Honourable Mentions: Dracula: Origin

Back into the world of games and this time a lovely looking point and click adventure concerning Dracula. Unlike A Vampyre’s Story, the creators of Dracula: Origin have eschewed comedy for a serious story set around the Dracula novel… ish…

The cover says inspired by and, whilst the hero of the tale is Van Helsing (Kevin Delaney), the villain is Dracula (also Kevin Delaney), Seward has a brief cameo and the person in peril is Mina, this has little to do with the actual original story. It seems to flirt around some Lovecraftian elements and draws a little from various filmic versions of the story – though only a little.

The film begins with Van Helsing receiving word that Jonathon Harker has faced his doom at Dracula’s hands, whilst the young man was posing as a librarian. That sounds awfully like the start of Hammer’s first Dracula feature Horror of Dracula. Dracula attends Mina, trying to work out how he will tell her that her love is dead (or worse) when he realises that perhaps the fiend is in London.

Your investigations will lead you to the old Godalming house, where Dracula is in residence complete with bug eating caretaker. However, whilst you are gaining entrance to the beast’s lair the sun has set (for sunlight is an issue in this version of the tale) and Dracula has headed off to have his toothsome way with Mina. There follows a chase around the globe (or Cairo, Vienna and Transylvania, at least) in order to save Mina.

It seems that Dracula is going to use Mina in a ritual to resurrect his first love – a similar concept to that used in Batman Vs Dracula - though I suspect the similarity is coincidental. Of course you also have to deal with vampire brides (or in this case bride). The bride, Jada, did seem modelled on Monica Bellucci’s bride in Dracula (1992).

Gameplay is fairly languid, Van Helsing rushes nowhere and you are never in peril as the game will not let you do anything that might kill the character. Puzzle solving is the order of the day. The puzzles aren’t too adventure game logic and often the game eschews that for some self contained logic puzzles that work quite well. However it can be frustrating as the game will not let you progress if it doesn’t know you know. So you see a number on screen and try to use it but you can’t access the puzzle because you haven’t clicked the number for Van Helsing to state he’s read it.

The biggest issue with this is the shortness of game. It was a lazy Sunday’s length of play – finished in time for our evening meal. Perhaps it was no shorter than a Vampyre’s Story but it didn’t have the humour to make up for it. However there is a modicum of humour in this – though how intentional is questionable – it is the only game I can think of where you find (for puzzle use) “a dried up, empty, beaver’s cadaver.” Still, a Dracula related point and click if you like that sort of game.