Review of Vampire: The Masquerade Redemption

I had a bad feeling about this game when my friend gave it to me, after only having bought it a week earlier. . . (okay - so I'm giving this the "I wasted my money" rating on substance - but you know what I mean).

Within the first 15 minutes of the game when I found a healing potion just lying around on the ground, I knew I was right.

Vampire Redemption is a 3-D shooter computer game with some thin plotlines waved over it. Game play is summed up with you watching a movie, fighting through a large number of similiar monsters in a dungeon while clicking around for the obvious switches , kill the boss, watch another movie, fight through a horde of similiar monsters (but different from the previous ones). . . etc. etc. ad nasueum.

Some game spoilers follow:

There were some good points - mechanically, the game stayed close to the RPG. Stats ranged from 1 to 10 (well, 1 to 100 but the important breakpoints happened at multiples of 10), and all of the disciplines seemed to be available. Skills weren't included, but since all you ever have to do is shoot and stab things, it's no real loss.

The background setting was very true to V:tM, at least where the gameplay didn't interfere with it. I had a bit of difficulty believing that there were over 200 vampires hanging around medieval Prague. At least, that's how many I think I've killed during my stay there). But the NPC vampires stayed true to their clan disciplines and mindset.

There were also a couple of highly visually appealing dungeons (Tower of London at the top of my list) and some other bits of eye candy that had a good "Cool!" factor - but in general it was crawl-around-the-dungeon-with-the-rest-of-my-party-getting-in-my-way-on-the-stairways-and-narrow-corridors.

A typical encounter (of which there were hundreds) was my lead character inching forward and luring one monster away from the pack towards me. I would then run a few steps back and my party would dispatch the monster. I would then inch forward until I could lure another monster back. . . repeat ENDLESSLY until the end of the game.

Another atmosphere destroyer was the fact that I could teleport out of a combat to heal my party up and wander around town to buy more ammo at my leisure. It really took something out of the final combat when I HAD to do that. (I ran out of ammo for my Rocket Launcher. I don't know why - I started with 45 of 'em.)

Anyway - if you are bound and determined to finish this game, here are a couple of hints to reduce some of the tediousness.

As soon as possible get your Manipulation up to 90. Once you hit 90, you can then buy something from the magic or weapon stores and then sell it right back for a profit. You can increase your profit margin by going to 100 - I used two Rings of Manipulation +5 to save me some character points. Having the high manip frees you from money worries. So you don't have to grub around and snag every measely item off of the dungeon floors to sell later.

Once your manipulation is up that high, look to outfit the entire party with Amulets of Discipline to get the reduced blood cost for your disciplines. Anything to reduce the number of times you have to replenish your blood supply.

Sigh. I had hoped for better. Today I tried giving the game back to my friend. He wouldn't take it.