Parent's Guide: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 - Age rating, mature content and difficulty

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 is a 3D action/adventure game that sees you playing as the prince of darkness himself, Dracula. Split between a modern day world, and Dracula's ancient castle, it's a game that's driven mostly by combat, with a side order of exploration.

With lengthy cutscenes punctuating the game's action-oriented battles, your time with Castlevania will mostly be spent either beating up the bad guys, exploring Dracula's castle, or watching the lengthy plot unfold. With a button mashing combat system that sees you switching between three different weapons: a whip; the Void Sword, that gives you back health; and the Chaos Claws, which can smash through an enemy's armour, there's plenty of scope to mix up your approach, as you face off in a war of attrition with satanic beasties. When you're not fighting off the demons, though, you're able to explore the imposing castle as you see fit - although it's not made all that easy to venture off the beaten path to begin with.

While it may have a fairly simple combat system, though, the battles in Castlevania are certainly aimed at seasoned players. Enemies have several advantages over the player, with unblockable attacks that will always do damage if they hit, and the ability to simply start shrugging off your attacks, even while you're dishing out a beating, making fending off a group of enemies a tough challenge. It's also worth noting that, when the game lets you explore freely, finding your way around the castle can be a challenge, especially when it comes to climbing, as it's not always obvious which bits you can grab on to, and which bits you can't.

While older players may be able to outmanoeuvre the baddies with sharper reactions, some may find the combat limiting - especially as, in order to use a sword that gives you back health, you have to string together a combo of hits, without taking damage yourself - something that may put one of the game's most useful tools beyond the reach of newer players. Definitely one for the older crowd.

A violent, gore-filled, vampiric adventure, Castlevania: Lords of Shadows 2 contains explicit, bloody violence from the start. With enemies that are regularly decapitated, or otherwise end up having limbs chopped off;, a whip that itself seems to be made out of blood, and several scenes where enemies get cut clean in half, this is not a game for the faint of heart.

Upon defeating enemies, you're often given the chance (and more often than not, encouraged)a to "finish" them, by pressing a single button. This will usually cause your character, Dracula, to perform an over the top kill - for example, digging his teeth into their throat, before the enemy spontaneously combusts, covering the entire screen in blood, guts and gore.

There are also several scenes that have been designed to be as shocking, and make the viewer feel as uncomfortable as possible. One such scene comes near the beginning of the game, where Dracula slits the throat of a dad, before sucking the life out of a screaming mother, while her child cowers and screams in hysterics nearby. It's a disturbing scene, and one we'd recommend parental caution with.

The game also features full frontal female nudity, with one particular enemy seemingly being made out of a naked woman's body that's been fused to a demon. On the plus side, swearing is mostly limited to the odd utterance of "s**t".

Age Ratings

Format Reviewed: Xbox 360