The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing review: not so incredible, eh

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing originally came out on PC in May of 2013 and, only a few months ago, has now found its way onto the Xbox One. Now, Van Helsing is a game I've always been interested in as a fan of isometric action-RPGs like Diablo; however, I've never played any of the games until now, but, in large part because the game was free for Xbox LIVE Gold members when it launched on December 1st, 2015, I have finally put some time into the game and, I must say, it's not so incredible.

I don't know what I was expecting when I jumped into the world of Van Helsing, but I was, at the very least, expecting to find a world filled with a slew of enemies asking to taste the edge of my blade--I played as a mage, so, technically they'd be asking to taste the lightning from my fingertips (or something like that)--and, while I had no trouble finding enemies, I never once enjoyed slaying any of them, and no, I don't mean I felt some deep, emotional connection to the werewolves and harpies I killed without question, but that I, never, not even once, found any of the action enjoyable. The problem with Van Helsing is that the combat lacks the weight and oomph I desire and the enemies lack the ability to attack in any way other than a constant barrage of small bunches, like moths to a bright light, removing any strategy or thought from the equation. That said, I could have probably lived with the monotonous nature of Van Helsing's combat if the rest of the game grabbed me in any way, but, sadly, the combat is one of the better parts of the game.

Do y'all remember a game called Two Worlds? Most of you probably don't and there's a good reason for that: Two Worlds was bad, very bad, bad in almost every single way and the story and voice acting in Van Helsing reminds me a lot of Two Worlds; though, I can, at least, say that both are better in Van Helsing, but not by as much as they should be. Part of the problem with Van Helsing's story is that there isn't much there and, what is there feels lazily thrown together, as if the story was added just because the game needed one. Now, I'm not saying every game needs to have an award-winning story, but when I hear uninspired writing read by voice actors who sound like they could be my next-door neighbors, there's a problem, and all I could do to alleviate the problem was to completely ignore every bit of story that came my way.

But as disappointed as the combat and story left me, what really killed the game was the buggy and overall unpolished nature of it all. The load times between areas were long enough that I constantly thought, "Wait, what am I waiting for again...and how long have I been waiting for?" whenever I traveled from one area to another and it made me consider quitting the game whenever I exhausted all there was to do in one area because waiting thirty seconds to travel somewhere else was a bit much. And then there are the bugs, like when I would check my inventory and assume the game was paused, but then all my button presses were doing nothing in the menus because I was still controlling my little Van Helsing in-game; in addition to that, my companion--who you get right from the start and is always with you--would occasionally forget the roles I gave her and just floated around doing absolutely nothing, she wouldn't fight, defend me, or even move much at all, as if she was truly a ghost and didn't exist at all.

I really wanted to like The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, but the game constantly pushed me away with its boring combat, uninteresting story, uninspired art direction--with creatures that look like they came out of a high school student's notebook back in the Doom and Quake days--and an overall feeling of, "Well, this is good enough, eh," and, I'm sorry to say it, but it's not good enough, not at all. That said, if you downloaded the game while it was free and still haven't played it, there's no reason to not give it at try, just keep you expectations low and know that only one class is unlocked with the base game and, if you want to use one of the other two classes--Thaumaturge and Arcane Mechanic--you'll have to pay $3.99 each and I can't say I'm a fan of NeocoreGames's choice to lock these classes behind a paywall.

Editor's Note: I received a review code for both paid classes and played through the game as a Thaumaturge for roughly ten hours before deciding I had enough of the game. Cheers.