Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Video Game, E3 2010: Storming the Village GP (Cam) HD | Game Trailers & Videos | GameTrailers.com

The above trailer is showcasing one of the big games I'm looking forward to this year. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, the next generation of 3D Castlevania games.

Just a little info about Castlevania. It's usually been a sidescrolling dungeon-crawling game with a Halloween theme to it. Usually it centers upon the story of Dracula's resurrection, and your attempt at stopping it, or killing him once again. Usually you play as one of the Belmont clan, who has been fighting Dracula for years. Sometimes, the main character shifts to someone unrelated to the Belmont clan. The hallmark weapon in the game is a whip, because for some reason Dracula and all the horrors he enlists as his minions can only be killed by a whip.

The game is known for it's great art and sometimes brutal difficulty. Sometimes there are waves upon waves of enemies that you have to battle.

There have been several forays into the 3D world for Castlevania, but none of them have been very successful. They've been plagued by poor execution, controls (both camera and otherwise), and the games overall haven't been that fun.

With Lords of Shadow, hopefully this changes. It's being supervised by the legendary Hideo Kojima, who's got a track record of successes. The voice cast has some amazing voice actors as well, including Robert Carlyle as the main character, Patrick Stewart (!) as his mentor, and Natascha McElhone as the main character's dead wife. You know Konami is going for a homerun for this game.

From the trailer I linked a the top, the game looks beautiful. The framerate is quite solid, the action looks fun. Only problem I can see with it is that the grab system looks a little flawed. I can't really see using it in the middle of combat with a lot of enemies. Then again, I usually just hack and slash my way through everything until nothing moves.


Let's hope there's an easter egg where you can cut at a wall and expose a ham. Points if you know what game I'm referring to (hint: it's a Castlevania game).

No release details yet, but hopefully we'll get a date by the end of the week, or within the next few months.