Vampire the Masquerade: Swansong - this game is pretty terrible

Now I want to be as objective as possible here because a lot of my disdain for this game comes from the fact that I didn't realize but should have suspected that this "Vampire" game is like their other games in that you don't really actually control most of what happens in the game other than walking from one place to the next and looking for a clue or switch or something like that

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I was drawn to this game because it was free and because I was bored and looking for something to do whenever Assassin's Creed: Odyssey gets on my nerves with its repetitive nature. I also played Vampire: The Masquerade the table-top role-playing game that involved books, dice, paper and pencil, as well as your imagination when I was in my late teens and early 20's.

This is categorized as an RPG, but that is a very loose term to use for what this is. This is a cinematic RPG meaning that you only occasionally make choices but the rest of the time you are listening to dialogue, watching video interruptions, and meant to follow the really in-depth story in order to know how to proceed. Basically, it is the opposite of the style of game that I enjoy and this was evident to me from the start.

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You will spend a lot of time reading and listening to dialogue and I guess this appeals to some people but for me, I want to actually be in control of things every now and then. I recall that the only game I really enjoyed that followed this sort of style was Until Dawn and I think part of the appeal for me with that game was that Remi Malek was in it and it was at a point in time where I had just completed Hollow Knight so I was very ready for something a lot more laid back as far as precision controls were concerned. All of these games are quite similar in nature in that you aren't really controlling a great deal of what happens and there are very few ways to completely screw up the game and "lose."

Your choices have an impact on how the game carries out, and for some that might be enough to keep them going.

This is no clear right or wrong answer to anything you encounter and as far as I could tell before I walked away from this was that while it will have an impact on how the story plays out, there isn't any real deviation from the total story that is going to happen.

I am down with this sort of experience every now and then but there is something that turned me off to this game where Supermassive Games is able to continually pump out similar games to Until Dawn and few people complain. The reason is simple in that in Vampire you spend a TON of time just walking around in circles looking for the next piece of the puzzle that at times is intentionally hidden somewhere completely bizarre and stupid. If you don't pay complete attention to everything that is going on around you and every word of what is being said, you are going to be at a loss as to what the hell you are supposed to do next.

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You will often find yourself in rather large buildings that involve a lot of walking to get to the hidden place where whatever thing that you are meant to find is placed, and since many times these things or people are hidden extremely well, you end up traversing the same hallways over and over again to the point of madness. Since you never actually fight (the controls would indicate this is never a factor anyway) I don't really see the point of forcing you to wander in vain for long periods of time when there is nothing complicated about what happens next. Just tell me where the damn item is after a certain amount of time so I don't have to look it up on YouTube!

Also, give that this game was made in 2022 by a relative large studio and was released on all platforms it doesn't make much sense to me that the graphics are actually quite poor. The voice acting is decent but not amazing. Whatever! It's a video game and I never really expect a great deal from that side of things.

I stuck with this game for about 2 hours before getting frustrated with the fact that you are just constantly searching for some item or person with very little else taking place. The reviews of this game are quite generous on some sites but for the most part I think it deserves about a 5/10. Anyone that is rating it higher than this is either afraid of the developer cutting them off, or really enjoys games that are 90% reading and watching cinematics. I am neither one of these things and therefore 2 hours is all it is going to get from me.