Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption

The Good
The game starts with great story-telling and quickly builds up the atmosphere. In the beginning, gameplay is simple enough and very addictive. But the difficulty quickly rises and requires you to use disciplines (spells) properly.

Story is divided into two parts, both are good alone, but together they create nice "twist" in the atmosphere and game itself.

Every game "dungeons" looks differently than another, they are very specific, with great looking graphics, but in single dungeon you will most probably have trouble telling different levels one from another.

Inventory and whole interface is nicely done and works almost perfectly, although it is not exactly suited for quick-enough combat control.

Vampire the Masquerade rules are nicely implemented, though it is necessary to read the manual to understand some disciplines. Manual is also nicely written and helps in understanding the world of darkness for those not familiar with it.

The Bad
While the story is deep enough for RPG, the actual gameplay gets repetitive. You talk to someone, they will send you to nearby dungeon, you battle through four levels of dungeon, kill boss creature, listen to new facts, go back to the quest-giver, talk, clean four level in another dungeon and so on and so on. It is always a small progress in story and then four levels dungeon. Exactly something for those who loved repetitive gameplay of Diablo.

AI of the enemies is nothing special (enemies usually stand at one place until they see you and then approach/shoot/use discipline). Nothing special, but their sheer number makes up for it. What troubles me is the AI of your characters. When you will watch your character walking in circles for three minutes trying to get through the doors or going down the stairs, you will know what I mean. Also character become stuck behind one another far too often, and try to shoot through walls.

Since you play with up to four characters, some sort of quick commands should be implemented, but no, only thing to help you manage your team are selection shortcuts and attitude setting. Everything else is up to your reflexes and clicking skills. Also rearranging your inventory in combat is almost impossible (since you cannot pause the fight). Due to this, some boss fights are really hard and the final one is almost impossible.

The Bottom Line
It may look like I found more bad thing than the good ones, but it is not the case. I really enjoyed playing through the game. I recommend reading the manual, as it will tell you which disciplines are useful and how you should develop your character. If you can get over occasional stupidity of AI, repetitive gameplay (surprisingly mostly in the middle of the game), you will receive good story telling and solid RPG. A must for any RPG or Vampire fan.