Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain Download PC

Developer: Silicon Knights

Release date: 1997

Platform: Windows (PC)

Genre: Action

Version: Full Game

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Download Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain Free for PC Torrent

Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain is an action-adventure game developed by Silicon Knights and published by Crystal Dynamics, with distribution involvement from Activision and BMG Interactive. It was released for the PlayStation in 1996, and a Microsoft Windows port was developed by Semi Logic Entertainments and released jointly by Crystal Dynamics and Activision in 1997. The game is the first title in the Legacy of Kain series.

In Blood Omen, the player follows Kain, a slain nobleman newly resurrected as a vampire. Seeking revenge against his murderers and a cure to his vampiric curse, Kain is tasked with traversing the fictional land of Nosgoth and slaughtering the Circle of Nine, a corrupt oligarchy of godlike sorcerers, but slowly begins to forsake humanity and view his transformation as a blessing.

Silicon Knights designed Blood Omen as "a game which adults would want to play", intending to evolve the action role-playing genre and bring artistic cinema to video game consoles. Reviewers praised its scope and storytelling, but criticized its lengthy loading times. After its release, a dispute arose concerning ownership of its intellectual property rights, after which Crystal Dynamics retained permission to continue the series with their 1999 sequel, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver.

Gameplay

Blood Omen is a two-dimensional action-adventure game. The player controls the protagonist, Kain, from a top-down perspective. Gameplay is divided between outdoor traversal and dungeon crawls, entailing hack and slash combat, puzzle-solving, and navigating hazards. To advance the story, Kain must locate and defeat the members of the Circle of Nine—who act as boss enemies—and return their tokens to the Pillars of Nosgoth. Humans, animals, and a variety of fantasy creatures inhabit the game world, whom the player can typically elect to kill outright, or alternatively wound in order to feed on their blood. As a vampire, Kain is required to consume the red blood of living creatures to replenish his health meter, which gradually drains over time, and diminishes more quickly if he sustains damage. When he casts spells or shapeshifts, he expends magic energy—this recovers in time, and can be replenished by drinking the blue blood of ghostly enemies. Conversely, undead opponents relinquish harmful black blood, and demons and mutants yield green blood which poisons Kain, causing his health to deplete at a swifter rate.

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Over the course of the main quest, Kain acquires many items and abilities, which facilitate increasingly nonlinear exploration. As he collects blood vials and rune pyramids, Kain's maximum blood and energy capacity rises. By drinking from blood fountains, he receives strength upgrades, faster magic regeneration, and immunity to weather effects. Weapons include iron and fire-elemental swords, a spiked mace, twin axes, and the Soul Reaver, a two-handed flamberge. Suits of iron, bone, chaos, flesh, and wraith armor feature, and each combination of equipment has advantages and drawbacks. Spells, in the form of magical tarot cards, are used in both strategic and practical contexts, their functions ranging from summoning artificial light to mind control and the evocation of lightning storms. Shapeshifting enables Kain to assume the forms of a bat, allowing for immediate travel to checkpoints; a wolf, with enhanced speed and the capacity to jump; a cloud of mist, which enables him to pass through gates and cross water; or a human, with which he can covertly interact with, or bypass, certain non-player characters. There are 100 secrets present in the game, logged if the player uncovers hidden areas, switches, and dungeons; these encompass spirit forges, at which Kain may donate a significant portion of his blood in exchange for powerful battle artifacts. A day and night cycle passes progressively—at night, Kain's attacks become more potent, and during full moon phases, some sealed doors become accessible.

Reception

Blood Omen was named the best game showcased at the inaugural E3 fair by DieHard GameFan in 1995. A 2011 court filing revealed that it sold at least 320,082 units historically; Silicon Knights claimed it had sold 2 million copies in its lifetime, but did not substantiate this figure. Crystal Dynamics viewed its commercial performance as "immensely successful", and remarkable for the time.

Review aggregator site GameRankings assigned the PlayStation version of the game an average rating of 83.25%. While critics awarded it high praise for its premise, audio, and scope, they commonly cited shortcomings in its graphics and technical aspects. Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot appreciated its sound design and challenging gameplay, though he disapproved of its overhead perspective. IGN's staff discussed problems with the controls, but referenced the "intense story", atmosphere, and longevity of playtime as positives. The reviewer for Next Generation made a favorable comparison to the 1985 hack and slash game Gauntlet, remarking on Blood Omen's unique design elements, and the high production values behind its "huge and extremely gory" game world. The four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly were all enthusiastic about the game, citing its morbid tone, epic length, and strong plot. GamePro's Bro' Buzz remarked that "The hauntingly compelling storyline triumphs over somewhat plodding action." He elaborated that the scrolling is jerky and unpredictable, at times forcing the player to engage in blind dueling along the edge of the screen. However, he highly praised the visual impact of both the cinematics and the backgrounds. 1UP.com's staff lauded the game in their synopsis, saying it offered "the best plot of any PlayStation game to date". They acknowledged its "moody" graphics and sound design, describing its art as "beautifully rendered", and its music as "genius".

Comparative to the original release, the Windows port received slightly lower scores on average, with an aggregate score of 82%. GameSpot's Greg Kasavin praised Kain as "the perfect antihero", and his story as "unique, involving, and epic in proportion", but said "the game itself doesn't quite keep up", hindered by sluggish controls and technological limitations. Despite deeming its linearity a flaw, Baldric of Game Revolution regarded the plot as intelligent and thoughtful. His enjoyment of the story's "surprisingly amoral" subject matter accorded with the opinion of David Laprad of The Adrenaline Vault, who praised its thematic depth, well-developed narrative and characters, and structured design; he said "impressive symmetry pervades the game". However, Laprad found fault in the dated graphics, controls, and interface. Hugh Falk of PC Gamer echoed a complaint raised by both Gerstmann and Electronic Gaming Monthly that the graphics are excessively dark, and was disappointed in the artificial intelligence, but dismissed these as "minor" grievances with the conclusion that Blood Omen was an excellent entry in the role-playing genre.

The game's cinematics and voice direction were considered exceptional by many publications, particularly relative to other titles of the day. 1UP.com's writers referred to the cast as "actual talent" comparative to other actors in the medium. Some reviewers, though, described the PlayStation iteration's loading times as particularly exorbitant and unsatisfactory. Next Generation and Bro' Buzz both decried these as "noticeable and at times intrusive", while IGN rebuked them as "agonizing", but said that they are common to disc-based games, and reasonably unobtrusive in Blood Omen. Dyack rationalized the slowdown as a consequence of the PlayStation's random-access memory constraints on video data. Baldric noted in his review that the Windows port alleviated, but did not fully amend, the issue.