Thanks to the fine folks at Neocore Games, I had the opportunity to take a beta version of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II for a spin and am happy to report it’s looking like a bigger, badder, meaner and harder game than the first one, especially if you’re hopping into it with your saved hero from the original. I hadn’t played the first game save for some hours with the demo, but Neocore also sent me a code for the Complete Pack, which got a marathon playthrough over the past week or so (and me a nicely maxed out Level 30 Hunter by that cliffhanger ending).

The new game starts off with a rather massive siege on a factory by many enemies being airdropped in capsules and a large army of civilian soldiers assisting Van Helsing and Katarina, his ghostly (and snarky) AI companion. Granted, one could play the beta using a few default high level characters in a few classes, but after trying out a few of these overpowered guys, I decided to take the longer, tougher (yet highly enjoyable and rewarding) route and go through the first game just to have a more personalized experience…

Granted, the beta was initially harder with my Van Helsing to the point where I was spamming potions during one intense rescue mission as some musclebound bruisers and mechanical laser-blasting fiends tried to wipe the poor guy off the map and temporarily take Katarina with him. However, despite a few deaths from bum-rushing brawlers and shielded elite bosses blasting all sorts of white-hot death my way, I managed to prevail. The nice thing about the large map was there ware a number of side missions and even a tower defense-like mode where Van Helsing had the opportunity to warp (or run) around the map before a siege and give orders to the troops. While this was an optional event (one could just choose to let the base commander handle tactics), participating and properly encouraging the fighting men awarded very necessary bonus experience, as even at Level 30, some enemies could whittle away health like a hungry goat taking on some defenseless cabbages.

Another neat touch were the brief cut scenes during the siege that are now fully animated CG that look as they’re done using the game engine. These add a nice sense of realism to the detailed visuals here and if you’ve got a beefy rig, you’ll be running this with all the settings up and grinning like a Cheshire Cat as you beat the stuffing out of all comers (or vice versa). In the build, continual enemy capsule drops kept VH and Katarina on their toes (well Katarina has no toes, but you get the point), and later on, targeted missile strikes during the final phase made venturing too far into the fray nearly impossible. My eventual decision was to hang back at the base camp and let the waves of enemies converge on my position, which was a good idea as the bombardment was pretty intense. Other than a bunch of single and double capsule drop waves to deal with, things only got tough as the rather massive legged metal boss stomped up, targeting away. It wasn’t too hard to take down, but I’d not recommend standing in one place for too long or forgetting about healing up…

As this IS a beta, there’s still a chunk of work to be done before VHII is set to launch. From adding artwork and proper names to the tons of loot, adding the crafting from the first game (which has been enhanced significantly from what I’ve read on the official site) and maybe some balancing on a few enemies here and there (the difficulty seemed set on puree for veteran players), there’s going to obviously be a few changes before the game lands on Steam next month. I loved the first game’s blend of action and humor (the banter between Katarina and Van Helsing along with some fun signage kept the game rolling along with the chuckles as the difficulty escalated considerably), so it’s nice to see it return with a vengeance here. If you haven’t played the original, I’d highly suggest you do, just to check out the blend of Diablo-style action RPG with a European themed set of monsters, steampunk elements and a few other cool touches.

One thing I’m hoping the game leaps for and nails this time out is the number of environments and some more unique monster encounters. The intro to the first game shows a sprawling world map that has some amusing sounding spots and encounters that weren’t in the game at all, so it would be great to see the developer give fans at least a few of those places to visit at some point. Or perhaps included them in a more expansive third game in the series later on down the road. I’m also hoping to see this pop up on a console or three, especially as these types of games are a bit underrepresented on the PS3, Vita, Xbox 360 and Wii U (which could REALLY use a cool chase ‘n chop like this!). That and locking down the visuals to a smooth and reliable frame rate on a console while keeping things looking great would be excellent to see. Of course, that’s all up to sales figures and Neocore getting their hands on some dev kits, so we’ll see how and where that goes, I guess…