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The role playing genre has exploded into mainstream gaming and collected many new fans along the way. If you're new like me and want to play through the classics or if you've been a fan since the beginning, Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption offers up traditional gameplay with a well executed and core vampire theme that may just be to your liking. Be forewarned that while Redemption features the strengths of a classic RPG, it also suffers many of the same weaknesses that has held the genre back.

Vampire: The Masquerade is based on the well established role playing universe of the World of Darkness. The title pulls from this rich setting to set a very interesting, fully voiced story of vampire life; manipulating and being manipulated by in the eternal jihad between vampire clans. The vampire theme features strongly and is fundamental in all aspects of the game, none so straight forward as the spells and abilities at your disposal.

Vampires have many abilities to heal, paralyse, summon, shape shift, manipulate and otherwise inflict pain and dominance over the weak. In Redemption you're really going to want to act the part because survival requires the heavy use of spells that use up your blood pool. Replenishing this pool, or clenching your thirst is an ever returning priority. Vials of blood are convenient on those long dungeon crawls and in the melee of combat, but are hardly in the spirit of a vampire game. Your first choice will be that hapless milkmaid who has strayed from the view of the guards. Which is certainly more appetising than the rats you will occasionally be forced to kill. Any breathing vampire is also going to have blood you can steal, both friend and foe alike.

Its not all power and eternal life though. A lethal vulnerability to daylight and your “inner beast” remind you of your damnation. The inner beast represents the evil and animalistic instincts of a vampire and the choice is yours whether to embrace it or not. Instant gratification from stealing and murder drops your humanity, empowering you even further by enabling you to wield powerful unholy weapons. Conversely that lack of humanity hinders your social abilities with mortals and strengthens the inner beast. When the beast takes control kindred turn on each other, fighting or feasting in uncontrollable rage.

Combat is in real time and lacks the common RPG facility to pause and tactically issue commands to your companions. This drawback wouldn't have been of much concern if it weren't for the game's absolutely atrocious AI. While you control the party member of your choice, the rest will be guzzling blood vials, casting spells unnecessarily, getting stuck on objects and sometimes they will stand and do nothing at all. It is the single biggest problem with the game and has forced me to drop what would otherwise be a high gameplay score for the title.

Redemption also suffers the same criticisms typically associated with other RPGs of it's era. The learning curve is a bit askew due to how obfuscated information can be at times (I had to Google how to use scrolls) and the game takes several hours before it really starts to begin. The controls, camera and interface were each equally neglected. Time and time again you will fall in battle due to no fault of your own, screaming at why the developers seemingly did nothing about it. Characters will learn dozens of great spells that must be assigned to only 6 hot keys before you have to open menus, scroll through pages of spells then equip and cast in the middle of battle. I saw no options to remap keys (ironically there is one to turn off blood) and many other opportunities to improve the interface have been missed. All these disadvantages can be managed with significant patience, but there is a reason the genre didn't take off until lately and that's due to vast improvements in accessibility.

The game has aged moderately well but there are some elements that have collapsed. The game's multiplayer no longer works and the once beautiful graphics no longer help carry the immersion. Dialogue and music are sound great but the audio ques during combat get very repetitive. Characters speak in Old English, which may or may not annoy you. Finally, I feel it necessary to mention the game's instruction manual (which can be downloaded from the Good Old Games website). It's so much better than anything we see today. The manual is a fantastic resource for understanding the deep setting of the World of Darkness.

Redemption has shortcomings that are difficult to ignore. You cannot escape the game's poor controls, interface and almost game destroying AI. Remarkably though there are fans, like myself, who managed to get passed it all and discover a memorable classic. The dungeon crawls are addictive, the setting is creative and the spells are fun to cast. Despite it's afflictions Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption can still be recommended to those who know they enjoy old-school dungeon crawlers.

Platform reviewed: Downloadable version from Good Old Games (contains no DRM)

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