Highly immersive gameplay and an excellent storyline make this game one of the best first person shooters so far.
This game is not your average FPS. In many first person shooters, you are simply thrust into someone's body and given orders to take some guns and kill and/or destroy certain people, creatures, or objects. Such is the case with many celebrated shooters like Halo, Crysis, and Half-Life 2. While this can be a boon in some aspects, mostly the lack of customization is a detriment to the game's overall success. Not so with Vampire. In Vampire, you create your own vampire in one of two ways. You can either complete a survey of your personality which auto-selects a vampire (but when are those ever accurate?), or you can choose from the seven clans of vampires. Then, you are required to select what skills the vampire starts out with; a tedious procedure, but one that is groundbreaking in its importance later in the game.
Vampire then places you into the body of this new vampire, and you are released upon the world. Immediately, you are immersed in the living, breathing world of Vampire. The city of Los Angeles comes to life with all sorts of believable and lovable (or hate-able) characters like politicians, prostitutes, other vampires, drug dealers, innocent humans, and lots of enemies.
Vampire also grants you the ability to feed off of your fellow man (or rat), which is surprisingly fun even later in the game: the sweet feeling of victory when you bypass an enemy's defense and head straight for their neck cannot be compared with any earthly thing. In fact, feeding becomes even more interesting later in the game, since humans become rarer and each one is like a treasure chest of blood just waiting to be opened.
Blood is quite literally the lifeblood of Vampire. Blood is Vampire's Mana. You use blood to fuel your supernatural vampire powers, of which there is a staggeringly large array. Depending on what clan of vampire you have chosen, you can do all of the classic things (supernatural speed, power, health regeneration, and etc.), but you can also shape shift, conjure illusions that torture the enemy, summon creatures to assist you, and, of course, cause the enemy to begin violently vomiting.
Many games today advertise that they have "multiple endings," but few of them ever have multiple storylines. Vampire does. The storyline changes depending on your choices. You can play this game over and over while getting a different experience each time. You can be a big black man that uses intimidation and his sledgehammer to get what he wants. You can be a horrifyingly ugly vampire that uses stealth and strong vampire powers, for if he ever were to expose himself, his foes would scream and shoot without thinking. You can be a suave gentleman that uses his silver tongue to charm unsuspecting humans and persuade other vampires to see his point of view. Every clan offers a new storyline and gameplay mode, and many offer multiple ones.
The combat system is underrated. GameSpot had said that the combat system leaned too much towards melee and too little towards firearms. I respectfully disagree. Guns in Vampire are just as useful as in any other FPS, even more so when the player increases the vampire's skill in firearms. Jason Ocampo said, "You'll need to invest in your character's firearm ability to use a gun effectively." The same is true in the real world. Vampire allows your character to develop from an unskilled newbie to an eternally powerful master. Ocampo then goes on to explain that melee weapons are simply much more powerful than firearms. I am not one to calculate damage percentages, but I can say that I have played Vampire through before with a character that used only firearms, and he was just as effective and entertaining as the man that used melee. However, I will say this: it is great fun to smash an enemy's head in, especially in Vampire. The melee system is unmatched. The guns do lag behind when it comes to the combat system, but this flaw goes along with the game's storyline: vampires are much more susceptible to a broken skull than bullets. The easily breakable humans, however….
A couple of flaws with Vampire are: Firstly, the graphics are a little dated when compared with today's games. Secondly, the game has a few graphics and NPC glitches that are simply ridiculous and detrimental to the immersive atmosphere (i.e. some pedestrians running into each other on the sidewalk and becoming stuck there). Thirdly and most importantly, the game ends and White Wolf has not created a sequel.
Overall, Vampire is very well-rounded and immersive, guaranteed to provide hours upon hours of fun. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys vampires, action, violence, superpowers, first person shooters, RPGs, and/or games in general.