Castlevania: Lords of Shadow still looks great for a game released in 2013, and it runs surprisingly well on my low spec i3 laptop. Top notch voice acting from Robert Carlyle and Patrick Stewart, good musical score, immersive environments, sheer hack and slash fun with a chain-whip, and the climbing is actually pretty good. It played really well with my FC30 Pro xinput compatible controller too.

There's a lot to love about this game, but the camera is not one of those things. I get that a fixed position camera was chosen to give the game a more cinematic quality, but I'd rather be fighting a badly implemented camera that I can control with the right thumb stick on my controller than having no manual camera rotation at all.

The only other negative is that the bonus DLC content included in the "Ultimate Edition" felt a bit sloppy. These extra chapters use concept art animated into cut-scenes, force you to play as another not-very good character for some sections, and has some of the worst fixed positions for the camera in the game. Ultimately the bonus content felt like a let-down after a game that got so much right.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is a great game if you can deal with the use of a fixed position camera. I did, but only just.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow still looks great for a game released in 2013, and it runs surprisingly well on my low spec i3 laptop. Top notch voice acting from Robert Carlyle and Patrick Stewart, good musical score, immersive environments, sheer hack and slash fun with a chain-whip, and the climbing is actually pretty good. It played really well with my FC30 Pro xinput compatible controller too. There's a lot to love about this game, but the camera is not one of those things. I get that a fixed position camera was chosen to give the game a more cinematic quality, but I'd rather be fighting a badly implemented camera that I can control with the right thumb stick on my controller than having no manual camera rotation at all. The only other negative is that the bonus DLC content included in the "Ultimate Edition" felt a bit sloppy. These extra chapters use concept art animated into cut-scenes, force you to play as another not-very good character for some sections, and has some of the worst fixed positions for the camera in the game. Ultimately the bonus content felt like a let-down after a game that got so much right. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is a great game if you can deal with the use of a fixed position camera. I did, but only just.