are a bit better at least. Even the framerate drops when it really has no right to do so. The stages themselves look hopelessly bland and boring, with most of the levels suffering from the ever-present Didn't-I-Just-See-This disease.

Speaking of the levels, the game is set in a sort of steam-punk time period, so there are a lot of rundown buildings and steam powered generators. It’s all dark and dingy as well, which does suit the overall mood of the game (no Legacy of Kain game should be bright and happy). This would be a good thing, and I’d not complain about the backgrounds, if not for that all you do for most of the game is run around the city of Meridian, and so it almost feels as though you’re running around the first level over and over again.

I have to give credit to the developers, though, for keeping Kain's long-distance blood-sucking intact from the original and making him look damn stylish while doing it. Also, there are stealth kills, and these can get fairly nasty and impressive to watch, but even these (and the nifty effect you get when using the Mist ability) don't make up for the game's many graphical short-comings.

SOUND: 7/10
Not bad, not great. Most sound effects aren't worth mentioning, because chances are you've heard these before in a half dozen other games, either that or you've heard something almost exactly the same, from swords slashing and clashing to people screaming and dying. Some of the sounds and music (what little there is) gets too loud to hear the dialogue, something that subtitles would have helped, but it's also something that should never happen.

There are some nice touches in the vocals, though. If you walk by, you can often overhear peasants or guards conversing and you can learn a fair amount about the world in this way. Also, while approaching someone with your claws or other weapon drawn, they back off and plead with you to spare them. Nice touch. Something that fans of the original BO will appreciate is that at times you will come across people who are tied up as prisoners, and they will call out ''Please, help me kind sir'' as you pass by. It sounds like they've used the exact same sound files for these instances that they used in the original game. That's something I really enjoyed.

The voice acting is passable in this game. Kain, again voiced by Simon Templeton, sounds just as fantastic as he has in all of the previous entries, and Vorador is a treat as well. Everyone else does their job, but there's nothing outstanding. Sadly enough, the voice acting in this game is down-played by the weak story (again, events that occurred during the last couple of levels left me feeling cheated and simply abused), as well as a script that felt rushed and undeveloped. No amount of good voice acting can salvage that.

As far as the music goes... there was music? Honestly, it’s there, it does its job, but the tunes in this game aren’t memorable at all.

Sadly, while this may have just been my copy, in the later levels of the game there were instances (most of them story-crucial) where the sound fell behind the on-screen action, and so a fair chunk of the dialogue got cut completely. I do hope this was my copy only, because if it’s a problem that isn’t isolated, then Eidos and Crystal Dynamics have a few things to answer to.

GAMEPLAY: 4/10
Here's another spot where BO2 stumbles and ultimately falls. First of all, every level is the same, insofar as you run around killing people, sucking their blood, sometimes stealing their weapons, and solving boring puzzles. There are enough aspects to the gameplay that the game should be kept fresh, but in all due honesty it’s just an exercise in the way of “lather, rinse, repeat” if you understand my meaning (if not, don’t worry, I do plan to elaborate).

First of all, let’s focus on the puzzles. These are sometimes ingenious, other times not so much so. Usually, they’re not so much so. The puzzles in this game consist mainly of hitting switches and moving boxes. This is very much like SR, except in SR Raziel could move a box forward, backward, left, and right. Kain has no such luck. He can only push the boxes forward and backward. In the process of pushing a Glyph Battery to join two power-lines so that you can power a switch you need to press? Be prepared to constantly switch your position so that you can line it up properly. This is one aspect of the game that needed to be fine-tuned (or tuned-out altogether).

The combat is another problem in itself. What you do is you hold the R1 button to face your opponent, and hit them by pressing the Square button. No big deal. No big challenge, either, until you get to the later levels, where the enemies actually become difficult. Sometimes you can get a weapon as well (be it a dagger, a long-sword, a big-ass sword, or even a double-bladed sword very much reminiscent of Darth Maul’s lightsabre), but these weapons don’t last forever. When you have your weapon drawn, you’re shown a picture of it in the top-right corner of the screen, and with use it gradually turns red, and will eventually break. Fortunately, Kain’s claws are more than enough to take down most opponents. Other than just attacking, you can also dodge to the left and right, and even backwards, by holding R1 and pressing the X button, but Kain dodges so mechanically that it’s barely worth your time to do so, except to avoid an enemy’s Strong Attack (for lack of any official term). More often than not, your best bet in combat is to block (L1) normal attacks, then dodge to the left or right when the enemy uses their Strong Attack, then go in for the kill. (On a special note, you can block in two ways: Assisted, wherein you only hold down the block button to block; or Skilled, in which you need to tap the button at the right moment to block an attack, which is the option to use if you want any amount of challenge to this game) Lather, rinse, repeat.

Actually, that’s the main problem with the combat, other than the repetitive nature of it, and the fact that you must be pressing R1 to attack at all: it’s mechanical. The animation’s stiff, and Kain attacks far more slowly than he should with any given weapon (especially his own claws). The controls (dodging, blocking, attacking, everything, man) could be a bit more responsive as well.

Or, if you’re so inclined, you can even grab them with the Triangle button and then use two attacks (either just hit Square, or hit Up and Square to do a move that should kill weaker enemies, and severely injure the stronger ones) to pummel them into submission—this is always fun to do and some of the attacks are so brutal that it’s a kind of perverse joy in watching Kain maim and torture his victims like this; actually, it’s one of the nicer touches in the game. But watch yourself, because the stronger and smarter enemies will dodge your grab and knock you down, eventually rendering the grab a meaningless move that’s more of a perk when dealing with sheep—er, peasants. Lastly, even when you’re surrounded, you’ll only ever have one enemy attacking you at a time, unlike SR2 where it wasn’t unusual to have five or six baddies try to surround and beat the living hell out of you.

Once an enemy or peasant is dead, you can feel free to drink their blood, thereby filling your Health Bar and putting a little bit more into your Lore Meter (more on that later). That’s a change from BO, where you had reduce your opponents to near death in order to drink from them (kill them, and there was no chance of a meal).

To aide you in your quest, you obtain Dark Gifts (chosen by holding the L2 Button and selecting a Gift with the right analog stick; use them with the Circle Button) by killing off your former lieutenants who betrayed the vampires after your supposed demise and sided with the Sarafan in exchange for their lives (yes, this is before Kain made vampires out of Sarafan corpses). Here’s a list of the Gifts you will acquire, should you brave this game to the end: Mist, Jump, Charm, Telekinesis, Fury, Berserk, and Immolate (set nearby foes on fire). Looks like a long list, doesn’t it? It is, but when you take into account that the only ones that you’ll use frequently are Mist and Jump, most of these seem like perks. Let’s examine them briefly, shall we?

Mist is easy. When you see mist on the ground, choose this to turn into mist and go into stealth mode, readying yourself for Stealth Kills (the best aspect of the game). Jump you use to leap over impassable gaps, AND to attack foes from far away. Great fun, and I mean that. Charm lets you put peasants under your spell for specific puzzles, while Telekinesis allows you to flip switches that are otherwise unreachable, and to knock back and hurt your enemies (but the aiming you need to do this makes it generally useless).

The last three on the list use your Rage meter, which fills up every time you successfully block an enemy’s attack. They’re used to attack your enemies, and give you an upper hand in combat. Sadly, you won’t really need these until the later levels when the enemies will prove challenging (and for the occasional boss). It’s sad to see such a list of powers put to waste, but it’s the truth. Again, the only ones you’ll find yourself using to any degree of regularity are Mist and Jump. The others are either pointless except for a few puzzles, or make the already easy combat too easy.

Boss battles are another matter. Some of these are genuinely challenging, and each one has a pattern that you’ve got to figure out, like a big lethal puzzle. I enjoyed most of these, though the fight against Marcus is just a huge pain the ass.

I mentioned the Lore Meter earlier, so now would be as good a time as any to touch on its use. As you drink blood, the Lore Meter fills up. You can also find energy in chests hidden throughout the levels that will fill the meter up even more quickly than blood ever could. When the meter is filled up to its maximum, Kain lets out a roar, and his Health Bar lengthens, as does the Lore Meter. This makes killing every single person you see worth doing, because the more blood you drink, the longer your Health Meter becomes. Drinking blood is also the only way to refill your Life Bar, which depletes both with the passage of time and with enemy attacks.

There were attacks against SR2 about being linear, but BO2 is even more linear. It’s divided into specific levels (called Chapters), and you simply follow the set path, which is to say that you go forward. Backtracking is pointless in this game.

Before I end this section, I’ll touch on the Stealth Kills, by far the most entertaining part of the game (along with the whole blood-drinking thing). What happens is that you approach some poor, unsuspecting soul (and they must be unsuspecting; if they’re looking for you, you’re screwed) while in mist form. When a skull appears above their head, you’re ready for a Stealth Kill. Each weapon has two different kills, one activated by simply hitting the Square button, the other by pressing Up and Square. These kills are entertaining, and are sometimes challenging to pull off. The game, to be honest, needs more of them, mainly because the combat system is so bland that the Stealth actually spices things up some, adding much needed suspense to the game.

Last note about controlling Kain: you do it with the left analog stick. Unfortunately, even the way you move Kain slows it down. In SR, you move Raziel in the direction you push the stick. In BO2, to move forward you push the stick forward; to back up, pull the stick down; you can’t move left or right, though, but you can TURN. That’s the problem. Instead of giving us full 3-D movement, we have pseudo 3-D movement. While it works with the pacing of the game, it’s still frustrating to need to turn in order to face the proper direction. The camera, however, is always against Kain’s back, though you can use the right analog stick to look to your left or right, and up or down, but releasing the stick resets the camera.

Before I forget, let’s talk about length. Not too long, not too short; you’re looking at an average of around 10hrs or so, the same as just about every other adventure game out there.

REPLAY: 2/10
What replay? The combat system is barely passable, so that doesn’t warrant a replay of the game. The story is barely passable, so there’s no reason you’ll want to run through this again for that (except, maybe, to try and understand the plot twists that make no sense, insofar as the mythology and history that the first three games have set down goes). Even the stealth isn’t enough of a factor to warrant a second go with the game. And when you take into account the fact that the game is exceedingly linear, there’s nothing to explore and try to discover. Really, unless you’re bored, or if you’ve played your other PS2 games to death, then maybe, maybe you’ve got a reason to play through this again. As for me, the only reason I haven’t sold this to EB is because it’s a Legacy of Kain game.

OVERALL: 4/10
I don’t mean to portray this as a game that’s completely lacking in merit, because it isn’t. It has its moments of fun (the first two or three levels are actually quite enjoyable), and the vocal cast is great. But the overall gameplay is disappointing, the twists in the story made me feel cheated and used (not to mention disappointed), and there’s almost no replay value in this whatsoever (the final twist at the end happens at such a rushed pace that it feels completely sloppy, like it was put in there at the very last minute). Really, rent it first, and then buy it if you either really enjoy it, or if you feel the need to own every game with the” Legacy of Kain” moniker on it (but do yourself a favour: try to find it in the “used” section at EB or wherever it is you buy your games from).

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 08/30/03