The Vampire Saga WELCOME TO HELL LOCK - detailed plot and gameplay

As I mentioned in my latest article Top 5 Point-and-Click Mystery Games you should play rightnow, the Vampire Saga series is at the very top of my favorites-list. It consists of three parts and now I will be talking about the second installment – Welcome to Hell Lock.

Out of the three, in terms of gameplay and graphics, this installment is my most favorite. It is also longer in terms of plot than the first and the last installments. In terms of the scare factor, this one is the most frightening and is more likely to keep the fans of horror genre on the edge while playing this. The music is creepy and the locations are absolutely horrifying. If you are below the age of twelve, I recommend you do not play this game alone.

Anyways, with the short review done, let’s look at the gameplay and the plot of Welcome to Hell Lock, the third installment of the Vampire Saga series.

But before that, I would like to inform that I won’t be very detailed about the plotline of this one as the story is more intricate and intertwined with the game. So, in order to fully understand the story, you need to play it. It was very difficult to separate the plot parts and the game from each other like I did in Break Out. But, I will include the highlights with as much details as possible.

Gameplay

• From the main menu, you can create a unique and individual profile and your progress will be saved for that particular profile only.
• There are two mods to this game: Casual and Expert.
• In Casual mode, the player is free to roam the locations without a time limit; the interactive parts are highlighted and the Hint Bar fills up quicker. The Expert mode limits these features.
• The Hidden Objects Scenes are highlighted in white glow and they are not randomized. The objects in HOS are highlighted as green as the player moves the cursor nearer to them.
• On the game screen, the player will find the following things – the menu button, the hint button, the diary button, a camera button and an amulet part. The camera button and the amulet are crucial to the game’s plot.
• The player can access the Hint button as many times as he likes in Casual mode, but not before the button refills in between each click.
• The game offers a custom cursor.
• The pictures taken with the Camera button also serves as quick-access map.
• The game offers non-interactive special cut-scenes important to the storyline in the format of comic book strip.

Plot

The story of the second part takes place after the events of Break Out. The protagonist of the story is a Photographer, who has an accident in front of the abandoned old mining town called Hell Lock. It appears that he has two bite marks on his neck. Anyways, he tries to go back the way he came from, but a wide ridge of magma has formed on that road making it impossible for him to go back. So, he decides to go through the town – as it’s the only way forward – and find another way out. The accident gave him short-term memory loss along with amnesia, so he decides to take photographs of the locations he has been to remember everything.

As he takes the first photograph with a Polaroid camera, he finds a shadowy figure standing behind in the picture. He initially guesses that it might be the result of double exposure but he’s also suspicious of not being alone. He decide to go through town anyways. When he first enters the town, he sees a dark shadowy figure leaping away from him very quickly.

Walking through the town, the Photographer comes across the old home of the Doctor of Break Out – the Crow house. He also finds the church and the cinema, which were shown in the third installment, but this time, everything was breaking apart and looked very old. He even encounters ghostly apparitions throughout the entire town. He finds a tuna can with his picture on it, which surprises him. As he was going through the cinema, he suddenly hears a familiar ringtone and realizes he has his phone somewhere.

The Photographer quickly went to search for his phone to call for help. Luckily he found his phone with an incoming call. When he picks up his phone, a man from the other side addresses the protagonist as Palmer and threatens him to stay where he is and also informs that he is on his way there to collect the money he owes him. The call comes to an abrupt close as the phone dies.

After the call, the protagonist keeps on walking through the town and comes to the police station where he finds a poster of himself with the word – HUNTED- written under him. He also finds the Sherriff of the town – now, a vampire – inside the water tank. He throws some holy water he collected from the church over the vampire and kills it. All these events make him curious and he decides to investigate further to learn about his identity and the mysterious incidents of the place.

While he was working in the cinema, a cut-scene occurs showing that the man, the Photographer owed money, to has arrived but was killed by the shadowy demon-like figure. The protagonist hears the car screech and a scream and quickly runs to find out what happened. He finds the car, but doesn’t see anyone else. He uses the opportunity to charge his phone with the car’s charger.

After his phone is charged, the Photographer receives a call from an unknown girl called Laura who addresses him as David, indicating that his full name is David Palmer. She tells him that she’s in danger and he must rescue her from the mines. The dark shadowy figure is then seen to hold the phone and he tells David, the Photographer to come rescue his lover, Laura.

Even though David still does not know who Laura is, he decides to help her anyway in order to regain his memory. He travels to the mines where he comes in a ritualistic chamber. In the chamber he finds the shadowy figure sucking blood from Laura’s neck. As soon as the figure sees David, he pulls Laura back into his coffin and shuts themselves together.

David opens the coffin but finds only the stone figure of the shadow with an indent in the shape of a heart on its chest. He places the amulet piece, he has been collecting, on the shape and immediately gets blinded by a flash and a small explosion. After he regains composure, David finds Laura in front of him and his memory clears.

It was Laura, who was a vampire as well and the mastermind behind all these, who attacked David in the first place and lured him into the mines so that he can release the demon with the amulet. Laura offers him eternity in the form of vampirism. But David refuses and decides to blow up the mines to destroy everything. He collects some dynamite and handcuffs himself with Laura, so that she cannot escape. Then he blows up the dynamite with himself and Laura still inside it.

The story finishes with David getting out of the mines, unharmed, and seemingly losing his memory once again.

Hope this article gave you an important insight to the game. Let me know what you think.