Review RPG Codex Review: Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption

[crawlkill]

the only great thing about it was the now-decidedly-retro-design-values look and feel of the game (which Bloodlines would then also better, but). the complete dullness and unrelatability of Christof and his bullshit love beyond death motives were shameful, the gameplay was janky at best (why, my coterie, do your AIs insist on releasing feeding targets almost instantly when you're starving?), the use of the WoD property (speaking as someone who knows way too much about it) was workmanlike.

but some of those environments and the understated soundtrack in the modern game, man. I go back and dick around with the game every few years even now. never get far, but I love those weird multiplayer hubs. they have a strong sense of ominousness and real space that very few games can nail. they seem to have potential, even knowing that they're just fucking empty. if there were a patch to make coterie AI not the worst thing in the world, I might even make it through.

 

[SCO]

I can't even get too angry about this game because it's actually too bland and boring to elicit emotion. I've never played Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines, but I'm hoping it's better than this dreck.

never played Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines

 

[crawlkill]

I can't even get too angry about this game because it's actually too bland and boring to elicit emotion. I've never played Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines, but I'm hoping it's better than this dreck.

never played Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines

that recent review the codex posted did make a pretty strong point that it's sexist af. objectification station. personally too much of a faggot to readily notice these things myself, but I still feel bad when someone points out I've been failing to give a shit for a decade without even realizing it.

but if you can roll your eyes at that and the godawful combat and play it anyway, you'll find one of the best scripts in gaming. reasonable reactivity, too, even if it is confined to key decision moments and individual subquests that don't hook into anything else. an absolutely gorgeous visual aesthetic, super music. for all its flaws, you should really play it.

 

[Morality Games]

... the most important thing about Bloodlines is that it has that old Fallout/Troika magic where the possibilities of the world open up to the more skills you have; that's not to say that there are no redundant skills and that you don't have to meta game a bit (SPECIAL worked the same way in Fallout 1's environments), but it seems as though a world that starts small and doesn't get much bigger is actually expanding.

Sort of like an inversion of Arcanum. In Arcanum the world was huge and you had to poke around until you found things to use your skills on so you could feel like the character you wanted to role-play. In Bloodlines, the enclosed environments yield surprising secrets upon further scrutiny and even an empty apartment building can become a quest hub with mad hacking and lockpicking skills, etc.

You have to develop at least one combat skill toward the mid-game, though, because the last one-third of the critical path stops supporting non-combat solutions almost completely.

 

[laclongquan]

Fuck, you are making me curious about replay Fallout 1. Quit it!