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End Games review...
"... Prehaps another time like that was at hand. The Final Nights, Xaviar had said. And even though the Gangrel had been wrong about his supposed Antediluvian, events in these modern nights were moving at an accelerated, alarming pace. The world could not be kept at bay. Not forever..." (p. 245, "Friday, 29 October 1999, 1:23 AM.")
End Games is the final volume of the four-part compilation of the Vampire: the Masquerade Clan Novel Saga, providing a retrospective of the defunct game line’s conclusion. Having made my way through this series for the first time thanks to the compilations, this review is a “fresh eyes” view of the series opposed to those returning readers hoping for more material to flesh out the series end.
Following the events and build-up of the previous collections, End Games also takes events past the original Saga’s end by addition of scenes at the end which travel side-by-side with the final Vampire: the Masquerade novel Gehenna: The Final Night by Ari Marmell. I mention this as some returning readers would like to know what has been added to round out this volume.
The main storyline of this collection follows the two warring factions of vampires and their quest to secure the cities of the Eastern Seaboard, more focused on the New York, Baltimore, and Washington D.C. areas of the conflict. The threat of the Eye of Hazimel provides some of the nicer action scenes in this books as a coterie of vampires takes it out finally, removing the threat to their Masquerade and their belief that Gehenna is a myth.
This volume, while showing the multi-handed disjunction of several authors, is somewhat smoother by the end than the compilations; it shows more focused, action-orientated vampires than the plodding intersections of the first volumes.
End Games continues to show that gaming fiction can be fun and exciting, and even shows more than one way of interpreting the game’s rules for the sake of story–not a bad use of gaming fiction. The harder part is the in-game jargon and setting details that may be lost on total new readers instead of roleplaying game fans, luckily the trade collection comes equipped with a glossary to assist in this.
Overall, End Games is a nice ending to the Vampire Clan Saga. Though the ending is abrupt, considering that the Masquerade Vampire is over and that several new readers won’t be able to locate the Gehenna fiction book that would “complete” the story, that shouldn’t be considered too negative of an impact on the enjoyment of this volume. Not the best in genre work, but a well-focused gaming book.
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