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CASTLEVANIA: LORDS OF SHADOW 2

Konami
PS3 (also on Xbox 360, PC)

A little less conversation, a little more action.

Yes, Elvis is alive and well. He served as a playtester on this and made that recommendation. It wasn't heeded – nuh-uh.

So anyway, you’re this Dracula bloke, although you can’t really be Dracula as you don’t have a black cape, you’re not purple and fuzzy and you don’t count lots. Or say “Ah-ah-ah!”, at all! You go to all this trouble to drink peoples’ blood though, only to chuck it all up. What a waste! Anyway, you fight a big robot thingy and end up oodles of years in the future from where you were, and you look like Iggy Pop. But you just needed a drink. You also sound a wee bit Begbie...

Captain Picard tells you that if you want to sleep more then you’ll have to stop the next coming of Saddam Hussein’s hot boyfriend. So he just has to tell the bloke to think of his mother-in-law then, we guess. Ah, sleepybobos time!

Upgradeable whips, swords and claws aid in fighting in what’s a quite deft combat system, in-between stealth requirements (you dirty rat!) and enough cutscenes to make you wonder if Konami still know what the definition of ‘game’ is. Bloody frustrated moviemakers!

While the first Lords of Shadow smacked of Kratos does Transylvania, rather than having pretty much anything to do with what Castlevania originally was, so does its follow-up. We do kinda question taking a beloved name that’s in a specific format and then almost completely changing it. Honestly, the next thing you know they’ll be turning Plants vs Zombies into a fucking third-person shooter...

But the first LoS was super-ace fun. Despite a promising premise, this choppy/changey sequel’s much harder to love, at least without staunch dedication. A little more bite and a little less bark may have satisfied us. Baby.

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