Vampire is a video game adaptation of a tabletop rpg, so it has a lot of great implementations of that style of game mechanics and giving you many ways to react to and shape situations according to how you want to play. The main story/mechanics of the game are as follows: the "masquerade" is what vampires call keeping knowledge of vampires away from humankind. Because vampires are vastly outnumbered, it would be a death sentence if ever it became known to humans at large that they exist, so violating the masquerade is dealt with harshly. You can get 5 strikes before it's game over (there are a couple times in the game where it is possible to redeem a violation). Also being a vampire, you need to drink blood to live, which is also sort of like your Mana for your special abilities. You also have a mechanic called Humanity, which all vampires must keep high or their beastly nature takes over. Practically what this means is as it falls you will lose control of your character at times and they will attack others, risking retaliation or even Masquerade violation.
When you start out you can either answer a stylized "questionnaire" that will pick a Clan and assign your skill points for you, or you can do it yourself. Clans are different types of vampire with different special abilities, strength/weaknesses, and traits that make their playstyle unique and even affect how others interact with you. For example the one I picked was one of the most "human-like" ones and sort of seductive in nature, so I could drink blood out in the open from people I had seduced without consequences (just looks like we're necking I suppose) and all my humanity losses and gains were doubled. Which makes sense, if I'm the most human-like type then it would make sense that being more human was easier, and doing inhumane things had a harder impact on me. So it really incentivizes me to play to my Clan strengths.
The cool stuff:
About blood-- it's a really well implemented rpg mechanic because it's an extremely useful resource and also not very easy to get, so without realizing it I was starting to think like a vampire while playing, taking note of when npcs would turn down dark alleyways alone so I could sneak up in the shadows and get a little refill. So simple yet really well executed.
The world is not really "open" but more of these individual little hubs that you get access to as the game progresses. What the game does really well, and which is one of my favorite things in games that pull it off, is in making every place in the world matter and having you familiarize yourself with it. When you get a quest there's not an icon or a marker or even a map menu, your quest description just tells you what the name of the place is you have to go to and in which "hub". If you need to go to the Lucky Star Motell, you're going to scan your surroundings and see the star sign down the street and start heading that way, and you'll be checking out and making a note of the places you pass on the way. Since all of these areas are small, like maybe a small city block, it never feels overwhelming at all.
There are a lot of places where your skills and playstyle allow you to progress in a mission or solve a problem in a way that you find satisfying, you can hack computers and sneak your way around an area or you can go in guns blazing, you can bypass places by having a high lockpick skill, you can notice a hidden key or environment detail if you have the perception skill for it, etc. You can have the persuasion or intimidation chops to peacefully talk your way out of a conflict or you can sometimes even turn down entire missions if you just don't think your character would go along with them.
The vibe of the world rules too, it's kind of bare at first but the music and sound design rule and make this very unique environment where you're walking around a world that has traffic and city nightlife sounds happening while you're fully aware that cars never drive down the road in the game. You just don't care because it somehow just all meshes. The voice acting also rules, sometimes it's really well done and even when it's not it has this exaggerated and almost cartoonish style that very much feels like the voice actors were having a blast just going ham on these characters.
The not cool stuff:
Like a lot of games, the devs didn't have a lot of time to finish this game, so certain rpg aspects especially towards the end were neglected and a higher emphasis on combat put in their place, which was not the intention to begin with. Since my character wasn't cut out for that I ended up kind of having to do a simple cheat towards the final hours which made me invisible to enemies. It kind of sucks to have to do that to keep enjoying it, but it honestly doesn't feel too bad to skip the unfun stuff so you can do the fun stuff instead.
Combat itself is also not great, think that this game came out 4 years before Fallout 3 and was made on a much smaller scale. It's not always awful but clearing combat areas never feels fun, more like something you're relieved you got past.
The unofficial patch is mandatory pretty much, and even adds a way to skip the worst level in the game and possibly any game, the Warrens, which is extremely long and convoluted and just sucks the life out of you. There's another bs level you can't really skip with a very unbalanced enemy that you have to somehow defeat in a very inscrutible way, that it's worth looking up how to deal with as well. It's a very small part of the game but unforgivingly brutal. I almost failed it even with invisibility!
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The game is really good overall, and with the little tips I mentioned it's very enjoyable and replayable. Games like this might be showing their age but really they don't make em like this much anymore, and it says something that this game still has a very active and dedicated cult fanbase to it. I also like the variety in playstyles, there are two REALLY different Clans from the others for example which you shouldn't pick at first, one called the Nosferatu where you basically have to live in the sewers and eat rats because you look to horrifying to pass into human society like the others, and one that is like some kind of insane clairvoyant type vampire that gets a ton of unique interactions and dialogue options because you can kind of see things from the future you don't really understand.
If you like games like New Vegas for their roleplaying and being able to make decisions and steer the outcome you want in the game between different factions, definitely give this a try. Think of it as NV on a small scale. It's not very long, even while taking my sweet time and taking care of a baby while letting the game run steam has me at 26 hours on it.
When you start out you can either answer a stylized "questionnaire" that will pick a Clan and assign your skill points for you, or you can do it yourself. Clans are different types of vampire with different special abilities, strength/weaknesses, and traits that make their playstyle unique and even affect how others interact with you. For example the one I picked was one of the most "human-like" ones and sort of seductive in nature, so I could drink blood out in the open from people I had seduced without consequences (just looks like we're necking I suppose) and all my humanity losses and gains were doubled. Which makes sense, if I'm the most human-like type then it would make sense that being more human was easier, and doing inhumane things had a harder impact on me. So it really incentivizes me to play to my Clan strengths.
The cool stuff:
About blood-- it's a really well implemented rpg mechanic because it's an extremely useful resource and also not very easy to get, so without realizing it I was starting to think like a vampire while playing, taking note of when npcs would turn down dark alleyways alone so I could sneak up in the shadows and get a little refill. So simple yet really well executed.
The world is not really "open" but more of these individual little hubs that you get access to as the game progresses. What the game does really well, and which is one of my favorite things in games that pull it off, is in making every place in the world matter and having you familiarize yourself with it. When you get a quest there's not an icon or a marker or even a map menu, your quest description just tells you what the name of the place is you have to go to and in which "hub". If you need to go to the Lucky Star Motell, you're going to scan your surroundings and see the star sign down the street and start heading that way, and you'll be checking out and making a note of the places you pass on the way. Since all of these areas are small, like maybe a small city block, it never feels overwhelming at all.
There are a lot of places where your skills and playstyle allow you to progress in a mission or solve a problem in a way that you find satisfying, you can hack computers and sneak your way around an area or you can go in guns blazing, you can bypass places by having a high lockpick skill, you can notice a hidden key or environment detail if you have the perception skill for it, etc. You can have the persuasion or intimidation chops to peacefully talk your way out of a conflict or you can sometimes even turn down entire missions if you just don't think your character would go along with them.
The vibe of the world rules too, it's kind of bare at first but the music and sound design rule and make this very unique environment where you're walking around a world that has traffic and city nightlife sounds happening while you're fully aware that cars never drive down the road in the game. You just don't care because it somehow just all meshes. The voice acting also rules, sometimes it's really well done and even when it's not it has this exaggerated and almost cartoonish style that very much feels like the voice actors were having a blast just going ham on these characters.
The not cool stuff:
Like a lot of games, the devs didn't have a lot of time to finish this game, so certain rpg aspects especially towards the end were neglected and a higher emphasis on combat put in their place, which was not the intention to begin with. Since my character wasn't cut out for that I ended up kind of having to do a simple cheat towards the final hours which made me invisible to enemies. It kind of sucks to have to do that to keep enjoying it, but it honestly doesn't feel too bad to skip the unfun stuff so you can do the fun stuff instead.
Combat itself is also not great, think that this game came out 4 years before Fallout 3 and was made on a much smaller scale. It's not always awful but clearing combat areas never feels fun, more like something you're relieved you got past.
The unofficial patch is mandatory pretty much, and even adds a way to skip the worst level in the game and possibly any game, the Warrens, which is extremely long and convoluted and just sucks the life out of you. There's another bs level you can't really skip with a very unbalanced enemy that you have to somehow defeat in a very inscrutible way, that it's worth looking up how to deal with as well. It's a very small part of the game but unforgivingly brutal. I almost failed it even with invisibility!
----
The game is really good overall, and with the little tips I mentioned it's very enjoyable and replayable. Games like this might be showing their age but really they don't make em like this much anymore, and it says something that this game still has a very active and dedicated cult fanbase to it. I also like the variety in playstyles, there are two REALLY different Clans from the others for example which you shouldn't pick at first, one called the Nosferatu where you basically have to live in the sewers and eat rats because you look to horrifying to pass into human society like the others, and one that is like some kind of insane clairvoyant type vampire that gets a ton of unique interactions and dialogue options because you can kind of see things from the future you don't really understand.
If you like games like New Vegas for their roleplaying and being able to make decisions and steer the outcome you want in the game between different factions, definitely give this a try. Think of it as NV on a small scale. It's not very long, even while taking my sweet time and taking care of a baby while letting the game run steam has me at 26 hours on it.