Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption

This game, taken as a whole, almost certainly doesn't merit 5 stars; such is the strength of the writing/story that I feel unable to give it any less. The story is epic, heartfelt and beautifully rendered: the quality of writing is sometimes staggering for a mere video game. It plays out like a Shakepearian play, with some lines that would not be out of place in one of the bard's sonnets. I'd break my praise down even further to simply the scenes involving Christof (the protagonist) and his forbidden love Anezka. The rest of the story is good enough and rarely dips to the level of being simply decent (although it does have a few of those moments). There are some memorable characters and some cookie cutter ones, but the price of admission is worth it simply for Christof and Anezka. I don't want to give any spoilers away: I can only implore anyone with an interest in literature to give this title a fair hearing. Now onto the standard scoring. Graphics: This is an old game but the graphics are suprisingly good using a high resolution on a modern system. 5/5 taking into consideration the age of the game. Mechanics: There is a solid RPG under the hood with a nice variety of skills and stats to level. I didn't get a chance to fully explore them for reasons to come. 4/5 Camera: Was far too close to the action for my liking and clunky to control. A further zoomed out isometric view would have been wonderful, but poor design decisions make this impossible. 2/5 UI: Point and click interface with a party system. The point and click just didn't work with the tight camera. It was hard to control and as such I played the latter half of the game with god mode enabled in the console. This led to me neglecting the RPG side of things as levels simply became a tedious chore for getting to the next delicious cutscene. 2/5 Voice acting: Was pretty solid throughout - Christof and Anezka were worthy of any stage. 4.5/5 Sound: Considering the age again, they hold the test of time well. 4/5 Music: Subtle, but then I usually play with music in the background. Nice pacing to match gameplay but nothing particularly startling. As vampire enthusiasts are usually involved in goth/industrial scenes, I think that's where they were shooting for with the music. It does its job, 3/5 Overall, a decent game worthy of of a mid-range mark of 3/5. The at times frustrating gameplay really drags this down, along with some poor control design. Regardless, it's getting a 5/5 from me - that's how much I enjoyed some of the writing.

It is a buggy classic, that engaged us seekers of vampirism and macabre. It rewarded us with atmosphere and depth. And kept our hearts with its characters and universe. If you are in the mood for real vampires(not teenage girl crap) by all means get into this excellent RPG.

There are a dozen different reasons why this game isn't a great RPG. But none of them stopped me from playing it through three times, or playing it multiplayer back in the day. The setting, the mood, the overall FEEL - it hooked me. Medieval Prague was the best of the four settings --- it felt authentic and otherworldly at the same time. And for what is basically an "action RPG," it's very heavy on story. And dialog. Lots of dialog. So, in spite of flaws, I still give it a hearty recommendation.

VTM:R isn't a particularly bad game, but it doesn't stand out as particularly memorable either. The combination of medieval and contemporary settings is a novel idea, but the game takes a long time to get going leaving the medieval section mostly forgettable. Running into some of the characters from the medieval period again in the contemporary setting adds a nice twist. Also, despite the addition of various firearms in the contemporary part of the game, I found myself mostly relying on melee because it needs less micro-managing. The gameplay itself is completely linear and the city / town environments between quests are very small leaving let sense of exploration. The quests themselves are run of the mill kill your way through a dungeon until you reach the end and the plot moves forward. The game has three endings, but nothing you do until the very end makes any difference as to which ending you get, so it's just a case of saving before the final battle and then reloading to see all the endings. The graphics show their age, but actually aren't that bad once you get use to them. If you are really into vampires, or are a big fan of RPGs, you'll probably enjoy the game. If you're more of a casual fan of RPGs (or not a fan at all), you could probably skip it.