Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver

Crystal Dynamics took the reigns for this, the next chapter in the Legacy of Kain, revamping and retooling and reinventing the solid but dated game originally developed by Silicon Knights and published by Activision.

The first of these two Legacy games was a skewed-top-view, methodical role-playing-game following the adventures of Kain himself, a forlorn anti-hero reluctantly coming to terms with the fact that he was a blood sucking vampire. Poor fella.

That game was so totally immersive, so totally creepy, dark, somber and heavyhearted that it changed the face of interactive gaming; evil is perversely honorable and rivers of blood and damnation eternal can be tastefully dealt with in a game after all. Blood Omen was not just a gore-game, it was a work of art, a distinctively grave, gothic tale of woe and dread. It was a brilliant encountering even as it was flawed as a video game.

It verily screamed "make me a sequel."

Stop Screaming

Some three years later comes this equally gothic, grave and woeful follow-up tale. However, unlike most sequels spawned in the infertile minds of game publishers that only bring us more blood, more gore, more moves and a few more ensanguined polygons, this supplement is both a splendid tribute to its morose predecessor and a brilliant fresh new game all its own.

Soul Reaver is a full blown 3D adventure, more akin to Tomb Raider type games than its original Action/RPG genre, and in this new incarnation it�s simply astounding. The fact that Soul Reaver is rich with dark characters in a foreboding realm- two realms, in fact- and the sum total is one of the best game of it�s kind: well-rounded, intelligent, lots of blood, guts and gore. Carnage and mayhem for the Thinking Man.

If you haven�t played the first Legacy game you�ll pardon me as I spoil the ending, Kain submits to his evil nature in a Darth Vader goes "Goth" kinda way.

Here we are introduced to the aftermath of this capitulation: a horribly defiled world of poorly bred vampires plus an equally adulterated spirit world. To wit, Kain not only went sour, he took the world with him. He�s now the consummate bad ass in a bad, bad land.

New Sucker on the Block

Enter Raziel, progeny of Kain and the first of his siblings to show the genetic trait of a true vampire: Wings! Suddenly faced with his own immortal deficiency (aileron envy?), Kain smashes his lieutenant�s idealization and casts him to the pits of hell, leaving him for dead, body and soul.

Raziel does, in fact, die and this is where the fun begins. You play as Raziel partially restored to life by an "elder" who sets you up with your rotted corpse and some truly wicked, dead-vampire skills. This body has the strength and agility of Spiderman (minus the webs), skills of an un-dead soul-sucker (more than a Bram Stoker-esque "vampire"), and the quest of any old dejected ex-hell-spawn: Vengeance.

And those once beautiful wings, now crumpled and tattered? It�s not all bad, at least you can use them like a hang-glider, adding a Batman characteristic to the un-dead-Spidey-The-Impaler arsenal.

The most stunning attribute, which holds nicely to gory gothic theme of a grand scheme, is the fact that while you set about skivering and/or burning your foes with fire or sunlight, you-as-Raziel are no longer affected by traditional un-dead bane- you are the dead-un-dead resurrected, after all. You can�t even die, in fact, though you must suck up a great many spirits in order to transfer yourself to the corporeal world, where most of the progress is made, returning to the ethereal world should you have the living crap kicked out of you or should you foolishly fall into water, you�re only real vulnerability. Once in the ethereal world, a parallel universe kind of place, your objectives change, access to some areas open up while others become restricted and with the thrust of purpose being a return to the world that has the characters that bleed, the corporeal world.

My One, Long Winded Gripe

Played on the PlayStation and its near-perfect use of the Dual Shock Analog Controller, Soul Reaver rocks, with only the occasional screwy camera angle fouling smooth and fluid control. With the PC version and its finer graphic clarity and better polygon push, however, I became a little more stymied.

Soul Reaver plays well enough with Gravis� phenomenal, all-purpose gamepad, the Xterminator (though it lacks force feedback). The Xterminator, however, with it�s ergonomic, analog thumb stick, has an oddly placed digital D-pad which ends up playing clumsy, especially when precision jumps are crucial.

Worse, though, is the keyboard control which is not so much the fault of the keys but of the roaming, panning, swooping chase-camera. You see, using the arrow keys (default), the "up" arrow only works as the "forward" key when the camera is tucked directly behind Raziel. The camera, as mentioned, does a lot of beautiful, self-styled cinematography but that also changes the purport of the key. If you�re leaning on the one key and running down a rampart, for example, and the camera slowly pans to Raziel�s left, then the character slowly veers to the right and constant tweaks to Raziel�s line are in order. This is not a big problem until the camera decides to swoop across the room for a different view entirely and at the most inopportune time and Raziel has now made a sudden and unforeseen grand exit off a cliff or something.

This is the bane of many a 3rd-person-perspective games whether using a thumb-thingy, D-pad or keys, but it really sticks out here, more so to me as I�ve also been playing Pysgnosis�s Drakan in which a great deal of the control is allotted to the mouse. Drakan plays smooth and near-flawless because of its 1st-person-shooter configuration in a 3rd-person game. Soul Reaver does not support mouse control in any way and leaves one fighting the camera angles as much as the enemies.

The problem might have been overlooked had one been able to use both game-pad and keyboard at whim. As it stands, the game plays with only one device or the other. Too, the problem could have been solved altogether had they left the character independent of the chase camera. Oh well. It�s my only gripe, really, and one I�ve solved readily enough by way of compromise: I now play Soul Reaver with Microsoft�s Sidewinder Freestyle Pro, with the motion-sensing analog control off and using it�s digital D-pad and buttons only. This makes for a less-fluid but more controlled character, with easy access shoulder buttons evoking the action without any shift in hand position. I�m sure I sound like a finicky if not downright ham-fisted gamer, and I�m sure my solution is not a compromise Eidos and Crystal Dynamics ever intended.

The game still rocks.

Steeped

There is a complex mythology attached to the Kain�s legacy, brought to us slowly, methodically via the best cutscenes and voice-over work you�ll ever encounter. It�s a veritable Vincent Price festival.

Plus, you are living a mystery as much as progressing through an adventure here, often finding that not all is what you are led to believe, that your benefactor is verbosely enigmatic and you yourself recall things and tell yourself stories that suggest glimmers of truth without revealing too much. The feeling of dread permeates the entire game so even though you have a romping good time skewering you foes on a handy pointy weapon (items which are liberally scattered about) or giving them an auto-aimed toss onto a nearby campfire, you constantly wonder about your karma and if you are not just a pawn in someone else�s game.

Me Thinks They Call This an Epic

Though there is much straight forward action here; hunting and fighting and climbing and exploring, Soul Reaver is damn complicated, especially when one considers the dual nature of each level, it�s mirror imaged worlds that each offer different but codependent means to progress. Puzzle solving is twice as complicated also as a result. A strategy guide is well advised. I�m astounded by how immersed I am in this game, its dazzling dark graphics, its rich and resplendent characters, its tragic, gothic story. I actually begged (some would say demanded) that I be allowed to review this one for the simple fact Soul Reaver is consuming me anyway, so�

It is simply everything you want in a game. There aren�t any missile-mounted cars here, obviously, nor flying dragons nor NFL referees. But Soul Reaver contains within its parameters everything it needs to be a great game. It refines all these indispensable attributes and suffers only the flaws inherent with chase-cameras.

Top of the Line Bottom Line

It might get better than this but, to date, this is top-of-the-line gaming. Slick, darkly seductive, involved, engrossing, moody, cool.

Pros

Cons

Bottom Line