First published in 1897, Bram Stoker's novel Dracula led to the popularisation of the vampire mythology. As an urban legend tales of the vampire have persisted throughout the modern world – depicted in literature, art, film, and most recently; video games.

Recent depictions of the vampire have led to grandiose illustrations of them as sensual, fatal and sympathetic creatures belonging to a school of high culture. Infused with a thirst for knowledge, blood and lovers, the modern vampire is a frayed and commercialised interpretation of Stoker's original Dracula.

In a welcome change, Frogwares has created a relatively faithful reproduction of Stoker's Dracula text and packaged it into an adventure title – Dracula: Origin. Placing the player into the shoes of Professor Van Helsing and his epic quest to defeat Dracula, Dracula: Origin is a throwback to the glory days of the adventure genre, taking influence from Myst, Broken Sword and other classics.

A fairly linear affair, as expected from something in the adventure genre, Dracula: Origin is fuelled by Stoker's original text, remaining fairly faithful to the original's plot, which ensures that the story is built on a solid foundation.

Dracula: Origin opens with a pre-rendered cut scene which is particularly fast paced and can be difficult to follow. There is a use of excessively complex language, and we're given a lot of information regarding vampires and potential ways to combat them. It's immediately evident that the title is directed at mature audiences.

Thankfully the opening cut scene isn't an indication of what is yet to come as the cinematics found in the later parts of the game proceed at a much more relaxed pace, helping to enrich the story and fill in the details, or illustrating travel from one location to the next.

Of course, cinematics only tell a portion of the Dracula tale. Gameplay is progressed through a variety of methods, the most notable one being dialogue. Dialogue is simple enough – you'll ask questions of characters by clicking on what you want to ask about. Asking them about items can be awkward at times as you'll need to have the specific item selected in your inventory in order to interrogate them about it – this is inconsistent though as sometimes it will simply appear as a dialogue option.

Voice acting is impressive, and characters are quite emotive. Despite period correct dialogue, speech flows well, and filled with formality. It can sound a little bit archaic at times, but it doesn't detract from the game. Helsing is a fine linguist and I often found myself amused by the colourful choice of words (any other game would just use profanity in its place) which are used to express his displeasure.

When you're not talking to characters, you'll be guiding Helsing around some incredibly detailed environments which have been lovingly created. Graphically, Frogwares have done a truly fantastic job of illustrating an impressively textured and visually appealing Victorian setting. Complete with Gothic paintings, architecture and finely accented decay, Dracula: Origin is so richly detailed that it makes reality seem bland by comparison.

For the most part, graphics are pre-rendered, with the lavish backdrops playing as a stage for well modelled real-time 3D characters. The one downfall of the graphical presentation of the game is that characters seem a little static, with animation unnatural and mechanical in parts.

Watching Helsing saunter around can be painful at times with the end of a walk cycle jarring as the animation ending mid-stride is replaced by the 3D model's static stance of quiet disinterest which is puppet-like and repetitive, with a very few changes of stance while Helsing is idle. This flaw is forgivable however (you won't really notice it unless you're really looking carefully), as you'll be far more interested in exploring the environment instead of concentrating on Helsing's physique and behaviour.

A lack of wide-screen support is also important to note, but the game handles it admirably, causing the image to pillarbox (the opposite of letterboxing) on a wide-screen monitor. This results in no awkward stretching which would otherwise ruin the lovely pre-rendered backdrops.

In spite of any concerns which may be raised in regards to running Dracula: Origin on a machine – there shouldn't be much trouble. It's not all that demanding hardware wise and is as solid as bricks in the stability department – I didn't encounter a single crash or any instances of stuttering.

As with any adventure title – it's not all about talking, cinematics and graphics. There will be puzzles, and there will be a lot of them. At the beginning of the game you'll be expected to have passable comprehension and reading skills – along with some basic reasoning and logic. Puzzles start off fairly simple, though they quickly grow in complexity.

Later in the game, I found the puzzles very difficult. How difficult? So difficult that I could go as far to say that having a wooden stake driven into my chest seemed to be a less painful prospect than glaring angrily at the screen, brain writhing with tormented frustration.

Although it could be argued that I simply didn't get the puzzles, or that I'm a bit dim – the justification for the seemingly illogical solutions are non-existent, with the 'logic' being found through obscure references to dialogue forgotten or buried in the journal to be only revealed after countless hours of infuriated clicking. (In hindsight, I should have checked the journal more often.)

My negative sentiments towards the puzzles are due to a number of reasons. Almost every puzzle gives you no obvious visual or auditory cues that directly relate to solving it. In addition to this, there is no instruction or consistent mechanics from puzzle to puzzle. While this leads to a lot of variety in the puzzles, the lack of instruction and consistency leads to a lack of control and understanding which is frustrating.

Some puzzles involve simple mechanics operated through clicking and dragging, while others are dial based. There are a few mathematical puzzles; and others involving spatial logic. The most difficult puzzle I encountered in the game involved an abstract painting, a musical tune and a chemistry set which had me stumped for literally days before I caved and needed to contact the local distributor for assistance (many thanks to Neil at QVS for this). One puzzle later in the game rivals the difficulty of the chemistry puzzle, but both are equally obscure if you've not ventured into the adventure genre for quite some time, like myself.


In spite of all the horrors I experienced with several of the game's puzzles and my obvious grievances, a seasoned adventure fan should have no real problems solving them – much use of lateral thinking is required, and a notepad; as it really helped me to scribble out or abstract the puzzles into simpler ideas. Conversely, expanding upon the ideas suggested by the fairly vague puzzles was also helpful.

Dracula: Origin shines like a gem amongst a barren wasteland of vast emptiness. With old-school adventure games exceedingly rare in today's market, Dracula Origin is a faithful throwback to the days of Myst and its sequels, with high production values and lovingly crafted environments. If you're like myself, and become stuck on a few puzzles; you can easily spend 40 or so hours of frustrated clicking in an attempt to complete the game. I was driven onwards and had an urge to complete the game in order to receive closure on the scenario it presented, and to be continually awed by the fine visual details.

If you're a fan of the adventure genre, Dracula: Origin should keep you entertained for 8-16 hours and not give you too many troubles or headaches. At a local price-point of AU$49.95, Dracula: Origin presents great value – even if it's just to gawk at the simply beautiful environments that strike a chord (even more so if you love Victorian and Gothic imagery like myself). While Dracula: Origin, does have few shortcomings, overall it is a strong title with plenty of meat to sink your teeth into.