I write this with defiance in defiance of your defiance

Now playing: Legacy of Kain: Defiance.

First impressions: A very cool game with improvements in gameplay pretty much across the board. Combat is, on the one hand, much more interesting. You finally get to fight like a vampire/vampire-like-demon-thing instead of just a dude with a sword. This means grabbing people from afar with your Darth Vader-esque grasp and flinging them off the edge of a cliff, popping an enemy up into the air and slashing him repeatedly while he falls, and other such fun and violent stuff. In addition, the enemies have gotten a tad smarter than their predecessors -- whereas enemies in the other LoK games would approach you in a group of 5-6 only to take you on one at a time, these guys actually work as a team. There are human spellcasters who use their magic to power up their allies and launch ridiculously strong spells at you, dudes who toss grenades at you, along with the standard array of sword- and pike-wielding guys. That being said, combat can still get a little old after a while.

The biggest flaw I've seen so far has to be the plot, which is a shame considering that the game is entirely plot-driven. Your focus keeps switching between Kain and Raziel, which is fine, except that Raziel's story takes place 500 years after Kain's, which makes no friggin' sense whatsoever. It also suffers from what I like to call "Devil May Cry Camera Syndrome". This is when you are in a 3D environment, but you have no control over the camera, resulting in you walking towards the camera down long corridors and being ambushed by enemies you can't see. This sucks. All in all, though, it's a fine game.

Now, if only every other word out of Raziel's mouth wasn't "defiance"...