The game has it’s charms, but there is nothing which makes it attractive enough to try it a second time.
Vampire the masquerade,redemption
Released 2000, patch 1.1
System:
Statistics AMD 2600, 1 GB 233, GeForce FE 5200 256 MB, Mouse & Keyboard Played: Early 2007
Review: May 2007 Summary
Redemption has a promising storyline, still good graphics and some very fitting music, but it is marred by weak game features like a lame ai and many bugs and an undeveloped storyline. The story line of redemption certainly makes a great start. Our hero, the French crusader Christoff Romuald faces an epic dilemma. As a true Christian knight he is on a mission of God to fight evil in the Holy Land. But his desire is forestalled by being wounded in battle near Prague. While recovering he falls in (a forbidden) love with Anezka, a nun, and crossing the parth of a powerful vampire he finally becomes evil itself: 'a childe of caine', a vampire.
Christoffs hopes lie with the rumour that there is a way that vampirism can be undone: to find redemption. Tied in with this is his search for Anezka because she, in love with Christoff, sets out on a journey to find for him that redemption. Unfortunately the story dissolves into a dull action story. The redemption part is dropped early in the game and the search for Anezka ends up in the-defeat-the-evil-mastermind-taking-over-the-world story. The evil vampire having added Anezka to his flock of sheep.
What storyline still exist is tainted by odd turn's. For example after having massacred the vampires of one clan, the surviving clan leader thanks you by giving one of the survivors as a follower, because you found a traitor among the dead!
But the true source of weak game features is the mixing different features: a real time action part, a role play part and a party based game. And by wanting everything not one thing is properly done. A real time action game is a challenge on it's own, but when you want one for a party it becomes very challenging. The reason is obvious: a player needs to manage up to four party-members in combat and the enemy is not going to wait around while you issue your commands. There are two ways to solve this, either split the action up into manageable chunks or implement an AI that takes care of the actions of your allies. Redemption tries to go for the second option and fails in this: your companions require constant attention otherwise they might get stuck, killed or getting you killed by doing something foolish. The role-play bit is also not develop. There are three set’s of three statistics: physical, mental and social. But with the exception of manipulation, used to influence the price of goods you buy or sell, none of them make a noticeable impact. What these abilities seem to do is to enable the use of weapons and powers: so for example the great axe requires a strength of 50 to be used. But boasting strength doesn’t seem to add more damage nor add to the change of hitting and even the most powerful weapons only require a strength of 65 to work. And strength is the only ability that you need for close combat, so you can have it all very quickly.
Questing in Redemption is basic: the game is a series of successive quests: there is one quest you are currently on and there are no optional or side quests, nor will there be two quests active at the same time and there are no alternative routes or endings. These quests follow in general the same path: you enter a ‘dungeon’ consisting of 3 or 4 levels with just one way to move through and at the end you will find a main villain which needs to be defeated and then it is of to the next quest and the next dungeon.
Conversations are kept to a minimum. What conversation there is, is scripted and runs at the proper time with no option to influence it. Sometimes you can give two answers, but it doesn’t matter which one you choose because there is only conclusion to the conversation regardless of the choice.
It is also a great pity that there is so little to explore. Basically there are four area’s, each having a weapon store and a magic shop. And that is all there is to discover.
The combat system itself offers three ways to fight: with close combat, ranged weapons or blood powers, but only close combat works fine from start to finish. But close combat looks kind of silly because the game has no collision detecting, so it looks like if you are swinging weapons in mid air.
Ranged weaponry is expensive, has a ridiculous short range and is underpowered. And because most of the time you are traversing narrow corridors and small chambers you will be quickly in close combat range, defeating the purpose of having ranged weaponry anyway.
But the mix of modern times with the middle ages causes it’s own unique problems.Modern times mean fire fights and they are dependent on cover. But the game lacks the entire concept of cover and fire fights means empting a clip of ammo into someone standing erect in the open, barely two feet away( and missing in the process).
Blood powers are a mixed blessing. At the start it cost a lot of blood points to power a spell and you need a lot of experience to acquire a powerful one but even then it only gets worthwhile after you have gathered enough items that reduce the amount of blood points needed to tolerable levels. But then when you have them blood powers get so powerful that you can kill everything with impunity. As a last observation you notice that most blood powers are useless so you find yourself choosing the same time after time. Another weak point are the many bugs: things that don't work properly. For instance each vampire can use powers. At the start of the game these powers cost quite a lot and therefore you want to use it sparingly. The game offers you the option that your companions don't use powers but they will use them anyway, despite this setting. More examples are the buggy items like the neckguard. The neckguard is supposed to protect you from being bitten by a vampire(yes even vampires can be sucked). Well it doesn't work. Another thing is frenzy. When a vampires frenzies he will run amok and randomly attack mostly by trying to bite. For some reason your characters frenzy a lot and three out of four times they will attack their allies and what is more, when enemies frenzy they will attack most of the time you or your allies too. The game had it’s charms, enough to make it last for one go. But there is nothing which makes it attractive enough to try it out a second time.