World of Darkness Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong - narrative RPG from The Council devs - now on Steam

[Infinitron]

Reviews are all over the place.

Quite a lot of reviews, too.

Cultured Vultures 5.5/10
Destructoid 7/10
Dexerto 5/10
Digital Trends 3/5
EGM 3/5
Game Informer 8.5/10
Game Rant 3/5
Gamers Heroes 65/100
GameSkinny 8/10
Gaming Nexus 8/10
GamingTrend 80/100
God is a Geek 8/10
IGN 5/10
NME 4/5
PC Gamer 50/100
PCGamesN 7/10
Polygon
Ragequit.gr 77/100
Rock Paper Shotgun
Screen Rant 4/5
TheGamer 3.5/5
TheSixthAxis 7/10
Twinfinite 4/5
Wccftech 9/10
Worth Playing 8/10

 

[lycanwarrior]

Will likely get it next month, still working on King Arthur Knight's Tale.

 

[whydoibother]

Unfortunately, one area that really breaks the immersion is in Swansong’s character animations and lip syncing. For a game with such a large focus on dialogue, Swansong’s stiff and awkward facial animations should have gotten much more care.

One place where Swansong throws the uninitiated into the deep end is with the game’s RPG mechanics, which feel like they’re ripped straight from the tabletop game

Probably the biggest criticisms. Bad visual presentation, bad mechanical explanation. Both don't bother me too much.

 

[The_Mask]

Every fucking woman in the game won some sort of battle against "the patriarchy". Fucking one of them is a 1800's feminist.

Jesus Christ! JESUS CHRIST!!!

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Unfortunately, one area that really breaks the immersion is in Swansong’s character animations and lip syncing. For a game with such a large focus on dialogue, Swansong’s stiff and awkward facial animations should have gotten much more care.

One place where Swansong throws the uninitiated into the deep end is with the game’s RPG mechanics, which feel like they’re ripped straight from the tabletop game

Probably the biggest criticisms. Bad visual presentation, bad mechanical explanation. Both don't bother me too much.

I find the root of the first problem to be gaming’s general obsession with ultra realistic graphics. They always look like creepy plastic dolls to me. I prefer more stylized depictions.

The second is just oof. Why do devs keep trying to translate tabletop mechanics rather than make video game-appropriate mechanics from the ground up?

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Every fucking woman in the game won some sort of battle against "the patriarchy". Fucking one of them is a 1800's feminist.

Jesus Christ! JESUS CHRIST!!!

Is it really so difficult to write vampires that, by virtue of being equally sterile and reproducing via contagious demonic possession, don’t care about what genitals you have when it comes to politics?

I prefer to just take for granted that the local vampire boss is a woman and give her problems that have nothing to with her sex. You could devise numerous other issues for her to deal with. Maybe the second-in-command in the opposing clique is her evil twin, or she secretly comes from an unfairly despised bloodline, or has a secret affair with the boss of the opposing clique, or has mortal relatives she is being blackmailed over, or wants revenge on her maker for some reason, or any number of other things.

Are these writers simply incapable of comprehending motivations that don’t revolve around activism?

 

[Harthwain]

Is it really so difficult to write vampires that, by virtue of being equally sterile and reproducing via contagious demonic possession, don’t care about what genitals you have when it comes to politics?

It is, when you have to push your personal agenda into everything. Even games back in 90 and 00 had strong female characters (Ecaterina literally rapes Christof!), but they also made sense as characters who were powerful vampires. They weren't platforms designed to showcast female problems to the players under some flimsy pretext.

Are these writers simply incapable of comprehending motivations that don’t revolve around activism?

Uh, yes? A good writer knows when to separate his own beliefs from his creation, therefore it is obvious we're dealing with writers who are not good, to put it mildly.

 

[Zombra]

vampires weren't portrayed in a good light

I got the joke

 

[J1M]

Unfortunately, one area that really breaks the immersion is in Swansong’s character animations and lip syncing. For a game with such a large focus on dialogue, Swansong’s stiff and awkward facial animations should have gotten much more care.

One place where Swansong throws the uninitiated into the deep end is with the game’s RPG mechanics, which feel like they’re ripped straight from the tabletop game

Probably the biggest criticisms. Bad visual presentation, bad mechanical explanation. Both don't bother me too much.

I find the root of the first problem to be gaming’s general obsession with ultra realistic graphics. They always look like creepy plastic dolls to me. I prefer more stylized depictions.

The second is just oof. Why do devs keep trying to translate tabletop mechanics rather than make video game-appropriate mechanics from the ground up?

Why would you assume that someone bad at adapting existing rules would be good at creating new ones?

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Why would you assume that someone bad at adapting existing rules would be good at creating new ones?

You assume that trpg rules are well designed, lend themselves to adaptation into the video game medium, and should be adapted in the first place. All of which are arguable at best.

Not only that but, when using a license, devs may have their hands tied by demands from the IP owner. Troika had to constantly go back and forth with WW during development because the contract stipulated they had to ask permission every time they had to make changes for the medium. I don’t imagine this was very helpful.

 

[J1M]

Why would you assume that someone bad at adapting existing rules would be good at creating new ones?

You assume that trpg rules are well designed, lend themselves to adaptation into the video game medium, and should be adapted in the first place. All of which are arguable at best.

Not only that but, when using a license, devs may have their hands tied by demands from the IP owner. Troika had to constantly go back and forth with WW during development because the contract stipulated they had to ask permission every time they had to make changes for the medium. I don’t imagine this was very helpful.

No, I only assume that both tasks rely on the same underlying skills. Skills which have been sorely lacking in the entire industry for over a decade.

 

[bertram_tung]

Epic exclusive= no buy

 

[The_Mask]

Epic exclusive= no buy

For this exact reason, I might take the hit for everyone else and buy it. Play it. Write my opinions here.

I've read all the reviews on this game, and there's no real general consensus. So it's intriguing me now.

 

[Harthwain]

You assume that trpg rules are well designed, lend themselves to adaptation into the video game medium, and should be adapted in the first place. All of which are arguable at best.

I am willing to argue that the boardgames invite better approach to designing games (and game rules) than video games.

 

[Zombra]

For this exact reason, I might take the hit for everyone else and buy it. Play it. Write my opinions here.

fwiw, I have every intention of playing this, maybe not day 1, but soon. I hate Nacon, have no opinion on Epic, but want to support Big Bad Wolf .... and I don't want to wait a year or whatever.

Of course my opinions won't mean much to the Codex since I don't care about the culture wars in games, like at all, so the #1 very important issue of "how much woke ?????????" is unlikely to appear in anything I post about it.

 

[Herumor]

For this exact reason, I might take the hit for everyone else and buy it.

You say that as if there's no option to pirate it.

 

[The_Mask]

This is up in 1 minute. I doubt anyone other than me cares, but...

 

[distant]

This review seems about right. I'll give it some time for them to patch it up before giving it a shot.

 

[Zombra]

Hope to have time to dig in this Friday.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/product/vampire-the-masquerade-swansong/home

 

[Twiglard]

Epic exclusive= no buy

For this exact reason, I might take the hit for everyone else and buy it. Play it. Write my opinions here.

There's a torrent available on a Russian forum for Steam games.

 

[jackofshadows]

This review seems about right. I'll give it some time for them to patch it up before giving it a shot.

Zero white men in cast. I see.

The eyes on 3-34 reminded me of Andromeda, nice.

Ironic that even this aging feminist VTMB-fan complained about lack of sexiness and humour. The game looks so, so sterile all around.

Maybe will try this anyway out of boredom.

 

[Semiurge]

For this exact reason, I might take the hit for everyone else and buy it. Play it. Write my opinions here.

I've read all the reviews on this game, and there's no real general consensus. So it's intriguing me now.

Record a let's-play.

 

[The_Mask]

For this exact reason, I might take the hit for everyone else and buy it. Play it. Write my opinions here.

I've read all the reviews on this game, and there's no real general consensus. So it's intriguing me now.

Record a let's-play.

Sure. But don't expect thrilling commentary. I'm an introvert. And my voice sucks.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

lack of sexiness and humour. The game looks so, so sterile all around.

This pretty much describes all the Paradox games.

As I've said before, we need new IPs to enter the ring and compete.