The itch to destroy some demonic monsters in video game form has been reaching a fever point lately, and I have recently been searching for a Diablo 3 clone to play on my Xbox One. I randomly ran into a news article about a game called Victor Vran that was coming out with an expansion pack featuring both Motorhead and Lloyd Kaufman. Yes, you read that correctly. I immediately pulled the trigger and ordered a copy of Victor Vran: Overkill Edition, ready to jump into the fantastical world!
A little backstory about the game itself. Victor Vran was originally released on Steam back in 2015 and is classified as an action role-playing. It was developed by the Bulgarian independent studio Haemimont Games, who recently worked on the most recent Tropico titles. Definitely a far stretch. Players take on the role of Victor Vran, demon hunter, and dive headfirst into a plot about trying to find another demon hunter as you play through a 19th-century playground of cities and other dark and brooding locations. The levels do get varied as you travel through graveyards, underground caves, and Old West-style levels. It is all a little generic, but that is forgivable by the addictive gameplay. And this game is couch co-op! That should be reason enough for a purchase.
I had a blast playing through levels with my wife. The game can get difficult at times, but can easily be solved by upgrading your character, which we will get to that in a bit. There are big bosses, mini-bosses, and lots and lots of enemies thrown at you. You will be fighting all manners of archetypes, including undead skeletons, spiders, vampires, supernatural beings, and many more. Each enemy type will attack you differently as well. There was a lot of thought that went into the gameplay, and it definitely shines through. The game plays on my Xbox One a smooth as butter 60 fps, except for a few times when it dips a little bit lower when a plethora of monsters flooded the screen. The smoothness is definitely an asset to the gameplay, as it leads to a much more responsive playthrough.
Victor Vran is an overly enjoyable dungeon crawler that borrows from some of the best in the genre while still adding its own touches to bring the game to the next level. One of the biggest changes to the tried and true formula is the addition of the ability to let your character actually jump. The level design does incorporate that added feature by letting you jump on buildings and get to higher parts of the level, but not to the level I was expecting with this type of ability.
Sure, it can get repetitive, but that is also the fun of the game. I think I am addicted to this game. I actually might have a problem. Good thing there are hours and hours of gameplay included, and that is just the main story. You can also play through the levels again and again, as there are a multitude of challenges. Starting up a level, you can choose to partake in these challenges ranging from killing 50 spiders or defeating the boss without taking a hit. Some, of course, are much easier than others to achieve.
I will admit right away the only reason that I purchased at first was to play the “Motorhead: Through The Ages” add-on that came packed in with the Overkill edition. But that didn’t happen at first. When I booted up the game the first time, I jumped straight into the main game to get a feel for it. After an hour or so, I backed out to the main menu to jump into “Motorhead.” But I spent a good while trying to find it. I knew something had to be wrong. I did some research on the ‘ol Google, and lo and behold, there was indeed a problem with the Xbox One version. Apparently, the first version released had a printing error from the manufacturer. Basically, the disk that was produced featured the wrong version of the game and did not feature any of the additions advertised on the box. The company was very apologetic and was already working with Microsoft on a solution to the problem, which came a few weeks later with download codes for all of the bonus content. During the time that I was waiting to jump into a Motorhead-filled game, I ventured back into the vanilla version of the game and never looked back. I was having a blast!
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Let’s get into the reason I purchased the game originally, and that was to play the “Motorhead: Through the Ages” add-on pack. This game was designed with the help of Lemmy before he passed away, and if you are a fan of the band or Lemmy or just want to play through a fantastical game based on some of the most iconic metal albums of all time, then this will satisfy you immensely. Albeit a little on the shorter side, you get all the features you get in the regular game, designed with a heavy metal album cover aesthetic.
You start off in an area called The Bar At The End Of The World, and the bartender/narrator for the game is none other than Lloyd Kaufman of Troma Entertainment fame. You don’t get to actually play as Lemmy, but you do get his guitar to use as a weapon and can discover his clothing to use. The entire add-on features music from Motorhead, ranging from about 16 songs, including the ever-famous Ace Of Spades! This is one of my favorite parts of the game. You will also fight some large bosses ripped straight from famous Motorhead albums, including Orgasmatron. I don’t want to give away too much about the storyline here, but it works out in a natural and logical way, well, as logical as a game based on Motorhead can be. You also get another add-on included in the package called “Fractured Worlds,” which I haven’t dived into as much as the other levels.
One of the biggest problems is the menu system. You can definitely tell that this game was originally designed for a computer-based playthrough, and the menu system is definitely better suited. Not entirely broken, per se, but the developers could have definitely spent a little more time developing this. It is confusing at times to change weapons or even try to figure out which is the best item for your character. This is where the action RPG comes into play. You discover new weapons, abilities, gear, cards, and outfits throughout all the levels, and they all affect your character, but not without spending too much time trying to figure out the menus to make sure your character is powered up in the best way. There is also a crafting system that is overly confusing for the normal player. If you have to research on the internet how to craft and combine items, it definitely needs to be streamlined a little bit!
Although there are some faults here, I can’t remember having such a great time with a controller in my hand in a long time. The game is definitely addicting, and once you start playing, you just want to continue forward and beat that next level. The addition of couch co-op makes it that much better, and this is jump-in and jump-out play. I highly recommend picking up this game if you are a fan of dungeon crawlers with RPG elements. It is so easily comparable to Diablo III, and that is definitely a good thing! Get to know the name of Victor Vran, as I think he will be around for a long time to come!
