Review of The Masquerade

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Vampire is a cool premise. Don't get me wrong. There is nothing bad about saying, "Let's write a game about immortals who fight each other constantly and dress in black." and then actually going out and doing exactly that. It's a great fucking ambition, it's a great fucking idea and the game, for the most part, is very innovative, ground-breaking and fresh.

However, one must always keep in mind that the vampire myths, legends, whatnot, are always going to be metaphors for the parasitical nature of humanity, our fear of death, our inability to function within the 'natural' world without 'draining' it of its 'life energies' and our ultimate confusion to who, exactly, our progenitors are and why we are here. Vampire myths, legends, whatever are NOT metaphors for pain, angst, drama and life-avoidance. I mean, they can be interpreted as such, but really the whole -goth- culture encompasses those facets so well in reality that we hardly need a metaphor and a game to perpetuate them.

What am I even saying?

Well, basically, I think the game has a lot of focus, but it's all pointed in the wrong direction. If the game designers stepped back a bit and said, "Hmmmm...we're writing something that only over-privelaged kids that dress in black and complain about the pain of everything can ever hope to enjoy. It's a large market to be sure, because humanity will always have a large clout of people that are self-paralyzed and highly indolent and we know they're always looking for further excuses to be that way. However, shouldn't we remain a bit truer to what a vampire actually -represents-?" then I'd probably be writing a much more positive review.

Now, I'm not going to go into what the game is about. You have all probably read -countless- reviews about the damn thing and more likely than not, you're sick of reviewers starting off with, "See...you're this vampire and you're stuck in this eternal war and there are all these other vampires and they want to ass-rape you and turn you into a servant or a pawn or whatever. And you can heal really fast, you can't go out at day, you're basically immortal, you have super powers. And, oh, you're really skinny and pale, just like all the goths that this game was designed for. You probably dress in black too. And you hate your immortal, cursed existence because it involves a great deal of self-perpetuated angst, really fast cars, bullets flying around, blood-drinking and an inner-beast." Whatever. You KNOW what the damn game is about. If you don't, stop reading here, go read a bunch of other reviews, play the game, get disillusioned and then come back and read this review, because I'm attempting to explain why, exactly, such a potentially cool game like this one DOESN'T work for very long.

First of all, vampires in this game are far too removed from human beings. They're not supposed to be. They're supposed to be dark reflections of humanity. And, ostensibly, they kind of -are- dark reflections in this game, but very flawed and bias'd ones. I don't particularly get chilled at the idea of a pouting, whining, angsty dude even if he does drink blood and sleep in a coffin. I don't see him as being anything like -Hitler- or -Stalin- or -Pol Pot- or any of the other TRULY fucking horribly evil HUMAN entities that have actually existed. Instead of creating truly evil, desperate creatures, the game designers have made a bunch of selfish, whiney, narcissistic card-board cut-outs that vaguely conform to a very unrealistic, immature view of what evil is.

Secondly, the idea of the Beast sucks, because it's really not all that different from the dark side that every human being has. Alright, it is reflective of the human species, but it really doesn't seem reflective of the true evil that a vampire can embody. Instead of becoming more bestial with the absence and removal of humanity, effectively devolving, wouldn't it be much more frightening if vampires became more -cerebral-, -coherent-, -cogent-, -attractive- and -dangerously magnetic- as they lost their humanity? Essentially, the game designers are saying, "Animalistic tendencies are always evil. Rational, lucid, coherent tendencies are always good. When you become the beast, you pose the greatest threat possible to all of humanity. You are so threatening that you remove yourself, become a non-entity that can't even use the power of speech to communicate and you sleep for thousands of years at a time." Well shit, I'm really scared now.

Third, most of the clans are really just fillers. I mean, the Brujah? A bunch of gangsta vampires? A bunch of -rebel- vampires? What's the point of the Caitiff? True, they were given a history after a while, but they really don't make sense. They're anarchists that...uh...want to bring back some sort of utopia that previously existed. So...uh...they try to bring back this great, peaceful, benevolent utopia by becoming urban terrorists and using the most primitive, digressive arguments to rationalize what they're doing. (And, God, don't even get me started on the Malkavians. They work, kinda, but when is the last time you've seen a Malkavian being played as someone with an -actual- mental disorder and not as a looney-tunes character? Hmmmm?)

Finally, there's the problem with the pictures they use. Every single vampire chick, save for the Nosferatu ones, is absolutely, jaw-dropping gorgeous. Meanwhile, the dudes usually look like they're self-obsessed to the point of neurosis, gorgeous but vapid, violent but purposeless or ANGSTY yet...well...adolescent. So...basically what they're saying is that the world is being manipulated by a bunch of brainless super-models, self-loving cretins, retarded thugs and goth bois. Um...okay. I admit that it might seem that way from time to time if you watch a lot of prime time television and a lot of Hollywood movies, but the real world is run, as far as I can tell, by a bunch of soulless, cold, calculating politicians that would never stand in one place long enough to strike an angsty, gothic pose because the psychotic assassins that are perpetually stalking them would rip them apart with bullets.

Look, I know Vampire is a bible to a lot of gamers and I'm sorry if I'm coming across as a bit harsh. But for a game that says it's 'Our reality...but NOT!' it doesn't really focus on a lot of the issues in real life that are, by nature, very vampiric and destructive. The Ventrue are the only clan that come close, because they deal with the nature of politics, but they're portrayed as having some sort of code of nobility and, well, how many noble politicians can you name?

Anyway...

This isn't going to convince anyone one way or another. If you like the game, more power to you, my review won't change your mind. If you don't like the game, more power to you, my review is probably only reinforcing what you already believe. But it has to be said. There is far too much homage paid to this game and far too few people really stand up and point out its glaring flaws.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 3 (Average)