Dark Angel: Vampire Apocalypse Horror Games Review

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Title: Dark Angel: Vampire Apocalypse
Format: Video Game
Score:
Platform: PlayStation2
Publisher: Metro 3d, Inc.
Hits: 44

Review of Dark Angel: Vampire Apocalypse

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Comments for Dark Angel: Vampire Apocalypse

• Posted on 2009-01-30
  Yikes
  
  I really got tricked into buying this one based on a fairly cool looking cover. I really like hack and slash games, so I thought this one would be perfect for me. I managed to play this one an hour and I was bored silly. The game play is very stiff and repetitive, the music is really inappropriate and pulls you out of the game. Even the sound effects are terrible. The graphics are fairly weak overall. I can put up with poor graphics and other flaws as long as the game is fun. This game is not fun.
  
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• Posted on 2007-11-04
  Basic Arcade Style Hack and Slash
  
  Mix the item finding and collecting of Diablo (no uniques though) with the endless hack and slash of the first Gauntlet arcade game, and you have this. Great monster and item variety. If you know what to expect, then you can have a lot of mindless fun with the game engine.
  
  Probably the best part of the game is defending the villages, with the villagers fighting along side you. I thought that part was inspired, as far as hack and slash games go.
  
  On the flipside, the game was rushed into fancy packaging without being complete. The story is minimal. It's apparent (I'm not an excellent coder) that twelve hours (one work day!) of touch-ups on the story (have the villagers say different things each month) and a bestiary like Castlevania: Curse of Darkness would have improved the experience. I didn't like the game because the slapdash programming was so obvious.
  
  This also reminded of the original Legend of Zelda for the NES and Gateway to Apshai for Colecovision. You can really get into the exploring aspect of the randomly generated dungeons. I thought the music was pretty bad... I mean rock and roll in a dark ages type adventure game? Didn't do it for me.
  
  So you who are reading this review, ask yourself this: have you played through Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, Baldur's Gate, Dark Alliance II *may be expensive*, Champions of Norrath OR Champions Return to Arms (Norrath one and two are essentially the same game), Castlevania Curse of Darkness, and the computer version of Diablo (one and two)? If the answer is yes, and you liked them, you'll like this if you don't expect a story. If the answer is no, buy one of the better games mentioned, you'll like it more.
  
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• Posted on 2007-06-19
  More Fun then reviews lead one to believe...
  
  By far this is not a perfect game. therefore I shall attempt to review it on its own merits. it is a bit of a diablo hack & slash clone (which I like!) it is bland and the sound can get annoying but for those of you that liked Gauntlet seven sorrows or Gauntlet Dark Legasy then this might be for you since the formula is so similar! you "level up" more through equipment then any of the standard rpg systems BUT ive played a little game called Jade Cocoon (sorta like dark cloud 1) and this is almost exactly the same play mechanics. so for 5 to 10 bucks its a diablo light version for anyone that likes hack & slash rpg's. gauntlet fans might want to give it a rantal (or buy since renting is about 5 bucks) its definately underrated true theres minimal story but in Hack & Slash games sometimes I really don't want to be annoyed by cinimatic sequences every 5 minutes, sometimes I just prefer Mindless Killing. and the wealth of enemies are enough for anyone here! (albeit a bit endless at times) 3 stars in general but 4 stars for fun factor! if you dont need FF (insert #) cinimatics or drop dead graphics.
  
  Overall Rating: 3 stars.
  
  Sound: 2 stars repetitive and few songs.
  
  Fun: 4 stars if multi player had been added this could have been far better. as it is the hack and slash elements are good.
  
  Graphics: dungeons are ok, towns a bit bland and unpopulated, Creatures look Sweet and are varied! 3 1/2 stars
  
  I Own BG Dark Alliance 1 and 2 and also bards tale, Champions of norrath and at arms! so I am well versed on the subject of hack & slash. I do feel with more polish and more time (it feels very rushed) this game could have been a title like Baldurs gate or champions of norrath. Unfortunately the developers felt they had to rush this one onto the shelf but its a good distraction for a day or two.
  
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• Posted on 2005-07-05
  One of the most boring games I've ever played
  
  No story, character, graphics, controls suck. All I can say is that I'm glad I found this at EB Games for only $5. If I read all the negative reviews on here first before I bought it, I still would not have spent $5. That's pretty bad when a game isn't worth that and this is one. I played it for about 15 minutes and I'll never play it again. Don't waste your time on this one.
  
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• Posted on 2005-02-06
  Disappointing game
  
  Dark Angel is a disappointing game. Allegedly it is an RPG, but it doesn't feature most of the elements that one would expect: there is no epic opening cinematic, there are no cut scenes, there is no plot or story, there is basically no dialogue, there is very little in the way of character interaction. Instead, the player gets a very bare-bones gaming experience. In fact, it feels like the designers developed a combat system, ran out of money and then released the game as-is. Basically you send the character to an area on the map and fight monsters and fight monsters and fight monsters and then fight monsters some more. The map has nine locations--three towns, three dungeons that you can work down through the levels, and three outdoor wasteland-type places. You can go to the towns and get up to four missions at a time. This gives some minimal variety to the game, but not quite enough to redeem the game. Missions are along the lines of "go to a certain level of a dungeon and fight a certain boss monster" or "retrieve an item and bring it to a certain place." The latter type of mission is not really that challenging because once you get the item you can immediately exit to the map and return to the assigned location with no fear of being attacked along the road. There is no reason why your character should ever die either because if you get low in HP you can use the same procedure of exiting to the map and returning to a town where your health will be restored. Quite frankly the ability to exit a location at any moment is a design flaw--it takes away the challenge from combat.
  
  The towns are very bare-bones--it is simply a town square with about half a dozen people milling about. Depending on the town, there will be one, two or three people who has a name floating over his or her head indicating that this is someone that you want to talk to. These characters can buy or sell items or give missions. The items are generally about the same that you randomly win during combat. Occasionally there is a nice item, but buy it if you see it because the next time the character will have a different set of randomly-generated items. The other people of the towns each have one thing to say. Once you find out that monsters are stronger at night or that the child wants to be like you when she grows up, there is no reason ever to interact with the character again because that's all the person has to say. If the game designers had put in a little more effort and included random dialogue for the characters--let's say a couple dozen random and occasionally funny quotes for each character, that would have significantly improved the gaming experience. Cheap games can occasionally be redeemed if it seems like the designers tried to squeeze as much as possible out of their limited budget. As it is, however, the lack of dialog just seems lame.
  
  The game includes some stats and abilities--in the character screen you can see the scores for strength, intellect, health, HP, spirit, level, Exp and gold. On the map screen there are the scores for research, military and economic. When you complete a mission the reward is typically a boost to one of these last three scores. However, it is not entirely clear why you want to fight a boss monster in order to add points to your "research" or "economic." At no point anywhere in the game or booklet do they explain what these stats mean. These score don't even appear on the character screen, so exactly whose scores are they? It is all very odd.
  
  Is the game completely worthless? Considering how half-baked and unfinished the game seems, surprisingly the answer is "no, not completely." The monsters are all easy to kill by mashing the attack button, but the developers did put in some effort into creating a variety of types of enemies to fight--from fire shooting goblins to vampires to ghosts to zombies to spiders to various other kinds of ghouls and monsters. While the dungeons themselves become rather repetitive after a while, the variety of monsters in Dark Angel is not that bad. I have certainly seen games that have a much worse variety of monsters. The music is at times good, but kind of erratic. In the dungeons the music ranges from cheesy metal to somewhat listenable metal. However, songs are often followed by inexplicably long pauses with no music and then the music will suddenly start up again. The monsters in the dungeons emit suitably spooky growls and groans. Are these couple OK elements enough to redeem this bad game? Unfortunately, no, overall it's just not very good. To call this game a Diablo clone would be doing injustice to Diablo--instead, Dark Angel is more like a poor imitation of a third-rate Diablo clone.
  
  
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