Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption
 

Edited on March 15, 2011: I am updating this post because I am going to use this post as a review entry for GOG contest: http://www.gog.com/en/news/become_a_...ose_your_class

My GOG username is tarangwydion :hello:

--------------------

I did not really want to hijack this thread here, so I decided to post a new thread.

First of all, this post is heavy with SPOILERS. Do not continue reading this if you do not want to be spoiled. You have been WARNED!

Here are some of my random thoughts, in random and no particular order, on the game Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption.

GRAPHICS. Superb for the year it was released (year 2000 if I am not mistaken). The disciplines give out nice animations. Characters' shadows and reflections in the mirrors are excellent touch. Although not applied to all objects, certain details are amusing. For example, I could see the Queen Elizabeth II's face on the pound notes dropped by my slain enemies in London, and later on in New York I could see that the money changes to dollar bills.

CONTROLS. As I mentioned in the thread linked above, in the beginning I was annoyed with the lack of WASD keyboard controls of the game. Believe it or not, when I first started playing this game, the camera work gave me simulator sickness. Simulator sickness in a 3rd-person view instead of 1st-person (as in FPS), no less. Would you believe that?! But after a while I got used to it (and perhaps gaining allies like Wilhem and Serena early in the game helped me to adjust to the camera work), and in the end I could play for hours during the weekends.

MUSIC SCORES. For the most part, the music scores are quite atmospheric and give the game a certain gothic feel, with the exception of the music score in Ardan's Chantry levels. The music score there is greatly annoying to the point of beyond redemption (pun intended).

VOICE OVERS. I found no fault with the game voice overs. A few characters may have exaggerated a little, but I did not mind. Of course subtitles missing from a few cutscenes/videos were still a bit annoying.

PATCH. Do not forget to patch the game before playing it. The patch will allow you to save anytime anywhere, a feature that was sorely missing in the retail game.

REPLAYABILITY. This one I am not too sure. Although I enjoyed the game, I do not think I will replay it any time soon. I am sure multiplayer will give lots of replayability, but since I do not do multiplaying, I cannot comment on that. I may look out for the sequel though, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, provided I can get hold of the game.

INVENTORY. Frankly the inventory slot sucks. It fills up much too soon, and items cannot re-arrange themselves to accomodate new item, although the space is still enough. It was annoying when Christof was alone, such as in the Society of Leopold. I had to backtrack just to collect the drops because the inventory is too limiting.

LURING AND FEEDING. I overused Firestorm and Feed discipline spells in the game. In the first half, I had to rely on Serena for Firestorm to lure an enemy, and then Christof feed on it. In the second half of the game, Christof got powerful enough to do all the luring and feeding by himself. My only beef is that the luring and feeding can be too time consuming. About Firestorm, in the beginning it acted as the luring spell, but in the end it was one of my killing spell by itself. Did I mention I overuse this spell?

COTERIE AI. Well, in the first half of the game, I cursed at my stupid allies for either getting in the way (I tried to feed on an enemy but ended up feeding on one of my own allies instead in the middle of chaotic click fest) or for casting powerful discipline spells (and wasting blood in the process) merely to fight an unworthy enemy such as a rat. But in the second half of the game when Christof got more powerful, I either went soloing (and only asked for my allies to rejoin me later) or no longer cared much for their actions (because by then discipline rings, blood rings/amulets, etc. made blood spending less important anyway). By the second half of the game, I either killed enemies alone from afar with Firestorm discipline spell, or let my allies hack them while I stood and rained them with the same spell.

TRAINING (AND GETTING MONEY AT THE SAME TIME). I put just one dot in the Awaken discipline spell. When my party killed an enemy, if this enemy gives out good experience point, I then resurrected it with the Awaken discipline spell only to kill it again. Repeat the process, and I not only got much experience for my party but also enough drops for cash. My favorite enemies in this category are Setite Lords (500 experience points if I am not mistaken). I even did it with a few of the bosses (Werewolf and Underprince). The Underprince dropped diamonds almost everytime I killed him :)

EXPERIENCE POINTS. It does not matter whether Christof went soloing or with his allies. I used Christof solo to kill a Setite Lord again and again, and Pink who just stood there without lifting his hand to help got experience points all the same. About Pink, since I knew he would leave the party (I read walkthrough), I did not bother to spend his experience points. By the time he left my party he had over 130,000 unspent experience points.

OTHER DISCIPLINE SPELLS. Walk The Abyss is nice to have. Spirit's Touch is necessary if you do not want to buy its scrolls again and again. Torch is great for dark levels such as the Tower of London. It seems that people like Feral Claws, Potence, Call Lightning, Cloak Of Shadows, Fortitude, Theft Of Vitae, and Immolate; but I do not find them necessary. Celerity is a must, because Christof moves like a cement truck. Firestorm and Feed are my overused spells (did I mention that already?). Prison of Ice makes the two battles with the final boss, shall we quote Darth Vader and Kyle Katarn, "all too easy."

STORY LOOSE ENDS. I wonder what happened to Serena? In New York, Wilhem did not mention about her and Christof did not bother to ask him about her. What happened to Etrius? He just escaped like that, and poor Erik was unavenged? What happened to Pink after he left? Maybe someone more familiar with Vampire: The Masquerade story can inform me about these?

Hi Rabadi - if you worked this into an article, it'd be worth putting it in the Abandoned Times section. We can keep it in the archives for whenever the magazine becomes regular.

New stuff is always needed :D

(this is because I love all the White Wolf games)

Hi Saccade, thanks for the response.

However, I am not familiar with the Abandoned Times article format. I also think that my random thoughts are much too subjective to be an objective article for the magazine? English is not my native language too, and I saw a few typos and grammar mistakes the second time I read my post. I normally do not post that long (you just need to check on my other posts, usually they are just one liner :blush: ), so yeah I even surprised myself when I wrote that long post yesterday. But if you or any of the Abandoned Times staff want to change it into article format, correct the grammars, re-write the wording in better words and then put it in the magazine, feel free to do so. I do not mind at all, and in fact feel quite honored.

Once again thanks for the response.

EDIT: By the way, if you want screenshots for the game, I can probably do that. Well, I already uninstalled the game yesterday (I am preparing to play Summoner, and my harddrive free space is not much), but I can always install it again and take a few screenshots. I keep the save games (13 folders with 29 save games each :) ), so I think I can take screenshots from almost all points of the single player part of the game if necessary.

Sweet :OK:

Eventually, I'll copy this over to the plastic-sheeted, sound-proofed forum and take no pleasure in surgically removing pieces, grafting them here and there... Then getting out a big, fuck-off meat cleaver and hacking at it with total disregard for blood-borne infections, laughing maniacally; on my knees, weeping, when it is done.

I'll make sure I leave enough evidence so that the corpse can be identified, by you, in the morgue.
;)

I'll try to post some screenshots tomorrow or the day after :)

Here you go...

Meet my first party. From left to right: Serena, Christof, Wilhem and Erik. Notice their reflections on the marble tiles.
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/1663/1stparty.th.jpg

The character and the discipline screen.
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/6623/chardisc.th.jpg

The quest/journal and the limiting inventory screen.
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/1574/questinv.th.jpg

You get a vault, which is good for storing left over drops, but unfortunately can only be accessed at your haven.
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/1027/vault.th.jpg

The Werewolf near the Tower of London. Frozen by the Prison of Ice discipline spell.
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/767/werewolfnw.th.jpg

My final party on final battle. From left to right: Lily, Wilhem, Christof and Samuel. The final boss was also frozen by Christof's Prison of Ice discipline spell while his allies hacked at it.
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/9116/finalad.th.jpg

I played it about half a year ago. Well, it's an interesting game, but I found it difficult at the end, so I had to cheat in order to kill Vukodlak and the monster afterwards. Bloodlines does the same thing, BTW.

The two battles with the final boss are very, very easy if you have the Prison of Ice discipline spell. You just cast this spell, freeze the boss, repeat casting every few seconds, and let your allies hack him/it to pieces. It takes some time but can't be easier.

I have gotten hold of Bloodlines, but am preoccupied with other games at the moment. I installed it yesterday just to look at the intro. I must say I like the background setting on Redemption better, but it's not fair to judge a game by intro only. I will definitely play Bloodlines in the future.

As for your question waay at the beginning.. Serena was a Cappadocian, and their clan got wiped out somewhere in the Dark Ages, so she most likely suffered the final death. Etrius, being the second or third most powerful and oldest Tremere alive.. well you'd have a snowball's chance in hell to avenge Erik :) He is probably alive and kicking, and still sitting around in Vienna :p

And that concludes our random VTM trivia :3:

Poor Serena... :( I like her better than Lily as an ally.

Damn, damn, damn...!!! :wall: