Vampyr - vampire action-RPG from Life Is Strange devs

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

>you can do a no kills run
>mandatory fights in the tutorial

and a mandatory sororicide.

 

[Doktor Best]

What is it with this retarded off-center camera. I mean, the game probably has more serious problems than that, but Jesus Christ is it off-putting. Also, what use do these animated setting screens have exactly, besides making them that tiny bit harder to navigate?

The whole industry appears to be mentally retarded beyond hope.

Obscures less of the centerpoint view, so if you want the camera as focused as possible while still showing the character youre moving (so you can anticipate if attack range is sufficient and read your own combat animations), this is a pretty logical conclusion.

Its a compromise between first person and third person.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

cdkeysDOTcom has the game in stock for very tempting EUR 28.69 right now.

For me it says $38.09 USD. That's close to what I'd pay on Steam. I'd prefer the Steam Shitholer Discount to this. (Which is probably the same thing with a middleman markup, ie, they just buy them in a different region and resell them.)

 

[toro]

Buyer beware. I don't understand what happened but the game performance degraded so much that it is unplayable for me.

Almost solid 60fps in buildings but huge framedrops in open air ... I mean it drops to something like 20fps.

I have to put it on hold until a patch or something.

Edit: The game was optimized for 30 fps. This is Dark Souls all over again.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

>you can do a no kills run
>mandatory fights in the tutorial

and a mandatory sororicide.

can't you eat a rat or smth instead?
i played for 2 minutes till that moment and decided to put the game on hold to redo that part and find a rat or some homeless person to eat instead, but i guess it's too much work to write a character whom most players will kill in the first 1 minute of gameplay (spoiler). but maybe they could've given player a choice of not doing that but still killing the sister with a script later. I am sure theree would've been a ton of whiners who would've argued that there is no choice/consequences in that because she still dies regardless of player action, but form me there would've been a huge difference at least from rp point of view. do you agree?

 

[toro]

And now for some triggering:

 

[Siel]

You must be pretty insecure is this triggers you.

 

[Alienman]

It works in the context. From what I remember another doctor (male) commented on it, and said if she was male she would have made a great doctor. So I can understand the bitterness from her, the only thing between her being a nurse and a being a doctor is her sex.

 

[toro]

You must be pretty insecure is this triggers you.

Dude, I finished PoE2 and I survived Aloth's, Eder's and that fish advances

 

[Hobo Elf]

So far I'm loving the game. The writing is decent and so is the VA, which is important since there's a lot of talking in this game. The main character in particular is really well acted and the VA fits the character well. Combat is not bad. Controls are responsive and there seems to be a few interesting skills to pick up. Like all good RPGs you can accidentally wander into an area with high level enemies who can easily wreck you. For character customization there seems to be some nice things going on between your Vampire abilities and weapon choices (and upgrades). I found a bonesaw that can be upgraded to do more damage or to absorb Blood from enemies when hit, which works well since I'll be building my character to be heavy on the Vamp abilities which spend Blood to cast. All weapons can be upgraded for a generic flat increase in damage and then you can upgrade them with a choice between 2 or 3 choices (that's as many as I've seen), usually the choice being between more damage, utility, or do more damage vs specific enemies (humans or monsters). I like the dynamic of how you have to sleep to spend your XP on your skills and stats but when you do so time goes by and NPCs get sick, which you can cure but it does give the player some urgency to get their questlines done if they want to know more about their story and if they want to feed on them for XP. Good to mention that the atmosphere and music is pretty good too. Everything just fits well together as a cohesive package.
These are my impressions so far. I had hoped that it'd be a decent ARPG about Vampires and so far it has delivered.

 

[Doktor Best]

But doesnt protagonist dude say this line? If yes, then this is really shitty writing. Who would talk like this in real life?

 

[toro]

But doesnt protagonist dude say this line? If yes, then this is really shitty writing. Who would talk like this in real life?

First line is the protagonist, second line is the nurse.

Actually the dialog has a couple of extra lines but I did not screencap them.

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

Spoiler

What is it with this retarded off-center camera. I mean, the game probably has more serious problems than that, but Jesus Christ is it off-putting. Also, what use do these animated setting screens have exactly, besides making them that tiny bit harder to navigate?

The whole industry appears to be mentally retarded beyond hope.]

Obscures less of the centerpoint view, so if you want the camera as focused as possible while still showing the character youre moving (so you can anticipate if attack range is sufficient and read your own combat animations), this is a pretty logical conclusion.

Its a compromise between first person and third person.

Maybe, I don't know. Even though I suspect the reasoning for implementing this shit to be more along the lines of artsy Golden ratio, cinematic experience bullcrap.

Narrow FOV and a camera which is too close to the character are bigger problems when it comes to view obstruction and readability/awareness of the environment (in and outside of combat), which at least they seem to address with zooming out during combat. IMO off-center camera combines the worst of both first and third person: You're even less immersed than third person, because your field of view and that of the character differ even more, while still obstructing some of the view, and additionally giving that unbalanced feel, where you have no peripheral vision on one side at all.

Whatever, I can't see a single upside. It's complete shit and a reason for me not to buy games.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

>you can do a no kills run
>mandatory fights in the tutorial

and a mandatory sororicide.

can't you eat a rat or smth instead?
i played for 2 minutes till that moment and decided to put the game on hold to redo that part and find a rat or some homeless person to eat instead, but i guess it's too much work to write a character whom most players will kill in the first 1 minute of gameplay (spoiler). but maybe they could've given player a choice of not doing that but still killing the sister with a script later. I am sure theree would've been a ton of whiners who would've argued that there is no choice/consequences in that because she still dies regardless of player action, but form me there would've been a huge difference at least from rp point of view. do you agree?

well then his character would make less sense as a self-hating hipster and you wouldn't have to mandatorily attempt suicide a few minutes later

 

[Serious_Business]

As a Grand Vampire, I demand that you ghoul buffoons play this game and give me an informed opinion. Any of you little rats writing anything with mistakes like some goddamn potato will get his throat cut by a swipe of my incredibly long fingernails. Put some efforts into it.

 

[Morgoth]

Buyer beware. I don't understand what happened but the game performance degraded so much that it is unplayable for me.

Almost solid 60fps in buildings but huge framedrops in open air ... I mean it drops to something like 20fps.

I have to put it on hold until a patch or something.

Edit: The game was optimized for 30 fps. This is Dark Souls all over again.

If you have a Geforce card, try the newly released Game Ready driver:

http://www.nvidia.co.uk/download/driverResults.aspx/134907/en-uk

 

[Frusciante]

But doesnt protagonist dude say this line? If yes, then this is really shitty writing. Who would talk like this in real life?

Justin Trudeau, Barrack Obama

 

[frajaq]

Sounds like a 6/10 game so far, which is honestly fine by me since I actually enjoyed some 6/10 games before (like The Surge)

Will torrent and probably buy on sale later

 

[Morgoth]

6/10 niche title >> 9/10 AAA-assembly-line wankfest.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

And now for some triggering:

Is there an alternate dialogue option that lets you say "Get back in the kitchen."?

 

[SkiNNyBane]

I am surprisingly enjoying this game rn. It feels like detective adventure game more then anything with moral choice sprinkled in. You better believe im feeding.

Also everything is voiced rather well, not bad writing, and music is fucking amazing.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

I am surprisingly enjoying this game rn. It feels like detective adventure game more then anything with moral choice sprinkled in. You better believe im feeding.

So its basically like sherlock holmes crimes & punishments with vampires?

 

[SkiNNyBane]

I am surprisingly enjoying this game rn. It feels like detective adventure game more then anything with moral choice sprinkled in. You better believe im feeding.

So its basically like sherlock holmes crimes & punishments with vampires?

TBH i hanven't actually played any detective games

 

[Morgoth]

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3278591/gaming/vampyr-review.html

Vampyr review: Destined to be a cult classic

Vampyr's social simulation of 1918 London is about as ambitious as it is broken, but those that can persist past the problems might really, really love it.

By Hayden Dingman

Games Reporter, PCWorld | Jun 5, 2018 6:27 AM PT

Vampyr is destined to be a cult classic. It will find a following, and that following is going to be incredibly passionate about it. They will play and replay it, mapping out all the various points where its depiction of London changes, experimenting with the sandbox Dontnod created. It’s a Far Cry 2, an Alpha Protocol, a Planescape: Torment, a Stalker, an Eternal Darkness—or, most obviously, a Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines.

What I mean is: Vampyr ($50 on Humble) is fundamentally flawed in myriad small, annoying ways. It’s sometimes a chore to play. It’s over-ambitious and under-executed. And yet every time you’re feeling ready to give up on this atypical RPG, it does something so surprising, so daring, you’re almost tempted to forgive it.

Take a bite out of crime
Vampyr hinges on London. The city is no mere backdrop, it’s the main character.

[ Further reading: These 20 absorbing PC games will eat days of your life ]
Not that you play as a city, of course. You play as Dr. Jonathan Reid, respected physician, expert on blood transfusions, and veteran combat medic newly returned from World War I to his native Britain. Vampyr kicks off with Reid’s death, or rather his rebirth—crawling from a mass grave, teetering down an embankment, sinking his teeth into the first neck he sees. The titular vampire of Vampyr.


Reid is a rather small part of a very large tale though. Using the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic as its inspiration, Vampyr depicts a London under seige—by disease, by harrowing class divisions, by impending social reforms. This is London with one foot in the Dickens era, one foot in modernity.

And the people of London reflect that split. A suffragette, calling out for voting equality on the street corner. London’s “Lone Gourmet,” a man who mostly talks about the West End’s food (while sporting a ridiculous mustache). The mysterious Ascalon Club, a secret society of high-class vampires who claim to rule Britain from the shadows. Your fellow doctors at Pembroke Hospital, pressed to treat as many patients as they can with the limited resources remaining after the war. Clay Cox, local ruffian and small-time criminal.


I could name you a staggering number of characters from Vampyr, in part because there are so damn many, but also because they’re often so well-written. Even the most archetypal of characters often has a handful of secrets in store, an interesting little side story to uncover if you’re willing to put in the time.

This vast and often overwhelming cast is key to Vampyr. There are four main districts: Pembroke Hospital, White Chapel, The Docks, and the West End. The story trots you through all four, though you’re free to explore or to return to old areas as needed.


You’ll have to, if you want to keep London alive. Each district is its own self-contained community. Pembroke Hospital, for instance, is mostly your fellow doctors and a handful of patients. White Chapel is an impoverished and overcrowded labyrinth, tended to in secret by an underground medical dispensary. The Docks are where the criminals live, while West End is home to the heretofore-unscathed elites of London.

Reid is the fulcrum upon which it all shifts. Both doctor and vampire, you’re torn between your moral obligation to save people and a more primitive need to kill them. Which you choose, and when, has the power to drastically change how Vampyr plays out.


There are maybe 20 people per district, each with a role (however small) in the community. Crime boss, gun runner, local bruiser, bartender, and so on. Despite looking like a third-person action game, most of Vampyr consists of casual small talk with the locals. You’ll get to know them, learn who’s secretly racist and who’s in a forbidden relationship, who’s smuggling drugs into the district and who’s extorting local businesses.

I’ll say this: Vampyr is terribly paced. It’s a slow and plodding setup, and every hour I spent with it felt like five hours, somehow. It’s like if Mass Effect consisted only of the Citadel area. Every time you enter a district for the first time, be prepared to spend two or three hours just conversing with people, setting up missions you won’t get to for hours. A lot of these conversations are great, but heaping them all on top of each other does them a disservice. I’m a story-centric player, and even I found my eyes glazing over at times.


The simulation is also a bit stagnant. Characters don’t really have schedules. A few wander up and down random streets or have small scripted interactions, but most are content to stand on the same street corner all night long waiting for you to show up. The map is enormous and mazelike, and Vampyr doesn’t make good use of it at all.

But you couldn’t have Vampyr’s high points without the sprawl. As I said, it’s up to you who lives and dies in these communities. Sometimes that’s through inaction—people get sick and die if you don’t treat them quickly enough. Other times, it’s a conscious choice. The easiest way to increase Reid’s vampire powers is to kill citizens. So say you find out a local slumlord is a massive racist? Yeah, you can lead him into the shadows and kill him, earning yourself some nifty new abilities in the process.


“Wait, isn’t that morally wrong though?” That’s the central struggle in Vampyr. Maybe you kill the slumlord and the chain reaction afterwards leads to even more deaths. Maybe it just means you miss out on the ending of someone else’s story—many of them are intertwined. Maybe you don’t care and go full scorched-earth, killing everyone in an entire district, leaving the area to fester but becoming unfathomably strong in the process. Or you could play the Good Samaritan, healing all comers regardless of their personal circumstances, trying to rise above Reid’s nature—and making the game harder on yourself.

Those decisions can also have far-reaching consequences for London, especially when it comes to the “Pillars” of the community, central figures who play into the story in a larger way. An early mission has you uncovering a secret clinic in White Chapel for instance—and then deciding whether you let that clinic continue operating, even if it means more problems for you in the long run.


It’s...complicated. And not always successful. A lot of the consequences I incurred weren’t even slightly implied by the dialogue options I chose, and that’s always frustrating—to feel like you’re not in control of your own fate, or that you were acting on bad information. Sometimes characters react in weird ways too, or Reid says something you didn’t mean, or events go completely off rails.

And yet that’s what makes Vampyr so intriguing. Unlike most choice-centric games, where it feels like you’re splitting hairs on how events play out, Vampyr’s London feels ripe for exploration. A character living or dying can vastly change, if not the central story, at least the circumstances in which the story plays out. It’s not a perfect simulation. It’s a long way away from the dialogue-heavy “immersive sim” it so clearly wants to be, and yet what’s here is full of potential. Vampyr’s London is bold and daring, sometimes broken, but infinitely more interesting than the lifeless and inflexible towns that inhabit most games.

Bottom line
And that’s why I’ve found myself attracted to Vampyr despite all its flaws—and there are many. The combat system is clunky and unpredictable, not to mention almost unplayable with a mouse and keyboard. (Controllers work fine.) The map is essentially useless. The game is probably twice as long as it needs to be. Conversations are static and dull, even when the dialogue is well-written.

There are a lot of rough edges, a lot of barriers in the way of enjoying Vampyr. And yet the people who can persist through the problems? I think they’re really going to love it, the same way some swear by Alpha Protocol or Far Cry 2 or even the original Witcher. For everything it gets wrong, occasionally Vampyr breaks with convention in ways exciting and (hopefully for other developers) inspiring.

At a Glance

• Vampyr is destined to be a cult classic, with a social simulation of 1918 London that's about as ambitious as it is broken. Those that can persist past the problems though might really love it.
  
  Pros
  • Fascinating and ambitious "simulation" of a community
  • Interesting take on the usual vampire tropes
  Cons
  • Plodding pace
  • Long loads, half-broken systems, and the mouse and keyboard controls are unusable

 

[Belegarsson]

I like how you can ask almost everyone if they're in need of medical treatment.
thug: don't mess wit' me an' my boys ya dimwit i'll cut yo dick
Jonathan: can I assist you with medicine?
thug: yessir im feeling a bit cold maybe a dose would help