Vampire The Masquerade: Redemption Review (no fat)

Game Description

As pen and paper games have been played for many years by enthusiasts from all over the world, it only seemed natural that such games would eventually start to encompass our PC gaming experience. After all, they do offer a compelling option of creating your own storyline, every time you play the game and just changing it at will. But the genre that is nowadays being described as RPGs fails to bring the beauty of pen & paper on our desktops. Most such games are bland and dull hack 'n slash games where your only real objective is to level up as quickly as possible and kill as many nasties as possible. While VTM: Redemption doesn't quite feel like the game that is here to change all of that, it does indeed appear to be a first step in the direction computer-based RPGs should have taken quite a few years back.

Vampire The Masquerade: Redemption Gameplay:

The first thing one must notice about Vampire The Masquerade: Redemption is its extremely well designed plot, which is based on the Vampires: The Masquerade (one of the most popular table-top games of all time). VTMR depicts the story of Christof Romuald, a teutonic knight whom once sought out and vanquished vampires but is, through a strange twist of fate bound to become one of those whom he once slayed.

From this point on we follow Christof's search for his true love, Anezka, as well as his battle with his own inner daemons. The extremely consuming plot will hold you near your computer for quite a large number of hours.

We follow the plot's development throughout 800 years of history (with a large period of sleep in between, to be honest. The interesting thing is that the game's characters evolve along with on this 800 year journey

While the plot is definitely one of the game's strong points it won't take too much time playing it to understand why it really fails to be the genre-changing masterpiece it could have been. There are some issues with gameplay that are just plain old turn-offs for any player.

In this game you not only control a single player but a party (called coterie) of up to five members (including Christof which must must be present at all times). And while this does do a lot of good for gameplay there are some downsides to this as well.

First and foremost comes the AI. While most won't be bothered by the fact that the enemy is a bit on the lower part of the evolution scale when it comes to intelligence (even as it is the game is by no means easy, but actually quite the opposite) the stupidity of the members of your own coterie will simply astound you. You'll often find that one of them has engaged in combat alone and is about to be slayed, or just something equally clever.

While this can be controlled, the degree to which you can do so is quite limited and you'll find that your coterie members become more of a burden then an actual aid throughout the game.

Second comes the camera. While it is done in a very flexible way (you can rotate it all around your character with quite a large z-axis as well) and allowing for a very high quality view of your character, it takes a bit of time to master its usage and you often find yourself overlooking that one member of your coterie which is in the most trouble.

And of course there's in-game saving. The systems is flawed in many ways, firstly because you can only save your game in specific places and secondly (and most importantly) because autosaving will overwrite your previously autosaved game. That can get really annoying, really fast.

Vampire The Masquerade: Redemption Graphics:

The game's graphics really do take away a lot of the bitter taste one might have due to its small annoyances. The maps, the characters, the monsters, even the sky, everything looks crisp and detailed and just looking at things around you is a gratifying experience.

Vampire The Masquerade: Redemption Sounds:

While the game's score is by no means impressive it's unobtrusive as well, but that doesn't mean this game's sound is just average. The effects are wonderful and the narrated dialogs between the characters are absolutely superb. The actors don't feel like actors at all, they feel like the real thing, except for maybe taking it a bit overboard a few times and being a bit melodramatic.

Vampire The Masquerade: Redemption Multiplayer:

There's one thing VTMR brings new to the table in an era dominated by a cut'n'slash frenzy: in multiplayer, one of the players gets to become the storyteller. This means that instead of you having to go through the same mission over and over and over again you can play a new game with a completely new story, generated by a friend or just some other person across the Internet.

Even though this is not completely documented, it's still an impressive feature which, if improved properly could turn this game into a classic. Its replay value is enormous as, in its current state it is by no means inferior to its board-game counterpart.

Vampire The Masquerade: Redemption Overall impression:

Even though Vampire The Masquerade: Redemption is, overall an excellent game a few glitches in its design keep it away from what it could have become. As it is, the game is just 'oh so close' to becoming a classic, but will hopefully at least stand out as a new direction in the design of role playing games in the future.

Vampire The Masquerade: Redemption Pricing:

Vampire The Masquerade: Redemption currently ships for just $6.95, definitely worth the buy for its high replay value.