Volume 2

Time to jump to another series. The second one in the Legacy of Kain series this time (no Soul Reaver is not the sequal to Blood Omen, its a seperate series with the same characters)

I was waiting for this game from the time i found out they were making it.....when I played Soul Reaver 2 so many months before. I thought then that this game would be dificult. Now, having beat it I find I was partially right. I was beaten several times by simple soildures.....till i figured out that blocking was a good thing. Very Rarely do I play through a game soley for the plot and Blood Omen 2 was no exception to that. However as i progressed i found out just how much fun it was to just be evil and I loved it. Aside from loving the Concept (runing around killing everyone in sight just so your life bar stays at max while you navigate puzzles, Guards, Water, Pitfalls, and Demons) the Game further expands on the previous games plotline allowing you to see how Kain got to the point he is......and as Kain's the one narrating the story you can just imagin how much fun that actually is...

Challenging and long levels are what await you in this title. While the first few levels ease you into the game, the latter levels can be quite a pain if you do not learn well from your mistakes. The control of Kain is still quite simple as is choosing the abilities to use. However, the game has a high Frustration Value as you can sometimes get a long way, die really stupidly, and have to do several puzzles and/or fights all over again. Other things plague the game, including numerous instances of midlevel loading while your running along or worse, fighting. While the Game doesn't actually go to a loading screen midlevel, the word "loading" is unfortunately not an uncommon sight.

Highly difficult to a person with a dull or young mind as all of the games boss fights are puzzles. However for those of you with a sharp mind both for combat and for puzzles this game should be relatively simple. Lets Face it folks.... they just don't make games hard enough anymore.

Not bad but definately not the best I've seen on the system. Few items in the Game react to being attacked and the limited models for the humans or baddies aren't really very detailed......and to be quite frank the animation for sucking to blood of the giant spiders (while scientificly correct) is really just disturbing... Still, to give Credit where Credit is due, some of the effects are well done, and most of the Story Sequences are done with in game graphics and still are somewhat impressive. However, more than anything else it was the FMV sequences that were the best eyecandy.

Excellent. Pure and simple. Often it is the sounds that make he game, and--again--Blood Omen 2 is no exception. With an excellent cast of voices, a nice sound track, and--in some cases--some really, really creepy background noises, the sounds of the game are what really give Blood Omen 2 it's appeal, and what drives you to endure the games small glitches just to find out more about the plot. Yes, the voice acting was that believable.

Fix all the glitches, take out the midlevel loading............ you've read enough of my complaining to know what I would like to see done.

((Huntermuns's Note: I completely agree with Draco on this fact. I did not witness more than a few moments of gameplay go by in any section of the game before it wasn't, at some point, dropping frames and dropping them badly. It was one thing in Soul Reaver to have something slow for a moment while loading. In Blood Omen 2 it would not only slow to load, blur the movement of the screen, but even completely stop at some points and show "Loading" on the screen. However, this is Draco's review, and he didn't have as much a problem with it as I did. :) ))

Take out the plot.....that would do it.....yup....game just wouldn't be worth playing without it.

Good for a sequal. It's only drawback are in the things that should have been fixed before the thing was released and that damn midlevel loading...

Like I said: the game would be much better if it had had just a little more work done on it. wouldn't take much............and that loading.......that so has to go........oh yeah.....

Draco's Game Reviews © Ben C. Broome 2002+