|
While not quite up to snuff with some of the better material for the pen and paper Vampire game, the premise and story are more original and more interesting than what generally passes for a plot in computer role-playing games. The writing is generally good, although the game does tend to get a bit wordy during some of the cutscenes, and the medieval characters are far too free with their use of the words thee and thou (which in reality were used only as familiar greetings, or when talking to someone of significantly lower social status than yourself). The voice acting ranges from adequate to good (most of the better voice actors seem to be in the modern half of the game).
In terms of visual appeal, the game is the most attractive role-playing game to come out on the PC yet, and the overall excellent level design helps to accentuate this. Even the sewers of New York City manage to look attractive in this game. That's saying something. Final Fantasy: The Masquerade
Whether or not you enjoy the way that Vampire plays in solo mode largely depends on your expectations. The game's pen and paper predecessor is a game largely about social interaction. The Kindred love to play politics, and while they can generally give as good (or better) than they get when it comes to fisticuffs, combat simply is not the central focus of the game.
The PC version, by contrast, is almost exclusively about combat. The story is almost completely linear (although there are multiple endings), and much of the character-to-character interaction is pre-scripted (the game will occasionally present you with conversation choices, but they generally have little impact on the story). Players looking for Fallout-style depth of interaction might be a little surprised to find that the game plays more like a Final Fantasy (or perhaps Darkstone or Diablo, if you want to compare it to something on the PC). The game dishes out bits of story as reward for fighting your way through a quest—the story is engaging enough, but the fighting is where the gameplay is. If the idea of fighting through waves of ghouls and vampires Diablo style makes you wince, then Vampire is probably not the game for you. That said, the solo game is a lot of fun when you take it for what it is. Nihilistic has done a fine job of translating the White Wolf rules, and while not all of the various clans and disciplines (Kindred abilities—think spells) are in the game, the ones that are there are interesting and useful. There is a lot of opportunity to build your character in different ways, and the varying disciplines allow you to employ a variety of tactics in order to get past obstacles. Having trouble fighting Tremere Lords in the Haus de Hexe (that "Call Lightning" Blood Ritual has a nasty tendency of sending you to your final death)? Judicious use of the Cloak of Shadows discipline lets you sneak right past them (nobody said that you have to fight them at all). Alternately you could pump up your Celerity discipline and then zoom into melee range and try to immobilize them with a stake. Or you could put points into Fortitude and hope to weather their attacks for as long as it takes to hack them apart by more mundane means. The list goes on.
The inevitable "but"...
There are plenty of things to like in Vampire, but unfortunately there are a few significant problems that will have you gritting your teeth throughout the game. The first one that you will encounter is the save system, which takes it's cue from console schemes by only letting you save in specific places. You can save your game by clicking on the ankh in your haven; alternately the game will save itself automatically every time you transition between maps. There is nothing worse than having to replay a difficult combat over and over and over simply because you aren't at a save point. Fortunately the latter feature keeps the save system from being a game-wrecking flaw—since the game maps tend to be on the small side and the gameplay is hub based (lots of traveling back and forth), you never have to far to go to find a map transition (and thus an auto-save). Later in the game you will likely learn a discipline called Walk the Abyss (think Diablo's Town Portal), which lets you jaunt back to your haven and save at any time, so long as you have the blood (mana) to cast it. Still, the game would have been better off allowing you to save wherever you want.
|
