Van Helsing II - Preview @ Rock Paper Shotgun

There is a hands-on session of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II at Rock Paper Shotgun, which amongst others mentiones terrible writing and great combat.

The writing was as abysmal as the first game. Your spectral chum still interrupts with sarcastic remarks that never hit home, and the chatter from quest givers is over-long and overly-worthy. Then made infinity worse by horrible non-jokes, like being asked to “save Private Bryan”. See, because it rhymes with that film, so it’s a joke. Oh, and “arrow to the knee” jokes have been verboten for a good two years already – there is no excuse.

But the writing doesn’t matter much. What matters is the combat, and once I’d re-sorted my sock drawers and remembered where I kept the pens, it became plenty of fun once more. Balancing mana-based and general attacks, with potion guzzling and firing off specials, as well as remembering to use Ghostie’s abilities too, all adds up to pleasingly busy fighting. Combined with the need to think about the order in which you take on mobs, and working out how to get behind shielded enemies to quickly polish them off before the bigguns got to you… it does the job well.