Vampire Hunters - Review @ Resolution Magazine

Mayhem's re-released Vampire Hunters has been reviewed at Resolution Magazine and they aren't impressed one little bit. The score is 3/10, despite the budget price tag:

Combat is the worst kind of turn-based. There are virtually no tactical options until a hideous way through the game. For the first hour, you select your attack type from a list of one, click on an enemy, watch it miss and then watch your foe slice you to death in two attacks. Heaven forbid you’re faced with multiple enemies. That means utilising various naughty medications like morphine, codeine (which is inexplicably more potent than morphine) and amphetamines. Except you can’t access them once you’re in a fight, and the game rarely gives you the choice whether to enter one or not. Frequently, you’re dropped straight into a battle from a cut-scene, and have to watch the bloody thing play out over and over until, by some miraculous fluke, you succeed. And then have to do it all again in two minutes time.

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I have never seen any of the bugs that this reviewer has seen. I have also not had problems with combat except in situations where I have missed a new weapon and I went back and got it. You get plenty of medicine to keep your health up during battle and on that note you can use medicine in battle. The areas are small which is typical of adventure games and since the areas are small you shouldn't have a problem searching every square inch before doing anything else. (a very good way of getting equipment and medicine) I think the game is decent and is a fairly unique game especially since the last games to be released in the adventure/rpg genre were the Quest for Glory games.

Available since October, our review code of Vampire Hunters turned up some time ago, yet it’s only now that this write-up emerges. To be fair, there was no official obligation; simply a polite request that we hold the review for two further weeks if the score was going to be below average.

Is this a common request or practice? Just curious.

Embargoes are common but usually just until the release date. I'd personally never agree to anything score related and have never had it requested.