New Marais changed a lot since I last visited this summer. It’s darker. Everyone is either getting staked or turning into demons. A crazy lady wants revenge. InFamous 2 blew us all away. Sucker Punch Productions takes that success and puts a twist on it. Cole as a vampire, anyone?
Festival of Blood has the same feel to it. It has the climbing, the electric powers, the gorgeous graphics, and more. It, however, takes away the moral choice system. It was done away for a good reason. Sucker Punch wanted to experiment. See what Cole will do to save New Marais and himself, even if that means sucking the blood of a few innocent civilians.
Festival of Blood takes place in alternate timeline, unlike Undead Nightmare in Red Dead Redemption which took place in between time periods. The game opens up with Zeke Dunbar sitting at a bar. Right from the start, Sucker Punch throws in a fast one and for the first time: Zeke doesn’t have his world famous glasses on. That right there got me hooked. Zeke, in an attempt to seduce a woman, recounts a tale from his past. One that included the famous (or infamous) Cole McGrath. Cole’s blood was used to bring back to life the Blood Mary, a vampire leader of sorts. Cole has until sunrise to figure out what is wrong or he’ll be stuck as a vampire forever. It’s shortly after it begins that you feel that Zeke may be telling the truth. However, it is Zeke we are talking about. He would say anything to get into a lady’s pants.
The game starts you off right away with all the basic powers we have grown to love: grenades, melee, rockets, everything. Instead of using experience points to unlock new levels, you unlock upgrades for doing certain things. I got sidetracked from the main storyline just because I wanted to suck the blood out of every living soul I came across. It does a brilliant job at making you feel accomplished for something you do. Also, as one progresses, you will come to find the new vampire powers everyone has been waiting for. There are only a few, but they are sure glorious. Shadow Swarm turns you into a flying army of bats, capable of getting to the highest of places in an instant. I hope something similar finds itself into InFamous 2. Vampire Vision also appears, giving Cole the ability to find vampires hidden in the crowd. Neat.
The only grip about this game is that the enemies can be a tad bit on the annoying side. Also, the fact that you somehow have to be closer to electric sources to gather electricity threw me for a loop. That might just be me, so I’m not downgrading the game for that.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a Move so I’m unable to play it with the new Move controls, but it’s something I would love to get my hands on and try.
The game takes about 2-3 hours if you don’t get sidetracked. If you do everything in the game, it will put your gamer clock at around 5-6 hours. There is, however, new UGC (User Created Content) that is available which puts the game at a total of 8 hours. For the $7.50 price tag for being a Playstation Plus user and only a dollar more for non-Plus users, it’s worth every penny. Cole being a vampire gathers one’s attention as it is. What more do I need to say?
Score:
9/10
