Van Helsing

"Don't even read this, save yourself!!!"

I have to say that I have never really liked the movies that are turned into game because of the fact that every single time that I played one of those game I always ended up disgusted with the game because it didn't include all of the stuff that the movie includes or it was just not a good experience and everything was totally different. Well this game is no exception from my past experiences, I wish I had never given up any money for playing this game, I didn't buy it, but still I lost some money while playing this game that I didn't really like at all. Before in the long before movies that were turned into video game were supposed to be so that the player gets the same sensation from the game that he got from the movie and before they actually met that objective and everyone was happy, except for the ones that didn't like the movie. At these moments, about one to five percent of the movies that are turned into video games are actually good, like Lord of the Rings The Two Towers and Lord of the Rings The Return of the King, they were both two great game that actually gave you the same sensation that you got from the movie, maybe a little bit different but they still were excellent game, I don't know about the Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Ring since I haven't played any version of it, but for the other two versions I have played it in every game system, in Game Boy Advance, in Game Cube, in Playstation Two, and in Xbox, and they are all great, maybe for the fact that they are the same game, but I still like them. So when I saw the movie Van Helsing I thought that renting the game would be worth it, because of the Lord of the Rings success and everything else, but 2 minutes after I turned on my Game Boy Advance with this game inside of it I just saw that it was absolutely everything I never expected it to be, and thought “Man was I wrong thinking this was gonna be good!!!”. You'll see why in my following review.

Story:
7 out of 10

Look I don't wanna spoil anything about the story so I guess that I am going to have to give you a little review about the story of this game ok. As everyone might already know you are going to play as Van Helsing since he is the main character of the game, obviously of the movie also since both of them are called Van Helsing, it's just like Spider Man, the main character is Spider Man, well the same rule applies here, since the game is called Van Helsing, you are going to be playing as Van Helsing, have I made myself clear on this subject, I believe so. As all of you might already know Van Helsing is a guy that has dedicated his life to kill the hell out of all the monsters that exist in the world, in other words he is a monster hunter, so as the terms inquires, he hunts monsters, and I am not going to tell you why, you find out yourself. And since you are a monster hunter, then the Vatican sends you off to go and hunt for demoniac and ugly and really powerful demon creatures from hell itself, and since you are the super famous Van Helsing the monster hunter you accept are starting wandering off to go hunt the demons from hell that would be virtually impossible for a human to kill, but he thinks he can do it. Ok and well, you have to kill Dracula and all those other beasts that you saw on the movie or on the movie commercials if you didn't went to see the movie, but what the hell, Dracula always dies in every game, you can kill him, of course he never dies so easily but you are Van Helsing “your reputation precedes you”. Just in case you haven't seen the movie, that is a line that is said to him, and it actually also appears on the commercials, okay let move on.

Gameplay:
0 put of 10

Well, as you all might already now that I didn't like this game and it is obviously because of the poor gameplay it has, it is really down and it is what make the game so but so bad. I am going to explain a little bit about this, as you know, you are Van Helsing and you must move him around so that he can destroy all of the demoniac monsters that come from hell and leave our world Earth totally pure and free from evil, and he must also collect what are called glyphs, these glyphs like I said is the purpose of moving Van Helsing around, by making him move around you must make him grab these glyphs and I must tell you that there are three kinds of glyphs that you must gather. Now the question come out of what are glyphs for? Why should you make Van Helsing collect this glyphs? Well, if you don't make him collect them then you will have nothing else to do and you will not give end to this game. And for the first question, the glyphs gives you life points and they also give you secrets, yes secrets, even though it is a poor game it does have secrets. Ok now the flaws, you might thinks that this game isn't that bad, but just try and you will see what I am talking about, the game does include a whole collection of weapons but you don't really use then all, and it does have a weapon which is the most used, you might think that it is a super laser gun that kills everything, but NO, it is a pistol, a normal pistol that I bet that it is not even semi automatic and you have to charge it by hand one bullet at a time, sorry I just hate it. And I have to say that killing enemies so that so can get to where the boss is isn't really fun at all, you really miss a lot and they are though to kill and because of that getting to the boss is really though, annoying and long, you get desperate a lot so you are not going to like that fact that you have to kill them all to be able to get to the boss, and if killing the enemies is hard since when they attack you they actually beat you up, imagine what it would be to get to the boss, and how badly will the boss tear up your human flesh, I know I like hard game not impossible games, I don't know you. Because the fact that killing wasn't fun I went into a desperate mode of doing something else, so I just do what I do normally with games I rent and I don't like just end the main storyline to at least get something from my rent. But since I wanted to end this game I also got desperate because of the fact that this guy didn't learn to run all throughout his lifetime, so since he can't run I got really, really annoyed and no, I didn't got to the end I just went back to my renting place and return it before the time, they asked why had I returned it so early, and I asked them if they had ever played that game before. Yes this game is bad, and is really bad, you are not going to like at all, don't buy it, don't rent it, and do NOT play it even if it is giving a free opportunity, you will only lose your time with it and you are not gong to like, mark my words, you are not going to like it, don't play it. And if for some reason your aunt or uncle gives you this game for birthday, just go to your local store and sell it, and if your aunt still has the buying ticket, return it and buy some other game that is worth it, or just keep the money and spend it on food, believe it is better to eat the money even if you don't like the food you are going to buy and even if you are not hungry than to buy this game and play it, it is really bad, BAD, do not buy it under any circumstance, not even if you have a collection of all the Nintendo game ever released, you don't want this because it doesn't deserve to be in a collection because of how bad it is, I repeat once again, get away from this game.

Graphics:
1 out of 10

The graphics of this game are soooo bad that well, I can guarantee that you will not like them. They are really ugly, and all pixeled and blurry, you can barely distinguish between what is what, that bad they are. Like I said, you are not going to be able to distinguish between what you are supposed to hit, whenever I played it, I just hit whatever moved by itself, if it didn't moved then I didn't shoot it, and well, that made me understand a little where the hell Van Helsing was, and what was it that I was supposed to do. You will get confused on what the hell you are shooting at, you may be shooting at Dracula but you are going to think that it is a floating back leaf, but not just black, it is also big, so you might think that you are going to have to fight a lot of those leaves and then the boss would be a gigantic tree, but no, it is Dracula and that was it. Just play it and you are going to see that I am right with what I am saying, the graphics are even bad for the first Nintendo, not saying the Game Boy Advance. I already said it a couple of times, get away from anything that has do to with this game, in fact stop reading my review and go read another one!

Sound:
4 out of 10

Well, as you might already know I didn't like the sounds of this game either, and you are not going to like them either, so back off, you should already have stopped reading this review. But I still have to get it finished so that way it can be complete. Ok, now I am going to tell you about the sound, it is just too... The sound effects of this game are just, well crappy sound effects, like a crappy “whoosh” when hitting and stuff like that, nothing extra spectacular, nothing even average and maybe the sound is below average or even less who knows, all I know that it is not good at all.

Replay Value:
0 out of 10

Well, it is a little obvious that you need to end the game to be able to REPLAY it, but if you never really want to get far enough to end the game and actually play it again. So you are never going to want to play it again, taking into consideration that the gameplay got a 0 out of 10, well then, the replay value also gets a ZERO out of TEN, the only way that you are going to end this game and actually play it again is that you get something really big in exchange, like 1 or 3 billion dollars, or whatever you want for 3 years, or something like that, if you don't get that kind of reward in return for playing this game again, then you are either nuts or you are stupid, you definitely do not want this game at all, even if you are in a closed room that you can't get out of and all you have is a Game Boy Advance and this game, you are still not going to want to play it, better think that you are a Super Saiyin or something it is better than playing this game.

Rent or Buy
The Answer is obvious!!!

Do not buy, you are a sick man (or woman) if you think that you are going to like this game, you could buy it if you want to give something to your friend but with the intention of torturing him, and make him or her play it until he or she hates you, that is the only reason that you should buy this game so NO, do not but it. And about the renting… Hey! I rented it and I got a bad feeling for spending that much money. I could have had bought potato fries or something that I could actually like, it is such a waste of everything you have, money, time, and brain cells, everything don't get near this game, better go to the movies and see the movie, or wait for the DVD release and rent the DVD, not the game.

Overall
1 out of 10

All I have to say is that you are not going to like this game, and in fact you are going to hate it and is you rent it, it is going to be really hard not destroying it because you have to return it and you don't want to waste more money. But if you have enough money to throw away you could buy all of the copies and burn them so that nobody ever passes through this pain. But that is only if you have like about fifty billion dollars like Bill Gates, if not then dedicate to buy good game and give them for free all around the world. In fact the only reason that I am giving this game a 1 as a score is because 0 is not an eligible number.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 07/07/04