Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood
WEREWOLF: THE APOCALYPSE – E ARTHBLOOD is an old-fashioned brawler with teeth.
The Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 release date may keep running away from us like a startled deer, but here’s another chance to enter the World of Darkness at least. Concerned with werewolves rather than vampires (clue’s in the name), it’s an action-RPG where the ‘RPG’ bit is pushed to the sidelines until it’s almost invisible. It’s earnest, a little bit shonky, clearly wriggling through some budget constraints… and proof that one rough but fun game is worth a hundred glossy but dull ones.
It’s not a game to wow somebody who happens to walk past while you’re playing. The character models have arrived fashionably late from 2010. Still, Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood is refreshingly keen to throw you straight into the action. The game starts off with a chat between you and a few members of your pack regarding your plan to sabotage a nearby fracking site. And twenty minutes or so later, you’ve inhabited all three of hero Cahal’s forms, most of the game mechanics have been introduced, and sufficient drama has taken place to kick off the next leg of the plot.
The story jogs along like this until the end, which works very well. Whether gameplay itself hurtles along without pausing for breath is up to you. The bulk of the game is made up of fairly small areas full of enemies and, fundamentally, it’s all about making your way to the exit so you can enter the next area. This is where the cool ability to change forms comes into play.
In two-legged form, looking like a ne’er do well more likely to start a fight than stop one, Cahal can silently take down guards and shoot a (strangely cumbersome) crossbow. He can also sabotage reinforcementspawning doors if undetected, dealing hefty damage to anybody who comes through them. In wolf form, meanwhile, he can move faster and slip through vents, which is great for a stealthy approach.
If you’re careful, you can make your way through a surprisingly large
amount of the adventure without engaging in combat. While I give myself a pat on the back each time I successfully escape unseen, more often than not I get caught sneaking across the floor like a guilty child with their hand in the cookie jar, which I think is the best way to experience the game. As soon as I get hit I automatically transform into the third, most powerful, form – full-on werewolf – used for combat.
You can, if you wish, initiate this transformation at the first sign of an enemy, and there’s reason to do so. Combat is rather simple – the AI isn’t
I simply slaughtered him and everybody else in one epic fight
exactly Deep Blue level, and it’s a bit button-bashy – but dammit it’s fun. Tearing through squishy humans, occasionally grabbing one to rip apart, is a violent joy. When you’re forced into combat after a bungled attempt to slip past unnoticed, though, you benefit from having thinned out the numbers a little and (hopefully) weakened at least some of the reinforcements. In this way, the time and effort you put into trying to be stealthy is still rewarded.
WOLF’S WORTH
One sign that the original vision for the game may have been grander than the available budget is the implementation of choice; or, rather, the lack thereof. Conversations rarely offer any meaningful decisions, and there are only really three occasions where you can approach a situation in two very different ways. But what occasions they are! One, in a prison, tasks you with running errands for an incarcerated mafia boss in order to access a secret area. This is what I did… first time round.
In my second playthrough, I simply slaughtered him and everybody else in one epic fight, after which my friend – expressing hilarious shock at my actions – gave me the keycard I needed, which had been recovered from the bloody corpse of the mafioso.
Combat is arguably oversimple, and rarely a challenge on any difficulty. The inability to backtrack or create multiple saves means the rare instances of choice are one-shot deals. Yet I’ve played this game from start to finish twice, and enjoyed it both times, which counts for a lot. It’s a B-movie experience in the best possible way; not so bad it’s good, but so determined it’s good.