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Beatiful but bad AI, unbalanced gameplay, & lousy saves

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 97 / 113
Date: June 12, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I am a huge fan of vampire fiction in any form and also enjoy a good RPG. So I was ecstatic when I heard about Vampire being translated from the pen-and-paper sources to the computer. And Vampire is an amazing looking game that I really wanted to like. Unfortunately some bad design choices and poor features prevented it from happening.

I'll start with the good points. The graphics are stunningly amazing. The animation of the characters is fluid and weapons are superbly done. The lighting greatly enhances the dark and sinister atmosphere. I kept going in many places because I wanted to see what area I would visit next. The camera control is also very smooth and easy to manipulate with the mouse. The gameplay is actually fun for the first bit of the game while you are adventuring by yourself and with one other party member. The source material and the manual add a lot to this game. Wandering around towns and seeing people milling about made it feel alive. And it was always oh so fun to feed upon someone to refill your blood level.

The RPG system is also great. There are several positive and detrimenatl traits for the characters. A certain level of blood must be maintained to use the disciplines (spells/skills) and to keep your character from succombing to frenzy. Experience points can be distributed among such traits as strength, dexterity, intelligence, willpower and several others. Very nicely done indeed.

Here is where I have to get in to the demerits of this game. First off, the voice acting is not very good; but it's not the worst I've heard either. And the sequences of dialogue are long and boring. The characters simply stand in place and wave their hands about. NPC interaction is left to a few choices which really have little baring on the outcome of the game. Nothing as rich and detailed as Planescape: Torment.

The combat, while fun and reminiscent of Diablo, only keeps its spark for the first part of the game. Most of it consists of clicking on an enemy and waiting until you've hit them enough times for them to die. A big flaw that becomes noticable during the first few levels is that the enemies wait until you are in range before they attack. They will simply stand idle as you slaughter others in the same room! As the game progresses you will gain party members, and will bemoan similarly incompetant AI. I equipped one with a bow and laughed in disbelief as he continuously fired in to a wall when he should have moved a couple steps to the side before doing so. Also, you can control the other members of your party in combat, but the main character will stop fighting while you are doing so! Aaahhhh! Add to this that you can go through entire areas and clean up with little to no problem, but then come across certain areas that will be nigh impossible to pass. Both enemies and your fellow party members will get hung up on walls, doors and other obstacles in the room.

And here we come to the worst sin of the game, the save system. Saving is automatically handled when you transition between levels are areas. The only other way to save is to be in your haven or safe area. One can get there by using the Walk the Abyss discipline (aka spell/skill). But it takes a while before you have one of these in a given area. So we are left hacking our way back through areas and levels already completed. I found myself abusing the autosave feature by running back and forth between levels to save. But what if more than one person is playing the game as is the case on my computer? It's pretty much tough luck. This is a computer game, not a console. The game should have been balanced so that players could save anywhere at anytime.

The multiplayer sounds enticing with the ability for one person to take control of the NPCs and monsters. But if the gameplay is similar to the single-player then I can't see it being much better.

With great graphics, a rich source material and so much potential. It makes me sad to not be able to like this game. This takes me back to Revenant, another game with a lot of potential but came up flacid. Maybe the patches will fix the problems, I certainly hope so. But much has to be done for the AI to make this game worthy.

Vampire the Masquerade Redemption

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 29 / 37
Date: May 14, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I saw a preview of this game and highly recommend it for women. There is a shortage of games that appeal to women but this one has major female characters who are as strong as the male roles. The artwork is stunning and the play is not only challenging but fun. I was impressed with the realistic action and the attention to the authenticity of the locales used for the game. I can't wait to play it at length.

Don't believe what you read! It's not true!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 19
Date: October 16, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Ok, here's the scoop. The graphics are amazing, the gameplay, while it does get repetative, is saved by the graphics, music, and overall ambiance created by the NOD gaming engine.

Dynamic shadowing and lighting, varying opponents.... this game has it all.

And as for that "you can only save at certain points" bull, if you look on the web there is an official patch that fixes this problem!

I was not a fan of the WoD series, in fact i had never even heard of it. I bought the game and was instantly pulled in.

Yes it takes a LOT of space to install (i did the full 1.2 gig install) but if you've got the system for it, BUY THIS GAME! If you like gothic stuff, like vampires, want to be able to do action AND rpg? this is it!

It's best point is that it's not all dumb blind killing like quake (which i also love!), and it's not all over-geeky RPG, but it's a perfect mix of both.

As for the faulty AI in which yer allies don't attack people? Try setting the party stance to "OFFENSE" and watch em "loose thy wrath"... NO, the AI isn't perfect, but if it was then the programmers wouldn't be doing games, they'd be doing some serious nasa stuff or something, eh?

Bottom line, if you take the time and INVESTIGATE things, you'll find most of the rumors and reported problems are either not true or solvable problems.

If you've got the time and computing power for it, this game is for you!

Hype!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 23 / 33
Date: June 10, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Well, we have another example of a game that is selling itself with hype and screenshots. First of all, the graphics are great, good, best. No dispute there. However...what is important in an RPG? Gameplay? Tactics? hohoho...there are none. You just keep clicking the mouse as fast as you can and the AI guys keep hitting as fast as they can. You move from room to room where monsters sit in one place and wait for you. The spell system is very bad. The game has much more action than the pen and paper game, so 80% of the spells are useless. Yes, you use your healing and maybe a few damage spells but there is absolutely no reason to use anything else. The stats...well, they seem complex but have a very small impact on combat, which I must say again, is devoid of tactics. The Group AI has some faults especially when ranged weapons are used (most felt in the modern day part) since your vampire friends will repeatedly shoot at walls without going around them to get a clear shot at the monsters. Story...I though it would be good, original, and immersive. I don't know how, but they managed to fail at doing that. It is very linear, predictable, not exiting, and is nothing like the vampire books that spawned the game. I have not and will not play the multiplayer game since in this combat system the speed of your mouse clicks determines your characters combat performance, and no story-teller, no matter how good he is, can fix this. Well? Do I think I am out of my mind? A few days ago, I would have thought the same. Alas, I bring you the sad truth. Vampire the Maskerade sucks and the people that made it should be ashamed of themselves for creating such a poor game. Still don't believe me? Check out the 'professional' reviews on sites like gamespot and they will tell you the same thing.

Finally, Fangs for the RPG World!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 18 / 24
Date: June 08, 2000
Author: Amazon User

For all of you who love RPG's, like I do, but are sick of the same old theme's Vampire will fulfill all of your dreams. This game rocks! The story is engrossing, and it changes each time you start a new game. Replay galore. The Quests are intriguing, and not too complicated. The combat is not as robust as it could be but that is because there is a plot here, and lots of little goodies to hunt for. The NPC development is great and they make for valuable company. The graphics are very well done, and general play will keep you going. I can only see two improvements that could be made to the game, but they are minor. One is that during combat the mouse moves to give you a wonderful panoramic view of the situation, but during the heat of battle you could get disoriented and lose some HP's because you are looking at the combat from a bad angle. Once you get the hang of it it wont be a big deal. The second thing is that the cinematics are often long and overdone, but they really do make the game more like a movie. One great thing is that this game starts out like a medieval RPG, but progresses to a modern day RPG like Fallout. Be careful sucking blood could be a habit! Buy it and you will be up very late. Have Fun!

Fun

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 30 / 50
Date: April 04, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This is a great game. Not only is it a fun RPG but being diferent clans gives it a great re play value. This is a perfect rpg and i strongly recomend it.

What could have been...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 15 / 20
Date: June 12, 2000
Author: Amazon User

With the current string of quality RPG's being released..I found vampire to be a dissapointment. First of all let me just say that the game plays great on a low end system and it has amazing graphics and sound. I played on a AMD K-2 system and it ran perfectly.

However after about an hour of gameplay you notice the games' flaws...first of all the lack of a good save game system, there are only two ways to save, either by moving into a new location and letting the computer "autosave" for you or returning to your haven by using a teleportation spell and save there. Even though later in the game, the latter option becomes obsolete due to the fact that in later stages you don't have an established haven. Bearing in mind that in "Vampire" you can die at any second because of the poor AI in the game and as well as the difficulty curve for monsters...the combat takes place in real-time so it is very difficult to switch between teamates in the middle of a battle so your team-mates would normally attack the foe that you are attacking ignoring the werewolf trying to tear him a new....a-hole, there is a setting in which you can adjust the Aggression level of your party members but fail to work properly, set it on "defensive" they simply stand around...set it on "aggressive" they charge into battle wasting their mana and gets killed eventually...finally pathfinding is a major problem in the game ememies and party members get stuck behind chairs,walls and because a lot of battles take place in narrow corridors they can get stuck behind you as well so later in the game they waste ammo by firing into the wall instead the enemies.

In case you were wondering the storyteller mode from which you could create your own Vampire chronicle did not ship with the box version and will be availible for download later...I hope that maybe aftera few patches the game would live up to its rightful title as a great game...but I am seriously dissapointed.

Why?

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 12 / 18
Date: June 18, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I ask you, why? Why did they have to screw this game up? Why did they rush to get it out? Why didn't they spend that extra time to make it perfect? Here are my problems. -Save game feature-you've heard it many times more. Here's one more time. -Combat-annoying and too much. Basically the thing that bothered me most was the excessive combat. If you've ever read any of the Vampire: The Masquerade pen and paper supplements you see how the plainly state that vampire is not all about combat. Vampire is about monsters. Damned creatures. Combat is there, but each enemy has a reason and purpose. Not some blundering vampire out to kill. If you want an all out combat romp, buy Diablo. There's only one thing that I think may save the game. The storyteller mode. I find it confusing at times but the possibilities with it are great. With the right storyteller you can have a game with plot and meaning and not all combat. The bottom line is this title had so much potential, but lost a lot of it. I wish I could give it five stars but it's not so. I want other companies to learn from this mistakes. I would have gladely loved this game if they sacrificed graphics for gameplay and story. Make the game using the bioware engine so it's like a Vampire Baldurs gate. Then it could be longer, w/dialogue and have more meaning. Ok, I've used up enough space.

Vampire the Maquerade?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: January 22, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Well, I am a follower of Vampire stories, I have **cough** played Vampire the Masquerade a little bit (there is nothing like being at the Army base in Taszar Hungary to bring you to new frontiers)... I think the game system is accurate to the Vampire the Maquerade role playing game. From aquiring blood points, to soaking sun damage. Alright I am ahead of myself. Here are what I see as the pro's:

1) The game is easy to play. The controls are fairly intuitive and it does look like Diablo a bit with the combat sequences.

2) The graphics are... in a word... Astounding. From the reflections in rooms, to the people milling about in the town. This is about as close as you can get to strolling the streets in old Vienna.

3) The bad guys are really bad guys, and the story is based in love and forbidden passion. The music is very moody and actually gave me the creeps once or twice. I think Activision has outdone themselves. As for the save, you can now download a patch from Activison's web site that allows you to save at will.

4) I have heard **cough** that there are an extensive number of cheat codes available if you just want to read the story and see the ending, all of them can be turned on and off again... so I hear.. if you just need a spot of help getting past a boss character. All you need... They say... is to add -console to the command line of the shortcut that starts the game...

Downsides:

1) Video is a little laggy, even on my Diamond Viper 2... 2) The AI is retarded. Point blank. 3) I thought that the bosses were disproportionately difficult compared to the regular bad guys.

I think this game is really pretty and the pros far outway the cons.

Currently, my favorite PC game of all time.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 12
Date: June 21, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I know there are people who gripe about the AI and the pathfinding. I also know that there are those who bitch and moan about the save feature. True, a feature in which you may save anywhere would have been nice, but Nihilistic chose NOT to do that for technical reasons(i do not know whether to believe that or accept it as an excuse). And plus, whenever you walk into a new area, the game saves it for you. But I digress. In short, Vampire is an absolute masterpiece. The sound is absolutely astounding(consisting of "real" orchestrated tracks and VERY well-done voice overs(Goth Chick Serena makes little noises when she's sucking blood! Hehe! I'm such a perv! ), The interface is simple and easy to use, the graphics are among the best I've seen for ANY RPG, and the story is enthralling and immersive. I've read countless reviews stating that this is a terribly flawed game filled with bugs, ect. ect. Which leads to believe that there are many, many people of whom many do not like this style of gaming(which very well could be the case), or, Blizzard has each of these people in their pockets(which also very well could be the case). But please, if you don't like the game, simply don't play it. Because I guarantee you that no one who enjoys playing will give the slightest crap whether you like it or not. I'd be too enthralled in the game to care(and also because everyone has their own opinions). A patch is in the works to correct all of the "mistakes" as well.

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