Monster Slaying in Van Helsing

Neocore’s The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is an action-RPG that lets you use magic, swords and guns in a Diablo-style action role-playing game. The mechanics in this game should be familiar to genre fans, where the action is presented from an overhead view and you run around maps wiping out packs of enemies then scoop up the loot they drop.

Making kills earns you experience to level up and accumulate points. Some of these points can be used to boost Van Helsing’s primary attributes, and others go into a skill tree that’s split into three main branches: swords, guns and magic.

In addition to using points to power up individual skills, you’re able to learn individual modifiers that can be activated during a fight. Van Helsing builds a resource while he battles that can be used to trigger these multipliers, which then come into play the next time the skill they’re attached to is used. For example, Van Helsing can burn enemies with a fire carpet spell that spreads flame across the ground. If you have enough of the modifier resource available, you can activate a booster that dramatically expands the fire’s area of effect the next time it is cast.

Three modifiers can be activated at a time, adding a little bit more depth to the system as you consider whether you should activate three different multipliers or instead stack the same one three times to greatly enhance its effects. If Neocore adds a lot of useful variety with the modifiers, this could lead to some more interesting battles.

The item system allows for more customization, offering options to combine and break down certain items so you can enhance whatever statistics happen to support your build. In case even after all your skill and item tinkering you’re not powerful enough to cut past enemies, others can join your game, as there’s support for four-player cooperative play.

Whether or not The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing really catches on when its ready depends a lot of factors that aren’t really possible to assess in a short play session, but the basics certainly seem to be there. Enemy types also seem to have varied characteristics, as some will explode into poison clouds when killed and some are resistant to incoming damage from the front, forcing you to move around, stay active, and switch around weapon types. Neocore’s action-RPG is scheduled to be released sometime in the fourth quarter of 2012 for PC and Xbox Live Arcade.

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