Legacy of Kain: Defiance is an 3rd-person 3D action adventure, the sequel to the Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain (released on PlayStation and PC in 1995). Actually this 'Legacy of Kain' series consists from five games - Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen, Soul Reaver, Soul Reaver 2, Blood Omen 2 and now Defiance. Once more you must venture into the dark world of Nosgoth, but this time around you take control of both blood sucking Kain, and soul devouring Raziel in and epic battle to save the world. Kain and Raziel, are simply complex, well-developed characters in a complex, well-developed world. This makes their choices, for evil or for good, cohesive and understandable.
The whole scenario is divided into dozen chapters, during each of which you will alternately play as either the flesh-and-blood vampire Kain or the soul-sucking wraith Raziel Kain’s portion of the game is geared a bit more toward action, since his powers do not share Raziel's spectral shift ability (he can shift from the material plane to the spectral plane at any time) that allow for more complex puzzles.
Fighting is certainly a big part of Defiance, whether you're playing as Kain or Raziel. The game features a more robust fighting system than its predecessors that allows you to string moves together into combos. Now, you can slash at your enemies, toss them into the air, and execute a number of ground&air-based combos that are unlocked as you progress through the game. You will be also able to telekinetically acquire enemies from a distance and throw them onto spikes. This ability can also be used to throw enemies over high ledges screaming to their death, into fires and breakable objects or back into Raziel and Kain as a combo starter. In terms of the game itself, it plays very easily. The new combat system works great, giving you the ability to take on multiple enemies at once. Especially, the mid-air based combos work pretty well.
If I have any complaints, it would be choice of camera positions. The new camera system, which uses a fixed position instead of previous games where it followed the character, now simultaneously gives you both a wider view of the action (to get more of a cinematic feel), but also can be a pain in the rear when in combat. There were a number of points in the Defiance where the camera shifted to such a point that some scenery object got in the way of either you, or the person you were trying to attack. It also makes jumping onto platforms more challenging because it doesn't center behind the character, as in previous games. There are some genuinely frustrating moments here, all thanks to the terrible camera.
Overall, the game's combat and core gameplay are much, much better than Blood Omen 2 and Soul reaver 2. If you played any previous Legacy of Kain games, then this is one you will have to pick up. (It's not necessary to have played the previous four games first, but I would highly recommend that you do, especially if you like Vampires!)
gameplay movies: movie1 (3MB), movie2 (5.9MB), movie3 (6.7MB), movie4 (7.3MB), movie5 (6.2MB), movie6 (3.2MB), movie7 (5.7MB) /DivX required/
System Requirements:
Minimum: CPU: Pentium III 700MHz (or Athlon equivalent), 128 MB RAM, DirectX 9.0b compatible 32Mb 3D Accelerated Card with TnL support, Windows compatible sound card (DirectX 9.0b compatible), 4x CD-ROM, 2GB free HDD space
Recommended: CPU: Pentium4) 1.3GHz (or Athlon XP equivalent), 256 MB RAM, DirectX 9.0b compatible 64Mb 3D Accelerated Card with TnL support, Windows compatible sound card (DirectX 9.0b compatible), 8x CD-ROM, 2GB free HDD space