This game is so infuriating. I just can't force myself to memorize bat placements for such an average experience. Considering the PC platformer landscape of the time, the large detailed sprites and widescreen were probably a draw but visually its actually much blander than the competition. With hindsight the visual flourishes really seem to be a silk screen or diversion from the simple and plainly colored environments. Jill of The Jungle comes to mind as a title with plenty of traditional jungle environments like Realms but shows how much color and artistic vision can bring a graphically basic game to life. The various powerups and dual character element could help liven the gameplay up later on but for me it just expects too much trail and error for how little interesting it shows (or has to show).

I didn't give this one a lot of time but with how simple it is and how much better other similar games are, I don't know if I really need to in order to understand what Chaos was to offer. I recommend grabbing a list of cheats before playing this one if you end up doing so, which I have a feeling could help squeeze a bit more blood from the stone if your keen on giving Realms of Chaos a look.

This is one of those childhood games I have a fondness for. Being one of the first mature interactive experiences I had ever laid my 8 year old eyes on, my best friend and I couldn't get over how cool it was. Along with Halo 2, Pac-Man World 2, and Fable, we stayed up throughout the night and played it on the floor of his childhood bedroom until the wee hours of the mourn.

Fast forward a year or so and I received my plunge into the world of mature, multifaceted games with the Xbox 360. Helsing in tow, said friend came over and to our surprise the game wouldn't work. Nor could we figure out how to plug in the XB original's controllers. How disappointed we were.

Eventually I picked this bad boy up for myself a few years ago and gave it a whirl. As to be expected, the same rich supernatural world I was so enamored with as a child, now looked like the cheap movie tie in DMC clone it really is. After reminiscing a bit I ended up putting the title down and that was that.

This third time however things proved different. I had seen mention of it among the retro community and seeing as how I've been getting back into gaming this past year I thought I'd give it one more go. Despite the previously stated realization still reigning true, this has that charming style and solid mechanical backing to make for an adequate ride. One that's repetitive, derivative and is the epitome of missed potential, but isn't a bad way to re-live a slice of the 6th gen.

As far as movie adaptations go, this one is fairly good but they certainly only did the bare minimum. I would have loved to see a wider array of locales, a more fleshed out story, or something like the Bite Helsing suffers serving more consequence than it did. The game is about as paint by numbers as it can get, but for me that's all it had to be. 5-8 Hours of no thrills bare knuckle hack and slashing, from the days when all you needed to be a AAA blockbuster was gameplay and a vague excuse for it.