Quick Look: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2

I've been told that the city in the game literally is called "Castlevania City" which tells me everything I need to know about this game.

Is it just the video? This is really framey. I hope the actual game isn't like this. That's rough.

Wowee Zobek is a straight up icecold mother fucker. Why do I want to play this... It looks so bad but I love Castlevania and ZOBEK!

Wait... at 11:55 in the Quick Look, the game makes a fucking SILVERADO reference? Seriously?

That's a deep damn cut.

I will play this game.

But I think I might wait for a slight price drop.

Man, Jeff smack-talking sweet little ratties. :(

The PC version looked way way better in the demo btw.

Cinematics should be reserved for cinema. Unless the buttons I press will actually change what happens in the game there should be no reason for me to be pressing buttons during a cinema. The cutscenes in Resident evil are a good example of unnecessary QTE. The game ended if I didn't press the button in time. It was funny to see different ways the character died, but it didn't do much to change the game. I would just repeat the sequence knowing what buttons to press.

QTE while the player is actually engaged in combat is acceptable. A good interface is still required to make it enjoyable, but at least the player is determining the effectiveness of something that matters.

An example of bad gameplay QTE is Bakman Arkham Asylum. I didn't like having to mash a button to open vents. It's okay if I had to hold the button, but mashing is annoying.

@lurkero: I like dynamic QTE's like having to hit several targets in succession or something you'd find in a typical rhythm game. I also don't like the "mashy" variety.

God, I love Castlevania (not just the SOTN spinoffs, but the original arc as well), but it really seems like they went a totally bonkers direction. In a bad way. I'll probably still enjoy playing this, since I enjoyed the first despite all its flaws. I still kind of wish they did something like a sotn/LoS hybrid with a semi open world and lots of loot.

So is this a Darksiders II situation? Where a tight, focused new thing beecomes open and bland in the overambitious sequel?

Because I don't wanna believe it.

This game seems to be mostly be about filling up meters so you can fill up other meters.

Definitely getting a more "God of War" feel from this game than the first. However, nothing in this quick look even remotely looked fun. I hated the combat in the first game.

I guess Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines still remain the best modern-world vampire game?

I wonder if the combat camera assist option is what's doing the "hey this guy is doing an unblockable attack" camera turn.

Is Zobek wearing a suit? IS ZOBEK WEARING A SUIT?

Hey! I just saw Zobek on Broadway! He and Magneto had great chemistry :D

time to cal Zobek.

Has anyone played the HD re-release of the DS Game? It looked fun enough.

This looks like it has a lot of what I didn't enjoy about the first game, maybe even more. I've been thinking that I'd pick it up at a sale eventually, but now I'm not even sure about that. The demo didn't get me very excited either, so I should probably resist my completionist tendencies and save myself the time and money.

That's not coffee! quick a gif

Somebody pressed Y..

Looks neat. I might get the game at a discounted price.

Zobek comin'...

Zobek is one smooth motherfucker in this game.

I sped it up to make it more extreme.

Still totally will play this, its getting destroyed in reviews, but i do want to see where the story ends.

No clue, but I seriously doubt it. I was personally hoping for one of two things:

- You play through half the game as Dracula doing whatever, then you switch to Alucard and have to kill Dracula.

- Alucard is an unlockable character in the vein of Richter in Symphony, Julius in Aria of Sorrow, Trevor in Curse of Darkness, etc.

At the very least, I would like to see this story wrap up with you, as Dracula, fighting Alucard in a battle that you're forced to lose.

This is making me want to finally finish Darksiders.

I believe Mirror of Fate covers the timeline of the other Belmonts that are related to Gabriel and how Alucard figures into it during events prior to Lords of Shadow 2.

Man there ain't nothing doucheier than running around in a trench coat with no shirt.

Not to mention that Texas size belt buckle.

Assuming Vinny's not wrong about Trevor and Alucard, the divergence from Castlevania III is kind of bumming me out.

Waste of a I am sure very premium cigarette.

I almost do not want to follow the lore of this. It's enough to know these characters are fully the products of their world. Absolutely no 4th wall. This game sounds like a glorious failure. I really may buy it on steam down the road and try to play it.

Agree about rats.

The Suffering, I still got that, had a lot of atmosphere.

This game screams B- tier (if Im being generous) all over the place. Looks like a Darksiders 2 overhaul mod or some crap with gameplay elements stolen from other games; Not an original idea to be seen anywhere. So lame, so boring.

I know Jeff isn't big on anime, but from this QL it sounds like he might enjoy Hellsing?

Vampire Rain for 360/PS3 was basically Special Forces vs Vampires.

I love Vinny's enthusiasm for Lords of Shadow.

I love it, because it shows some diversity in the sort of games the crew likes and because he likes it so much he's put some effort into playing it for the Quicklook.

I'm not saying that you should master a game before Quicklooking it, but just popping it on, playing past the tutorial and banging your hands against the controller or keyboard until you've created some video content for the site is a lot less entertaining that watching you play something that you're invested in.

Eh not really. The reviews run the gamut from 9s to 4s with a pretty even distribution between those extremes. I've read a dozen of them, and for the most part the score seems almost entirely predicated on how frustrated the particular reviewer got with the game's brief stealth segments.

Gamespot gave it exactly the same score as the first one (7/10) and I thought the first one was brilliant. I've been noticing an increasingly weird disconnect between normal people and "professional" game critics lately. It's like the entire industry has become horribly jaded in the last 2 years and hate any game unless it explores moral or social issues.

The modern day stuff could work if they made it more like the Darkness, i.e. you go around terrorizing and completely overpowering humans with your vampire powers.

Man this is exactly what came to mind for me and it made me so bummed out =/

Zobek doesn't have time for your bullshit.

Darksiders II is so underrated. I actually disliked it when I first played it, because it's not really like the first game. But when I gave it another go months later, I really enjoyed it. Probably more so than the first game.

Yeah, Darksiders II is probably a mediocre sequel to Darksiders, but it is a great game in its own right.

So I'm not the only person that felt that way? I was very confused about why Darksiders 2 tried to do much more than it needed to. After completing Darksiders 2 I was not excited for Darksiders 3 and I actually retroactively lost some enjoyment I had in Darksiders 1 because it was such wasted potential for a good series.

What you're looking for is DLC. It's probably gonna happen since Alucard was playable in the 3DS game, Mirror of Fate.

They did that in Futurama!

It really was. Sure the fixed camera takes some getting use to, but the story, environments, and characters/monsters were fantastic. The gameplay had your typical GoW mashery, but still felt rewarding when you locked in a new combination. I would give it a go on a Steam sale (I started it on PS3 but finished on PC where it looked substantially better).

This looks pretty good to me. And there's a PC version. Will probably buy it on sale, though.

The first game's good, but this looks both lifeless and somehow messy , and I'm not down with a Castlevania game being set in modern times. Is there some virus nonsense going on, too? Every modern gothic horror schlock-fest has to have a virus.

I would be interested in a Blade-type vampire action game where you're using duded-up modern weapons to fight the bloodsuckers.

Press Why to call Zobek. Why Zobek? Why???

Lord our Last Shadows playthrough please