Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption

Being a new developer in the gaming community is not an easy beginning. When staff from LucasArts departed to form Nihilistic Software, they had an even greater legacy to overcome. They chose to create a game based on the Vampire - Masquerade franchise, a pen-and-paper style role playing game by White Wolf. Nihilistic would have to please both computer gamers and role playing gamers alike, in addition to the struggles of founding a new company. If Vampire is an indication of Nihilistic's ability, then they are on the way to a highly successful career in the games business.

The world of Vampire is parallel to our own with one major difference: magic is plentiful. Everything else, from ancient history to modern day society, is nearly identical. Among the humans live the many rival Vampire clans who try to integrate seamlessly into society (Thus the title: "Masquerade"). You play as Christof Romuald, a holy knight of the Crusades who is devout and righteous. He is wounded in battle, and taken to a local village. He is cared for by a nun, Anezka, with whom he falls in love. The bishop sends Christof on a mission to slay an evil vampire who has been troubling the village miners. Despite his wounds, Christof accepts and succeeds in his mission. The high praise he receives upon return quickly turns sour when his love for Anezka is revealed to the Bishop, who condemns Christof for his lust. Christof wanders out on that night, sad and depressed from the harsh indictment, and falls victim to a bite of a Brujah vampire leader, turning him into a Brujah vampire himself. Anezka learns of Christof's disappearance and flees the convent in search of him. Christof must find Anezka while remaining obedient to his new masters, but oddly enough, his missions seem to draw him closer to Anezka as he completes them. From this point on, the plot thickens intensely, becoming more involving as the story progresses. Plot twists, betrayals, and pivotal scenes are littered among Vampire's extremely well written storyline.

Vampire is an artistic masterpiece. The graphics are simply phenomenal. Character 3D models have a high number of polygons, rendering them in unprecedented detail. Flowing clothes, cloaks and hair are animated beautifully. Even full facial animations and emotions are included with character profiles. Textures are very clean and masterfully designed. Shadows are rendered in real time, corresponding to light sources and directions. Vampire's music is no less extraordinary. Wonderfully ambient and subtle music pieces are prevalent throughout the game, some of them so well composed that I stopped in place just to listen to them. Voice acting sounds professional and portrays convincing emotions of the characters. Even though Vampire sports state of the art graphics and audio, it is surprisingly playable on a modest computer system. The game engine settings are customizable in many different ways, allowing low end machines to display the game while enabling high end machines to render the best possible game experience.

Vampire has a compelling story, beautiful graphics and excellent audio, but it is not without its flaws. The artificial intelligence of your companions is erratic, often requiring you to "baby-sit" them in order to stop their frequent suicide rushes at large groups of enemies. Vampire is a very difficult game. Normal enemies present a challenge because they are strong and usually attack in greater numbers than your party. Boss enemies are absolutely murderous, with extra powerful attacks and high stamina. It will require great patience and skill to defeat the creatures in Vampire, but it can be frustrating even for veteran players. Play control is awkward at times, with imprecise targeting and movement commands. Managing the vampiric powers can be a problem, especially when a group of enemies is chasing your party.

To combat these enemies, you are given power over Vampiric Disciplines, similar to magic spells. In order to use such Disciplines and prevent your vampires from frenzying, you must replenish your energy supply by drinking bottles of Vitae or sucking the blood out of enemies and villagers. When wounded, an enemy will slump over and try to flee. During this time, you can grab the enemy and suck a great deal of blood from it. Villagers can be fed upon, but you must do so carefully without killing them, or your Humanity rating will drop to unacceptable levels. As you progress through Vampire you will learn many Disciplines and equip new weapons and armor.

Fellow vampires will join you on your quest to fulfill the duties of the Brujah clan and to search for Anezka. The travels will take you from medieval Prague to Vienna, and to modern day London and New York City. Vampire's multiplayer mode has a unique and original feature: the storyteller. A storyteller does not actually play the game as much as he or she commands the world around the players, similar to the "Dungeon Master" in the game of Dungeons & Dragons. This storyteller interface has not been used yet, and may revolutionize the future of multiplayer games.

Despite the intense difficulty and problems with play control, Vampire is a masterpiece in the art of gaming. It weaves together story, art and sound into a complete collection. Nihilistic is to be commended for taking the risk of building such a polished and stylized game. Other developers take note: this is the game to beat in the genre of role playing games.

Good: Deep, engrossing storyline. Interesting characters. Mind boggling graphics. Excellent music and sound effects. Storyteller multiplayer feature.

Bad: Incredibly difficult. Party members behave erratically in battle. Controls are not very accurate.

Bonus Tip: The music tracks in Vampire are encoded in MP3 format. You can listen to them using any MP3 Player by going to the following directory on the Vampire Game CD:\Setup\Sounds\Music.

Developed by Nihilistic Software
Published by Activision
Reviewed by Davis Lentz

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