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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Castlevania:
Lords of
Shadow
ANNIKA HOWELLS is the queen of her castle.
The back end of 2010 was a
difficult time. With so many
quality titles coming out each week,
gamers could simply not afford
to buy every single one. Or if they
could, they probably didn’t have
time to play them all. Chances are,
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow was
one of the games you chose to
save your cash on, or perhaps it’s
gathering dust on your shelf. Either
way it’s a shame, because Lords Of
Shadow is a real gem.
Castlevania games have a poor
track record when it comes to the
third dimension. Mercury Steam and
Kojima Productions have navigated
this pitfall by not actually creating
a new Castlevania game at all.
Instead, they have taken the best
aspects of every other game of the
past few years and smooshed it all
together like some kind of spectacular
Katamari (incidentally, Katamari
is pretty much the only game they
haven’t borrowed from). There are
boss battles straight from Shadow
of The Colossus, Uncharted-esque
climbing sections, God Of War’s flashy,
button-mashing combat, and Devil
May Cry’s elaborate enemy design.
Films have been influential as well,
with obvious homage paid to the
likes of Pan’s Labyrinth and Lord Of
The Rings in the environments and
characters.
What Lords Of Shadow lacks
in originality, it makes up for with
delivery. The game looks absolutely
gorgeous, taking you through lush
forests, murky swamps, snowy
vistas and crumbling gothic castles.
The attention to detail in design is
astounding – evident by the copious
amounts of unlockable concept art.
The enemies are diverse and creative,
and I must say it is a pleasure to see
vampires and werewolves looking
ugly and evil again. You won’t find any
thirteen year old girls swooning over
these bad boys.
Lords Of Shadow is ENORMOUS.
However, each chapter is a nice,
bite-sized length, so it’s easy to say
“I’ll just play one more” and then
find yourself still going at 2am,
telling yourself you don’t need to
eat or sleep because you can collect
coloured orbs to do that for you now.
Each chapter has a specific challenge
and multiple items to be found, many
of which can only be accessed after
getting certain upgrades, adding
further replay value to the already
gigantic main game.
Combat is mostly button mashing,
and while you spend the whole game
unlocking and buying upgraded
moves, it’s more effective to just
spam the basic ones. The combat is
spiced up by a dual magic system. Use
your blue power and your health will
regenerate with each blow you land.
Use your red power and each blow
will deliver more damage. Another
fun aspect of combat is jumping onto
the backs of various enemies and
riding around on them, whether for
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march 2011