Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption

The characters are two dimensional (the motivation of some of the characters is hard to believe), but for a video game, I found the story griping with a couple of nice plot twists, some good humor, good attention to detail (especially with Christof once he enters the modern world, but with a medieval perspective outlook) and tense dramatic moments with the nice musical score and good voice acting helping greatly to sell the story. The character development is fairly interesting (many viable branches of vampiric powers to boost and also many stats, most of which are relevant), but I wish they had restrained access to the various branches of vampiric powers more (by the end of the game, too many branches were accessible by all characters which made a lot of them pretty much the same). Also, some of the vampiric powers are greatly overpowered (Theft of Vitae, Prison of Ice come to mind here as well as the Fortitude/Potence/Celerity/Claws combo to a lesser extent) and make the game very easy. In a way, the overpower factor is good in that you'll get the feeling that you are playing an elder vampire slicing through the competition (and in vampire game, abusing your vampiric powers should come into play at least for SOME parts of the game), but strategically, it won't make you think as much as you'd like. Just to illustrate how overpowered it can be: You have 4 characters in your party, but I did 95% of the game with Christof alone, leaving the rest behind and only using them to carry my gear and as decoys in the few fights that are somewhat challenging. Don't get me wrong, you will have to figure out a couple of strategies: a physical approach that will dispatch 90% of your foes, a magical approach for 10% of the baddies you don't want to tackle too closely and finally a strategy to replenish your vitae as you go along (once you get "Theft of Vitae", that last part becomes a no brainer). However, once you got these strategies figured out, you'll repeatedly be using them for most of the game (which arguably could be said about a lot of RPGs). Also, as the AI is only so so (I've seen worse, but I've also seen a lot better), this game would have been better off being a one character game with the rest of the "party" branching off when you enter a level and coming back for the storyline moments (as previously stated, I cruised through most of the levels with only Christof). And finally, it is worth noting that some of the challenges in the game come from a harder than is should be interface. This is partly because everything in the game happens in real time, yet you can only access 8 vampiric powers quickly: feed, healing and 6 other powers of your selection. You'll have to select the rest of your powers using your menu listing all the powers by category (and by the end of the game, there are many) and you'll have to do that while the baddies are hitting you in real time. The other part of the bad interface is the view perspective. The game is in 3D (and looks pretty good btw) with a free to control view perspective which means that the developers washed their hands clean of any good automated view management and you to manage the view with your mouse in real time while the action is happening. You'll be forced to do it as various obstacles will obstruct your view of your opponents and will prevent you from targeting them with various attacks. To be fair, however, I should mention that many 3D game suffer from a bad view management problems and some of them are a lot worse than this one in that they don't allow you to change your perspective if you can't see something. Overall, this is a good game with interesting vampiric RPG elements, a good story, good music and good voice acting, but it also suffers some gameplay problems. Vampire fans or die hard RPG fans will probably want to play this game, but more casual players will find better RPGs out there (notably, Neverwinter Nights).

Vampire: The Masquerade Redemption was one of the first RPGs that I played seriously, and the story really hooked me in and made me fall in love with the lore of the World of Darkness. The game's immersive world and deep characters kept me engaged throughout, and I loved the feeling of being a powerful vampire on a mission. Even though the graphics and gameplay may feel a bit dated by today's standards, the game's storytelling and atmosphere are still top-notch. The game's focus on player choice and consequences also adds to the replayability and keeps me coming back for more. Overall, Vampire: The Masquerade Redemption is a classic RPG that deserves a spot in any fan's library. If you're a fan of vampire or WoD lore, or just love immersive storytelling and character-driven gameplay, then this game is definitely worth a look.

The story and historical progression of this game is very good. Going through the game, it is very linear so there is no real way of getting lost or side tracked. The graphics were good and it wasn't until three quarters of the way through the game I found out that you could stop and pan around your location to look at everything. I love looking at all of the graphical work within the game. The voice acting is mostly good but you can't skip forward each piece of dialog once it has started. This slows things down and there one lady who was painful to listen to as she went through her tales of woe. Lots of spells and skills to build so plenty of replayability to try all those different skill paths. Although I I found I tended to use the same few spells with regularity. Not a masterpiece but I am glad I played it.

Some of the combat feels pretty imbalanced but overall it plays well and has a good story

Does not follow the usual clan disciplines. Instead you collect all of them via tomes. Fun way to play.