Bram Stoker's Dracula Trailer When Dracula leaves the captive Jonathan Harker and Transylvania for London in search of Mina Harker -- the spitting image of Dracula's long-dead wife, Elisabeta -- obsessed vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing sets out to end the madness.
Dracula. the book by Bram Stoker, is ideal for a computer game. The main characters narrate by turns, telling the story through letters, journals and recordings. The reader is the only one who can bring these strands together and see, long before any of the characters, the enormity of the horror to come. You can see what a good rpg this would make - along the lines of Ultima Underworld. Furthermore, the book is out of copyright. Psygnosis, however, have paid ready money for Dracula, the film license, so it must have something special in mind surely? Perhaps a game that tries to recapture Coppola's lush visual style? Well, no, actually. Parts of it have a superficial resemblance to Ultima Underworld, but the game uses the Wolfenstein game engine. That means wandering around a maze killing things.
The game opens in a mouldering graveyard but quickly moves to the crypt. You start off with ten silver bullets, three communion wafers and an apple. The bullets are for shooting the undead which rise out of coffins dotted about the place. I don't have a manual so I'll just have to call them skeleton, zombie, man in armour and chap in lion suit. The last is the hardest to kill. The communion wafers, or - as they are presumably consecrated -the particles of the Host, are used to seal the coffins. And the apple? That's for keeping your strength up. As is the way in adventure games, people have left bread, wine and bits of chicken all over the place. It looks like Glyndebourne except, of course, for the corpses hanging from the trees.
There are spare silver bullets and particles of the Host to be had. The latter are inaccurately called 'Holy Wafers' - obviously the fires of Spitalfields were kindled in vain. You will also find keys to unlock the various gates that impede your progress. There are traps and secret doors, which you can operate after a simple bit of puzzle-solving. Some flagstones will spin you round until you find the right switch to turn them off. Other switches reveal hidden staircases. Often, you throw a switch and then blunder around for ages trying to see what difference it has made.
As in Wol/cnstein, when you find a locked door you can bet that the key is miles away; this is a game that cries out for maps. During your journey through the crypt things get more hectic: in some rooms there are four or more coffins, all spewing forth monsters, so you have to have sharp reflexes to shoot them, seal the coffins and heal yourself at the same time. A dodgy mouse driver here and you're dead.
Control is by mouse and keyboard. Like Ultima Underworld, moving the mouse with the left button down will move you in that direction. The further you move it to the edge of the screen, the faster you go. You pick things up by standing close and clicking on the mouse button. Use objects by double-clicking on them. The inventory is a bar along the bottom of the screen; the top shows how much ammunition you have left and how many coffins there are to seal. The space bar toggles between a knife and your pistol and both weapons are deployed with the right mouse button. Pressing Escape brings up your current score and a mouse click gets you to the load/save game/quit menu. You can save a game at any point.
The graphics are suitably moody, and there is a good handling of light. The trouble is that they are very repetitive and do not scroll well. This makes the game hard on the eyes. It has some atmospheric music together with simple but effective sound effects.
There are three zones in the game. The first is the crypt, then Carfax Abbey and. at last. Dracula's castle. As you seal the last tomb in each zone Dracula appears in one of his incarnations - a bat, a wolf and finally the old man - a kind of boss of the level which you may have come acrossbefore.
As you go through the zones, the enemies get tougher. Whereas the early undead specimens just hack at you, later adversaries will shoot at you. There are gypsies and brides of Dracula to look forward to. The aim of the game is therefore to rob Dracula of his servants by sealing their tombs and dispatch the bloody Count himself. It is hard work and 1 must admit that there were some bits I couldn't have got through without the help of my esteemed chums, the HackMasters'. However, the things you have to do are much the same - you shoot things, you pick things up. you chuck things in coffins - and there are times when it lurches from challenging to frustrating.
It is one of those games where you think: blow this for a game of darts and then five minutes later you are back again for more punishment. If you want either an undemanding adventure or a shoot 'em up-with a twist and some strategy, then this is for you. People who liked Wolfenstrin will love it (although be aghast at the scrolling).
Dracula. the book by Bram Stoker, is ideal for a computer game. The main characters narrate by turns, telling the story through letters, journals and recordings. The reader is the only one who can bring these strands together and see, long before any of the characters, the enormity of the horror to come. You can see what a good rpg this would make - along the lines of Ultima Underworld. Furthermore, the book is out of copyright. Psygnosis, however, have paid ready money for Dracula, the film license, so it must have something special in mind surely? Perhaps a game that tries to recapture Coppola's lush visual style? Well, no, actually. Parts of it have a superficial resemblance to Ultima Underworld, but the game uses the Wolfenstein game engine. That means wandering around a maze killing things.
The game opens in a mouldering graveyard but quickly moves to the crypt. You start off with ten silver bullets, three communion wafers and an apple. The bullets are for shooting the undead which rise out of coffins dotted about the place. I don't have a manual so I'll just have to call them skeleton, zombie, man in armour and chap in lion suit. The last is the hardest to kill. The communion wafers, or - as they are presumably consecrated -the particles of the Host, are used to seal the coffins. And the apple? That's for keeping your strength up. As is the way in adventure games, people have left bread, wine and bits of chicken all over the place. It looks like Glyndebourne except, of course, for the corpses hanging from the trees.
There are spare silver bullets and particles of the Host to be had. The latter are inaccurately called 'Holy Wafers' - obviously the fires of Spitalfields were kindled in vain. You will also find keys to unlock the various gates that impede your progress. There are traps and secret doors, which you can operate after a simple bit of puzzle-solving. Some flagstones will spin you round until you find the right switch to turn them off. Other switches reveal hidden staircases. Often, you throw a switch and then blunder around for ages trying to see what difference it has made.
As in Wol/cnstein, when you find a locked door you can bet that the key is miles away; this is a game that cries out for maps. During your journey through the crypt things get more hectic: in some rooms there are four or more coffins, all spewing forth monsters, so you have to have sharp reflexes to shoot them, seal the coffins and heal yourself at the same time. A dodgy mouse driver here and you're dead.
Control is by mouse and keyboard. Like Ultima Underworld, moving the mouse with the left button down will move you in that direction. The further you move it to the edge of the screen, the faster you go. You pick things up by standing close and clicking on the mouse button. Use objects by double-clicking on them. The inventory is a bar along the bottom of the screen; the top shows how much ammunition you have left and how many coffins there are to seal. The space bar toggles between a knife and your pistol and both weapons are deployed with the right mouse button. Pressing Escape brings up your current score and a mouse click gets you to the load/save game/quit menu. You can save a game at any point.
The graphics are suitably moody, and there is a good handling of light. The trouble is that they are very repetitive and do not scroll well. This makes the game hard on the eyes. It has some atmospheric music together with simple but effective sound effects.
There are three zones in the game. The first is the crypt, then Carfax Abbey and. at last. Dracula's castle. As you seal the last tomb in each zone Dracula appears in one of his incarnations - a bat, a wolf and finally the old man - a kind of boss of the level which you may have come acrossbefore.
As you go through the zones, the enemies get tougher. Whereas the early undead specimens just hack at you, later adversaries will shoot at you. There are gypsies and brides of Dracula to look forward to. The aim of the game is therefore to rob Dracula of his servants by sealing their tombs and dispatch the bloody Count himself. It is hard work and 1 must admit that there were some bits I couldn't have got through without the help of my esteemed chums, the HackMasters'. However, the things you have to do are much the same - you shoot things, you pick things up. you chuck things in coffins - and there are times when it lurches from challenging to frustrating.
It is one of those games where you think: blow this for a game of darts and then five minutes later you are back again for more punishment. If you want either an undemanding adventure or a shoot 'em up-with a twist and some strategy, then this is for you. People who liked Wolfenstrin will love it (although be aghast at the scrolling).
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