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A little Review from Hell. (I hope my english does not suck too much. :p)

The 2nd game in the Vampire series is out, you start as a young vampire(Childe) and member of one of seven clans.


Graphic: The Textures and Faces are quite good although not as good as in HL2 which usese the same engine, however unlike HL it runs completely smooth on my 3GHZ, 1GB, Radeon 9800 Pro machine.
There are quite a few graphic errors in the game though(like parts of on NPC entering another NPC during a fight).

Sound: I use headphones and can not tell how good the 3D sound of the game is. The music fits well into the game.

Gameplay:
The Different Disciplines of the Clans change your options in the game, also your attributes, abilities and feats determine your playing style.
You can sneak around(You only need to fight bosses), diplomacy, magic or just kill everthing. There are often different ways to finish a quest, you don't get XP for killing non-boss which means that the game does not force you to kill everything if you want to get as much XP as possiple.

Fight System.
You fight HtH and Melee in 3rd person view.
Most enemies can be killed with one attack when you are sneaking(the stealth Discipline "Obfusacte" helps).
Some clans can kill weak enemies with magic however only the Tremere have real attack spells which can also hurt strong bosses.
Most Disciplins make you stronger, faster, harder to kill... or weaken the enemy.
You can play ranged compat in FPS view and 3rd person view, the recoil of some weapons is quite strong but the systen works well overall.

The fights system is much better than Morrowinds but lacks the strategic part of games like BG2, IWD or the first part of the series(no party).

Controlles:
Overall good but there are a few Jump and Run style parts which I did not enjoy.

Atmosphere:
It's a dark and adult game(There is a "Snuff Movie" in the game).
The Dialogs are good and quite funny if you play as insane Malkavian.
The Story is interesting the twists and the ending(s) are surprising.

There are many small bugs in the game(Troika puplishes games too fast imho, Arcanum had the same problems), but they did not destroy the fun I had with the game.

Now the real ugly part, there is a big bug in the game which crashes the game at one point.
I know 2 people with the same problem and they talk about it on all Vampire forums, it seems every player has the same problem.
You need to cheat to reach the next level or you can not finish the game.

I give the game 7,5 souls out of 10. I will add 1 soul when a patch comes out which solves the crash problem.


My recommendation is to wait with buying the game until said patch is out.

however unlike HL it runs completely smooth on my 3GHZ, 1GB, Radeon 9800 Pro machine.

Sorry to go off-topic, but this strikes me as odd, considering that HL2 runs almost completely smoothly on my 2.5Ghz, GeForce 4 Ti4600 machine.

3rd Impact wrote:

however unlike HL it runs completely smooth on my 3GHZ, 1GB, Radeon 9800 Pro machine.

Sorry to go off-topic, but this strikes me as odd, considering that HL2 runs almost completely smoothly on my 2.5Ghz, GeForce 4 Ti4600 machine.

With everything at the highest setting? I need to play at 1280x1024 to make HL2 run completely smooth.

Why the holy flying hell are you playing above 1280 in any case?

Luzifer's right hand wrote:Now the real ugly part, there is a big bug in the game which crashes the game at one point.
I know 2 people with the same problem and they talk about it on all Vampire forums, it seems every player has the same problem.
You need to cheat the reach the next level or you can not finish the game.

There's an unofficial patch for that, which changes a single byte in the map file for that level. It fixes a faulty script that was causing the crash bug. After applying it, you'll have to load a savegame from before the faulty script triggered (before entering the 'arena' level to fight Bach).

Executor32 wrote:

Luzifer's right hand wrote:Now the real ugly part, there is a big bug in the game which crashes the game at one point.
I know 2 people with the same problem and they talk about it on all Vampire forums, it seems every player has the same problem.
You need to cheat the reach the next level or you can not finish the game.

There's an unofficial patch for that, which changes a single byte in the map file for that level. It fixes a faulty script that was causing the crash bug. After applying it, you'll have to load a savegame from before the faulty script triggered (before entering the 'arena' level to fight Bach).

Cool. Thx man.

It copped an 8/10 on our radio show.

Good game - but with some stupid gameplay decisions.

Virtual dice rolling and FPS action do not mesh.

A few silly game bugs.

Big plusses though - someone made an RPG with cutting edge tech - and one that hopefully will begin a new trend.

Downsides - if you ain't a fan of WoD, then the game ain't gonna be so crash hot because not squat fucking diddly is actually explained when it comes time to create and update your character.

Virtual dice rolling and FPS action do not mesh.

There is no virtual dice rolling in the game, its strict Cone reducer accurasy speeder, steadyness ALA Deus Ex

Second it has been noted despite being the same Engine their are some bugs within the Engine that caused slowdowns and a memeory that were fixed VIA Day One Stream Updates for HL2 but the same patch was never re-written for Vampire so it runs slower and crapper despite having less going on and almost no physics to calcualte



Third within the game the by far most useful power is Celerity, Celerity lets you make everyone your bitch, the first two levels are near useless, when you hit three and above you turn into a temporary jugernaught of death and destruction

Four the Firearms suck for pretty much the entire game until you pick up the .44 and the Desert Eagle

Mr Bean wrote: There is no virtual dice rolling in the game, its strict Cone reducer accurasy speeder, steadyness ALA Deus Ex

You what now?

Why is it then that a crouching point blank shot (that I've been holding stationary for 15 seconds) with a shotgun will miss? Even with level 3 firearms and dex?

There is virtual dicerolling and a whole hell of a lot of it - everything from obfuscate testing to damage comes down to it.

weemadando wrote:

Mr Bean wrote:

You what now?

Why is it then that a crouching point blank shot (that I've been holding stationary for 15 seconds) with a shotgun will miss? Even with level 3 firearms and dex?

I never missed with the Shotty from point blank and I know Shotty From one foot and shotty from five feet are the same but Shotty from six feet and my damage starts going to shit(BS I know)

BTW Dex does not affect firearms only Perception and Firearms(Plus auspex if you clan has it though I never used it much as its bugged and makes my headhpones blare static)

OAN The Firearms you get in the game are complete shit for a long.... long time and the balance is FUBARED as well
Gee a .38 Revolver does MORE damage than a Strey Aug?

Also worth mentioning even with 13 In Firearms(The Highest Possible Boost)
The .38 still has a hitcone of roughly a bus and goes to building sized the second you move

Mr Bean wrote: I never missed with the Shotty from point blank and I know Shotty From one foot and shotty from five feet are the same but Shotty from six feet and my damage starts going to shit(BS I know)

BTW Dex does not affect firearms only Perception and Firearms(Plus auspex if you clan has it though I never used it much as its bugged and makes my headhpones blare static)

OAN The Firearms you get in the game are complete shit for a long.... long time and the balance is FUBARED as well
Gee a .38 Revolver does MORE damage than a Strey Aug?

My favourtie guns are the Utica M37 and the Jaegerspas XV, most enemies go down fast against the spas at full auto.
It sucks that to Aug does not more damage, I feel insulted as an Austrian.

Bug? I'm up to the Giovanni mansion. How long 'till I get to it?

Also, Jack kicks arse. That is all.

Executor32 wrote:There's an unofficial patch for that, which changes a single byte in the map file for that level. It fixes a faulty script that was causing the crash bug. After applying it, you'll have to load a savegame from before the faulty script triggered (before entering the 'arena' level to fight Bach).

Linky no worky. It redirects to PlanetVampire, which redirects to FilePlanet, which doesn't have it.

Pcm979 wrote:Bug? I'm up to the Giovanni mansion. How long 'till I get to it?

Not very long. If you don't have the patch, you need to do the following to get past the bug:


- Bring up console by starting the game with -console handle

- Just before you reach the exit map point after which the bug makes the game crash, type the following two seperate commands to the console

SaveJohansen()
ChangeLevel2 LA_hub1 taxi_Landmark



I just finished the game today with my female Ventrue character, who tried to resolve problems with her social skills rather than violence. I was disappointed when after Hollywood the game became more combat orientated, and you had to beef up your melee skils in order to survive. However, I'm not saying it wasn't fun to slash some Sabbat and humans with a katana.

I'm very satisfied with the game, especially its fantastic characters and story. I'm a sucker (pun not intended) for stories of epic scale with scheming, treachery and memorable characters.

Great game, if a bit unpolished. It's my favourite CRPG with Fallouts and KoTOR.


Next time I'll try a Malkavian. I experimented a bit and its dialogue options and people's reactions are insanely (no pun here either) funny.

Pcm979 wrote:

Executor32 wrote:There's an unofficial patch for that, which changes a single byte in the map file for that level. It fixes a faulty script that was causing the crash bug. After applying it, you'll have to load a savegame from before the faulty script triggered (before entering the 'arena' level to fight Bach).

Linky no worky. It redirects to PlanetVampire, which redirects to FilePlanet, which doesn't have it.

Here. A newer version with lots more bugfixes.

EDIT:
Scratch that. Here is the latest version, bottom of the page.

Well, I have to go against the grain here. I haven't played for more than 30 minutes, so maybe it gets a lot better, but my first impressions are extremely negative. You start off watching an absolutely horrid intro sequence that just oozes sloppiness and carelessness.

First problem with it occurs when some vamp is about to get her head chopped off, and they wanted to cut away just before it happens. But it ended up playing the sound effect while the executioner and victim are still on screen, then cutting away! So you hear the sound of an execution, yet you can clearly see the axeman just standing there. Then there were people levitating away. That's right, in the goddam intro, there were people moving with no accompanying walking animation! Then, as the scene starts to fade to black but is still quite clear, half the people suddenly disappear!

In the next scene, the Prince is talking to you, and the camera just fades to black for no reason while he drones on. It stays black for about 5 seconds before switching to a new camera angle showing the same scene. Why did they feel the need to fade to black? Who knows?

So then I get into the game, hoping the sophomoric intro sequence will become a distant memory, and I find that unlike Half Life 2, where you could at least pick up and throw things, there is zero environment interactivity. Sure you can turn on a TV or turn on and off the radio, but if you put a bullet in the TV, it doesn't do squat. If you hit and kick the radio, it doesn't go scattering across the floor. So then I go outside and get accosted by some bum. He says something snide so I decide to put some lead in him.

I pull out my .38 and shoot him point blank in the face, and he starts running. So I aim a follow up shot (still at very close range) which misses completely. Then another shot hits him in the back of the head, and he's still alive! I ended up having to reload before he finally died, only having missed once! Then I loaded game and punched him in the face, and he went down immediately! Keep in mind that this is a Ventrue with some skill in firearms and no skill whatsoever in brawling. Something is very wrong here.

I understand if guns don't have the same effect on vamps as they would on somebody in the real world, but this was just some bum. He should have gone down on the first shot. And there's no person on the face of the Earth capable of shooting a gun as inaccurately as my character. I also found out that the billy club does less damage than basic fists.

There might be a great story there, but I can't enjoy it with game mechanics so fucked up. In a game like this you have to feel like a creature of the night, and I can't feel like a vamp surrounded by such rampant bullshit. Until I figure out how to edit damage values, I can't have any fun playing such a broken, imbalanced, slapped together piece of shit.

And to think that this game's been "done" for more than a year, just waiting on Half Life 2. Somehow I doubt that. I wouldn't even call its present state a beta, because while a beta has lots of bugs, it's at least complete, and this isn't even that.

I was terribly disappointed with the game in the beginning, but it gets better after Santa Monica. If I were you, I'd stop wasting any more points in firearms and improve my melee skill instead. You're not going to survive the game without it, no matter how smooth talker your character is.

Give you a hint right now, the people at Vampire fucked this one up, first according to a friend in the modding community they don't want people modding the game(Saw the Cease and Desist Order myself, unless he spent his time or someone else did jimming up a quality fake and spoofing their IP its a real CaD)

Nevermind the Engine rights belong to Valve and Co and Valve and Co have already said, mod the fuck out of anything you want.

Second the bugfixes.... the game stoped devolpment several months before HL2's release.... and there was not a change since then(Confirmable yourself by looking at your core files and checking the change history if you have the know how)

And third something I just learned... Parts of the Source Engine(Specificly relating to the physics) are outright DISABLED ingame, no reason, just cut from the game to remove some of the goodness of HL2's physics are cut(Hardest to notice due to a completle lack of throwable objects but try and use the Gravity gun to skip some trashcans across the water, you can, try it in Vampire? They hit the water and sink reguardless of how much force you apply or at what angle)

Executor32 wrote:Here is the latest version, bottom of the page.

Much thankage.

I just finished it; All I have to say is:

Pcm979 wrote:I just finished it; All I have to say is:

Heh. Which ending did you get?

Anarch, I left the room.

There, that should be cryptic enough to not count as a spoiler.

*vague, non-specific spoilers ahead*


After talking about it on the message boards, I think the moral of the Anarch/Lacroix/Loner endings was that you were always somebodies pawn, no matter what you thought you were doing and why you were doing it. Basically a typical Vampire: the Masquerade ending.

Yeah.
Lemme see if I get it; The cabbie was actually the Antideluvian monarch, who was freed by Jack?

LaCroix can't get a break, can he? From what I read, he dies in every ending.

What happens in the Cammie/Kuei Jin endings then?