Activision's latest role-playing game, Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption, gives players a glimpse into the World of Darkness as created by White Wolf Publishing, creators of the Vampire pencil and paper game.

Players take the role of Christof Romuald, a Crusader sworn to serve God. Christof serves the town of Prague while waiting for his army to come back to retrieve him. During this time, he is under the watchful eye of someone very interested in him. One night, this person makes herself known, and Christof's life turns to unlife.

The story is one of intrigue and many religious undertones. While by no means incomplete or shoddy, the story could have been extended somewhat. Forty hours of game time for a game this good just isn't enough.

So, the game is good? Oh, most definitely, but it does have its flaws.

The combat system is reminiscent of Diablo. At times it can degenerate into a hack-fest. The number of enemies dispatched in each quest seem to indicate wholesale slaughter of vampires and ghouls (sort of a vampire's gofer) that those in the towns surrounding these areas seem to be totally unaware of. On the other hand, combat need not become too Diablo-ish if the player wants something else. Disciplines, the Vampire version of magic, can help to ward off the evil specter of boredom from combat, but not for too long. With the amount of lesser enemies that must be sent to their Final Deaths, combat in any form gets repetitive.

Combat must be approached in a careful manner. If you rush into a room without scooping it out, you may be overwhelmed beyond all hope. To make matters worse, the coterie (Vampire for party) has horrendous AI. Many times your fellow bloodsuckers will refuse to use beneficial Disciplines for even the most brutal opponents, but when faced with a single rat or spider, will waste half their blood on increasing strength, speed, etc. Nihilistic is working on a patch to allow pausing to issue orders in combat a la Baldur's Gate.

Another problem for some gamers is Nihilistic's intriguing save system. Unlike most current games, players cannot save at the push of a button. The only place a player may save a game is in the character's "haven." However, every time the player enters a new area, the game is autosaved, so you should never have to backtrack too much. A certain Discipline (or scrolls that allow its use) can be used to go immediately to the haven, allowing a save at any time, so the system is easily used. Nihilistic, however, is working to enable saving at any time in the game in the afore-mentioned patch.

The graphics in Vampire look marvelous-absolutely marvelous. They look good on the minimum required computer, but add more horsepower to your rig, and the beauty is astounding. You can even see the fangs in the characters' mouths.

The attention to detail is magnificent. Vienna's streets are covered in snow, which crunches under your feet. London is overcast and foggy. New York has trash all over the Downtown area (just like the real thing!).

Nihilistic does take a few liberties, though. For instance, cops in New York walk with assault rifles ever ready to fire on lawbreakers. Even so, the game is very immersive, and keeps you in the proper mood.

Multiplayer is where the game truly shines, however. Players of role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons and Vampire know the storyteller (DM for you D&D people) makes or breaks the game. So it is with Vampire's multiplayer. The storyteller is ultimately responsible for maintaining interest in the game.

To help the ST out, Nihilistic will release the Nod engine's SDK to the public. This will not only allow players to create their own stories (Chronicles if you speak Vampire), but will give players the ability to create their own worlds from scratch with Embrace, a level editor based on QERadiant, a Quake level editor.

Codex will allow STs to prepare scripted events and to alter various parts of the game. The Codex tools are based on Java.

Those looking for a single-player RPG like Planescape: Torment or Fallout should probably keep looking. In single-player, Vampire is an adventure game. However, those looking for a rich multiplayer RPG in the World of Darkness, have all they could ever want in this game.

· · · The Wok