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Review:

1st May 2002:
Blood Omen 2
Fed up of being the good guy? Prefer to run around killing innocent members of the general public before sucking the blood from their bodies? This could well be the game for you...
Posted by Marc Hull - PlayStation 2 - UK and Europe

When the Soul Reaver series made the leap to the PlayStation 2, it made significant advances over its predecessor and produced one of the best (if not THE best) adventure games to date. However, if you thought that was an advancement, just wait until you've seen what's happened to the Blood Omen series, which originally appeared as a 2D RPG-action mix on the PC and original PlayStation back in 1996. Now, with Blood Omen 2, Eidos and Crystal Dynamics have turned it into full 3D, and made the gameplay an action, adventure and RPG mix that works amazingly well.

At the start of the game you are told of the continuing battle between the vampires and the Sarafan, a race of humans who have harnessed a great power that gives them a significant advantage. Now, after 400 years since the last battle, Kain has returned to Nosgoth only to find a city ruled by the Sarafan, and where vampires are severely outnumbered and are hunted down and killed in the streets. It is up to him, with the help of a vampire resistance, to regain his powers and find out the Sarafan's weakness that will allow the vampires to rule Nosgoth again.

At first, Blood Omen may seen to share more than a few similarities with Soul Reaver 2. Kain shares many abilities with Raziel, such as being able to jump pretty high, pull himself onto ledges and push or pull blocks to solve puzzles, and it's true that a lot of the adventure aspects do play like the Soul Reaver games. However, Blood Omen doesn't take place in open landscapes or ancient ruins, but instead is set inside the claustrophobic, labyrinth-like streets of Nosgoth, and so a lot of the game involves getting from A to B without being seen by a Sarafan guard or a group of thugs. However, other than enemies the streets of Nosgoth are also home to many innocent civilians going about their daily lives, and this really gives the game a good sense of atmosphere. If you see two people talking in a shop, you can go up to them and hear what they are saying, and the game hardly ever repeats conversations! Of course, these people aren't just there for effect; your life as a vampire is dependent on you drinking blood regularly, and picking on unarmed civilians is often the easiest way to survive.

Battles in Blood Omen are handled pretty well, with the traditional 'lock-on' button allowing you to target an enemy, while other buttons can then be used to attack, block or attempt to throw the selected opponent. Particularly worthy of note is the range of weapons on offer in the game; every enemy who is wielding a sword or a club can be attacked, allowing you to pick up their weapon and fight others with it. There are also chests dotted around the levels, which fortify your current item with special abilities, and you have to keep renewing weaker ones because eventually they can break. After terminating an enemy, you can of course go about drinking their blood; this has been cleverly thought out so that stronger enemies give you more blood, so return to you some of the health you may have lost by fighting them.

Aside from fighting enemies, you will spend most of your time sneaking around or solving puzzles. The former requires you to avoid guards, especially Sarafan soldiers who will ask for backup, and also keep a distance from civilians, who will cause a scene if they realise that you're a vampire. Fortunately, the game has abilities that you acquire as you progress, including 'Mist', which allows you to turn almost completely invisible in certain areas, and 'Jump' which grants you the ability to leap large distances. The latter aspect of play, the puzzles, are suitably ingenious. Some stem from Kain's inability to withstand water, so you often have to work out how to drain an area of the sewers long enough for you to pass without sustaining damage. Overall, there's a good mix of different play styles in there, but after a while they can begin to become repetitive. The battles are initially fun, but once you've got used to the control system they can become monotonous. The puzzle and exploration sections, although similar throughout, seem to suffer from this far less, so it doesn't make a big impact on the quality of the overall product.

Graphically, Blood Omen is quite spectacular. Masses of detail have been lavished on every street, and loads of atmospheric effects such as fog and rain really work well to add an extra sense of scaryness to the environment. The game also manages to maintain a respectable frame-rate throughout, and although the cut-scenes may not be quite up to the high standards set by Soul Reaver 2, they do contain some neat lip-sync and are all done entirely in realtime.

For sound, the game has background music which changes depending on the situation, so if you're spotted by a guard then more action-based music will burst in, whereas for the rest of the time more quiet, atmospheric noises accompany the game. Each environment also has its fair share of sound effects which fade in and out as you walk around, and the conversations between characters are an excellent touch, and sometimes very funny to listen to.

Length is where there could be a problem, since a lot of the puzzles in Blood Omen aren't particularly taxing; at least, not to the level that some of Soul Reaver's were. However, this is made up for by some huge levels and pretty difficult boss encounters, and overall the game is pretty long, so even if you don't get stuck at any one point you'll still have plenty of play time and are likely to enjoy every minute of it. Also, despite replay value being pretty nonexistant for games of this genre, the sheer amount of detail in the game, such as the way that civilians react to how you play by getting scared if they see you sucking someone's blood, will mean you'll want to come back just to mess about and see how they respond, much like the way that half of GTA3's playtime came from not completing the missions, but finding out exactly what you could do inside the virtual city it gave you access to.

Overall, Blood Omen 2 is a pretty good experience; not only do you get to play the part of a bad guy, but also go about doing what a bad guy should do; scaring the hell out of innocent people and watching them react. As you play the game you really will feel that you have an entire city at your mercy, although the strong Sarafan presence later on will keep you on your toes. Graphically, the world is large, detailed and has only one load time at the start of each mission, which is surprising considering its size. While the package as a whole may not quite match the standards of Soul Reaver 2, it's still a great effort, and the two accompany one another pretty well, providing you with an insight of how the story looks from a different perspective.

Marc Hull

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Review Summary:

While it may not match Soul Reaver 2 overall, the Blood Omen series has certainly come a long way, and this should provide you with hours of entertainment. The game does begin to suffer from repitition later on, but there's always fun to be had by slaying innocent bystanders if you get bored.

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