Van Helsing sniper Zx100 review

Van Helsing sniper Zx100- Sponsored by Satan???

Review written by
Griffin Cost

June 19th, 2014

I hate to write two depressingly-low reviews in a row, especially so close to the last one I wrote, but this hydra needs its stump burnt before people accidentally buy this disgrace of a product. Not since Cheetahmen II have I suffered through such an unfinished, gimmicky, and downright awful game like Van Helsing sniper Zx100.

Rather than write a traditional review, I think I'll put this in narrative form; consider it a creepypasta based on a true story. For extra fun, take a drink every time the mark of the beast (666) is mentioned. I can guarantee a nice buzz.

An upstanding young man, let's call him Gryffen, goes onto the 3DS eShop, virtual wallet bursting with drug/birthday money, and proceeds into the "What's New" section of the store. There, he sees old favorites re-released like Mega Man II, III, IV, and the like, but then a flashy image of a masked man with a crossbow, and a game titled "Van Helsing Sniper Zx100". Listed at the totally-not-creepy price of $6.66 (Swig), Gryffen happily bought the game, as he had long been a fan of Vampire mythos like the Hellsing Manga and the original Dracula by Bram Stoker.

Booting up the game, Gryffen was greeted with a menagerie of sound effects. He would soon learn that there were most likely less sound effects in the game than what he could count on two hands. Still, he created a save file and entered the world of Vampire-ridden London, ready to relive some memories of games like House of the Dead. There were three options and an awkward empty space, and one of the options, "Survival" was locked until the player had reached 666 points (Swig). So he went into story mode to discover that the game only had six stages (take a sip, I guess), three of which were boss fights. Enthusiastically, he began the first level, and a familiar wolf howl sounded again, as it did with just about every menu action Gryffen would take.

He was confronted with what appeared to be a still-loading city model (it was a 3DS game, so he was patient at first), and a disgusting monstrosity crying for help inside a cage coffin. Gryffen did what any sane man playing a vampire game would do and killed the pale demon. Upon receiving no points and seeing another coffin-dweller spawn, Gryffen came to a startling realization; these poorly-rendered, ps1-level creatures of the damned were not Vampires, but the humans he was trying to save.

He shot the locks off their cage and freed them to wreak havoc on the innocent world below, not stopping to wonder why Vampires would just leave people lying around on rooftops with large, easily-destroyed locks. The next stage of the first level showed him the Vampires, handsome and youthful compared to the humans of before, who were suspiciously absent from this stage. The Vampires did little other than occasionally jump to another rooftop, which did not matter much at all considering the buildings were arranged in a 2.5-D shooting gallery layout.

Griffin became used to the half-rendered graphics and even, in a sort of Stockholm-Syndrome sort of way, began to enjoy himself. Vampires would satisfyingly burst into flames and explode when he shot them with a long-range crossbow with unlimited ammo and no challenge. He became blind to the annoying motion controls, which would have him literally spinning in his seat just trying to re-center the aiming reticle. For a sniper, Van Helsing sure had jittery aim.

Just as he was considering giving the game a higher score, he was informed of two powers Helsing had; one would shoot a static JPEG vortex of light and disintegrate his foes while lagging the game severely, and the other, called "Vampire Bullet Time", turned the entire screen negative and blinded Gryffen with gratuitously bright light while slowing down time. Gryffen thanked all the various Gods that he wasn't epileptic, because he would have certainly had a life-threatening seizure.

Finally, after a grueling hour-and-a-half, Gryffen had completed two-thirds of the game, but at this point the short length seemed a blessing, albeit an ironic blessing, considering the game's strange fascination with the number 666 (swig). He arrived at the second boss, which was a female Green Goblin rip-off with a male's deep voice. It may bear mentioning that Gryffen realized there were only three voice actors in the entire game, one of which was too distorted to consider to be language.

Determined to end his suffering, G-Money initiated the boss fight, and found that the Green Gretchen had a close range attack, undodgeable and only able to cancel through rapid firing (which Gryffen had to practically break the game to use) about 10 percent of the time. The lowest he ever got the boss' health to was about %66.6 (swig). Over and over he died, hearing the same 3-4 sound effects each time, until eventually he heard voices telling him to kill the Pope ringing in the back of his head, getting progressively louder until he could not hear himself think. Electronics around his house began glitching, his phone lines went dead, and he began seeing the humans around him morph and twist until they matched the terrifying models from the game. Just before the pimp hand of Satan himself reached up and claimed his sugar-daddy self, Gryffen's 3DS died, and he threw it down in relief. As it charged he made peace with (insert your personal deity here) and vowed never to touch the awful game again. And also to stop getting everything with Helsing's name attached to it, more of a personal note.

He then wondered if he should tell the world so soon after his Tank! Tank! Tank! review. He feared they would call him a naysayer, a negative Nancy, or a pessimistic Paul. After hours of introspection he decided the truth needed to be told, regardless of what people thought of him, and so he sat down and began typing out what he hoped to be a caveat to any old-school Vampire fans like himself, so that they may be saved from the wrath EnjoyUp had bestowed upon the world.

He sat back and looked at his letter of warning. As he hit publish, he uttered in quiet hopelessness a few simple words...

"This game could have been fun."

"This game could have been great."