Castlevania Lords of Shadow Ultimate Edition. Better late than never: After almost three years of waiting, finally and PC players may fall into Konami's whip Schwinger epic. The implementation is solid, but adds to the game practically nothing added, content and everything remains the same even if the technology has done little. What remains is an action-adventure with bombastic production and a great atmosphere, but also some significant weaknesses.
Thus, after almost three years had hardly anyone expected. Why the long-awaited PC version of coming now? Because Konami already in February 2014 , the sequel to Lords of Shadow 2 will publish - even for home computers. PC fans so now have the chance to catch up on the Konsolenhit in time and experience the exciting history.
The Game: Great production, challenging fights, annoying Camera
Lords of Shadow marks a turning point in the famous Castlevania series : Not as intricate 2D platformer, but as a dark, linear 3D action game presents the series offshoot, now more reminiscent of Devil May Cry or God of War. In Lords of Shadow, the player accompanies the mournful religious warriors Gabriel on a heavily staged fantasy adventure that takes 16 to 20 hours play through challenging levels. Accompanied by an excellent orchestral soundtrack, Gabriel places particular with countless enemies at: vampires, werewolves, golems, ogres and countless other critters skin with his fight Gabriel Cross - crap the minute - a kind of chain whip. Block also still active, light and shadow mage and a goodly selection of combos added - this way you will have many opportunities to the whopping evil. The battle system plays out pretty demanding and doing fine by hand. Only the fixed camera sucks often: Since you never can itself determine the viewing angle, one's opponent in the fray easily lose sight of what sometimes leads to unfair scenes.
But even outside of the fighting is the fixed camera often a real nuisance: When Gabriel roams the strictly defined levels, solving puzzles or moderately small hidden power-ups searches, always determines the game a shot. This then ensures Although often for beautiful film-like panoramas, but just in the simple jumping and climbing sections, the fixed camera angles can be a hindrance, especially since the control does not always react perfectly here. Also ugly: In order to collect some of the optional upgrades, Gabriel must return to old levels and play through this again complete, as soon as he has improved his skills. This form of backtracking - actually a hallmark of previous 2D Castlevania - feels attached and stretched the play time unnecessarily long.
Menus are served only by cumbersome keyboard, a mouse's simply not. Thus, it can be still living, but on the PC it is used here simply better.
However laudable: The Ultimate Edition also contains the two DLCs Reverie and Resurrection. This mini-expansions are linked to the end of the story, but are otherwise in comparison to the main game significantly weaker. Nevertheless, it is fair that the Konami DLC packs with the same package and - unlike some other manufacturers - it does not require an extra fee. All in all, the game is worth its 25 euros so easy.
The PC version of: Graphically good and with all the DLCs, but defects in the control
The PC version of Lords of Shadow is called additive Ultimate Edition. A great name behind which, however, not much is hidden: the slightly dusty technology has in fact barely improved, but thanks to its high resolution and anti-aliasing the image looks sharper and cleaner than at least on consoles. But more is not really necessary, because the game looks even scarce three years after its first publication console still very good. In addition, Lords of Shadow is now playable with mouse and keyboard, albeit with restrictions: In battle, the controller still responds well, climbing and jumping, as well as the frequent Quicktime events, the gamepad control, however the lead. Annoying: menus are served only by cumbersome keyboard, a mouse's simply not. Thus, it can be still living, but on the PC it is used here simply better
However laudable: The Ultimate Edition also contains the two DLCs Reverie and Resurrection. This mini-expansions are linked to the end of the story, but are otherwise in comparison to the main game significantly weaker. Nevertheless, it is fair that the Konami DLC packs with the same package and - unlike some other manufacturers - it does not require an extra fee. All in all, the game is worth its 25 euros so easy.
Copy protection information: Castlevania Lords of Shadow - Ultimate Edition must be activated once via Steam. This also applies to the disc version.
