Anyone see much coverage?

Has anyone seen much coverage of this game from anywhere but the developers themselves? It’s making me a little nervous that no one’s really talking about this game, I was kind of looking forward to it. I don’t know if it’s a bit of a stinker, if everyone’s preoccupied with E3, or some combo of the two.

They just haven't said a whole lot. But there is this stream the day before it launches

I have this game now, firing it up in a little while so will see how it is.

@wonderboycoz: Post your thoughts on it when you can, please. I'm cautiously optimistic about this game but the lack of coverage is concerning.

@poprocksandsoda: I will try to, dont have much time to play until Monday but should get a few hours in at least.

@wonderboycoz: it’s OUT?! I had no idea. I liked Remember Me a lot more than most so was curious about this but I had no idea it was coming out this soon.

@humanity: Its out on Tuesday, I got it a few days early. An hour in and I am enjoying it.

Combat feels a little weightless but hoping once I've got more weapons and abilities it will still be serviceable. The story setup and atmosphere have got me wanting to learn more.

The highlight so far seems to be the social/moral choices stuff. Seems that there are a set number of NPCs in the game all with stories and names but also a 'Blood Quality' which is essentially the XP you get for drinking their blood. You can see this and some other info by using Vampire vision in an almost Watch Dogs-like way. I'd say its kind of like a different take on a nemesis system mechanic since you have a 'Citizen' menu with everyone in the game. It seems as though you could kill all of the NPCs and get super powerful but the game is indicating that this would have consequences to deal with.

I noticed the game on shelves in stores in Germany. Guess they’ve gotten it early.

@wonderboycoz: That sounds super interesting. Hopefully that civilian mechanic pays off.

I also forgot about this game for a while, but then saw an ad for it on TV during a primetime slot so they're probably pretty proud of it if they're willing to spend money on TV marketing.

I thought this was one of the more interesting games at E3. Didn't go looking for footage afterwards, but still look forwards to the quicklook.

@wonderboycoz: Is it open world like Watch Dogs? Does it have dialog choices like a Mass Effect? How's the writing / voice acting?

Thought it looked pretty good but it does seem like it's being dumped. And isn't it the same devs that made Remember Me? If so, I really liked that game a lot. No one else seemed to :(.

I wouldn't expect it to, given the studio's last two games. Hopefully the rest of the game makes up for it, because it does look really interesting.

@poprocksandsoda: It is open world to certain extent (split into four little neighbourhoods with loading between them so not a full open world like Watch Dogs) and so far I'm liking most of the dialogue/voice acting. There are dialogue choices also.

Have learned that you get more XP for talking to the characters and learning 'secrets' about them so spent a good chunk of time in the first open area talking to everyone I could and doing side 'Investigations' to get some money and learn about people.

I am currently thinking of playing the game as a sort of vigilante, finding out stuff about people and only drinking those who I think deserve it. I did read that there are multiple endings including one for not feeding on any of the NPCs (This must not count the nameless enemies such as the vampire hunters and feral vampires you encounter and kill in combat).

@wonderboycoz: Yes I heard rumor of there being a 'don't kill anyone or drink any blood' ending which is something I might enjoy trying for on a subsequent play-through. But unless combat is completely avoidable and/or there is a non-lethal option, I did wonder how they handle that. Like, if you cant' kill any of the people actively hostile too you to get said ending...etc.

Thus I have wondered re:can you totally stealth through the whole game, is there a non-lethal way to complete combat, etc. Any signs of that in your play-time thus far?

@bladededge: So far I haven't seen any non-lethal ways of dealing with enemies so the only way to avoid combat would be to run away from or bypass enemies entirely by finding an alternate route. There is an invisibility ability you can get which would make this easier.

Also, there have been at least 2 or 3 encounters which definitely couldn't be avoided as it was teaching combat and one was almost a boss-like combat that required me to kill the boss so I can only assume they don't include the combat encounters as part of the endings (but I could be wrong and just didn't realise there was another way). I think that some people may find they don't like the disconnect of the game asking you to carefully select which of the 'citizens' to feed on but at the same time have you killing a bunch of random human vampire hunters.

This doesn't bother me however and if someone does say they feel that way I feel like they would be placing a heavily artificial sense of morality onto themselves. There is a difference between leading an innocent person into a dark alley to drink their blood and having no choice but to fight for survival against an organisation built entirely around killing you and your kind. Just my thoughts though.

@wonderboycoz: Maybe a stupid question, but what's the vibe like? From your descriptions, it sounds like it could be heavily taking inspiration from Vampire: The Masquerade, an aesthetic and tone I feel like DontNod could absolutely nail.

Big DontNod fan, had no idea this was released already... that’s a problem.

I watched a livestream they did a couple weeks ago only because the game had like 2k viewers on Twitch, otherwise I never would have known about it. Anyway, game looks interesting in terms of story/decision making but the combat seems meh. It's definitely a smaller game, they said they would not consider it triple A.

Someone should tell their publisher since they're pricing it like one.

I think it looks interesting, but no pre-release reviews makes me think it's going to be pretty average.

Everything about this game and its release seems to scream Alpha Protocol. I'm cautiously excited.

That's high praise, I might have to give this game a shot.

First few minutes in, the camera especially in combat feels off, to be diplomatic; real bad clunky/swimmy to be honest. I had to switch from M&K controls to a controller jsut to make it bearable.

The fact the the mouse cursor "sticks" in place in menu selections until moved far enough away really marks the game as not designed around m&k as a primary assumed control method.

Ten bucks says that Matt Rorie of Matt Rorie Presents: Matt Rorie's Alpha Protocol: A Roriesoft Production moonlighted on this game.

Reviews are going up. Looks like mostly around the 7.5 range, which is to be expected. As Austin Walker would say 7.5s can be some of the best games out there, just not for everyone and lacking the perfect polish most publications look for when grading.

Reviews are coming in, apparently it's kind of clunky on the gameplay and technical end but delivers quite well on the tone and story, most of the time. Sounds like a DontNod game.

I enjoyed Remember Me and had fun watching Life is Strange but I dont see myself playing this until it goes on sale.

ACG said Vampyr is more than the some of its parts. He remarked that the story is fantastic with political intrigue and cool character stories about living as a vampire in Victorian London. The combat and gameplay sections seems to be where the lack of polish and AA production shows itself which goes in line with Dontnod's previous works. Everything about the game's setting speaks to me. Since I enjoyed Remember Me and Life is Strange a great deal, I will be picking up this game eventually.

Hmm, kinda like Vampires The Masquerade Bloodlines sprinkled with some Eurojank.

@applegong: I mean this is already way more polished than Bloodlines was, that game is a big fuckin' loveable mess.

Yeah, so far the reaction to the game is its pretty good if a bit unpolished. Hell yeah, I'm down for that.

Although I still think not setting it in Edinburgh was a missed opportunity. Edinburgh was ground zero for medical science at that time and with all the Burke and Hair style graverobbing going on, it would have been perfect for a Vamp game.

So far I would I agree with the more positive reviews (7.5ish ones). Its a flawed, and AA budget game in terms of tech and feel but the narrative and social things its doing are really interesting and are making me enjoy the game a fair bit.

I should note that I got this game at a decent discount but I do think that people should watch a stream/wait for a quick look if they are on the fence.

I had my doubts when i saw the seal of quality "Focus Interactive" but i am glad it turned out well, so i bought the game.

Definitely; some of my favourite games ever are so 7.5, but 10 to me: Mirror's Edge, Dragon's Dogma, Dreamfall TLJ, Killer 7, and, yes, Remember Me. Genuinely love that game. All footage I've seen so far says, "Decent gameplay, but will live or die for you with the vibe and setting." Well, those boxes have been well and truly ticked, but £44.99 is a no-go. That'll be down to £24.99 here in the UK by this time next month, though, I'm sure, and I'll snap it up. Scratch that, I found it for £27.99 on Cdkeys.com. I just bought it.

VTM: Bloodlines really was a janky mess too, it's true, and that thing is more immersive than some MMOs.

On a related note, I expect State of Decay 2 to be in Brad's GOTY list, and that is 7.5 as fuck to me, ha. It's the beauty of those less impressive games, they can charm you like all great underdogs should.

Calyton Purdom over at AV Club wrote a pretty fun review that seemed to take the position that Vampyr would be the best game released this year if it were any fun to play.

I had $8 in my steam wallet and the game was a bit cheaper on Steam, so I got it for like $38 bucks or something like that. I'm hoping I enjoy the game going in knowing it's not a super polished AAA game but I also didn't pay the AAA price for the game either. Between this and State of Decay 2, I'm realizing that I sort of miss this tier of games. They can offer a lot of fun for a decent price point...something I can't say about all AAA games released these days.

There's some truth to that, I guess.

It so far seems like a very good adventure game that has some very mediocre combat. First comparison that came to mind for me was L.A Noire whenever it attempted to cram in some unnecessary Rockstar staples in between the parts you should actually care about.

The NPC 1 in 3 guessing game to get some of their hints and story is starting to tick me off a bit, especially since the game autosaves instantly and has no manual save feature.

The combat is uninspired but bearable so far.

But imo the Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines comparisons could be toned down a tad, an instant lovable cult classic this isn't. Tho it's better then Remember Me.

And it's definitely a tier above something like Mars War Logs and other stuff by Spiders.

The 50 euro price point feels like too big of an ask atm.

Dev and waypoint play though over on twitch. The flexible morality system is probably the draw. It seems mechanically perfectly serviceable and thematically cool, but the 'basic game play loop' seems pretty transparent. I just hope the narrative carry's it.

I only played like 10 minutes of it because I had a headache :(... but the movement and combat feels reeeeeeal clunky. I guess I have rose-colored glasses on for Remember Me but I remember enjoying the Batman-style combat a lot. It felt way more fluid.

But the draw of this game seems more towards how you interact with the characters, who you let live and kill so I need to get into that stuff.

That was the review that won me over, honestly. I was on the fence about it for a while but I can't pass up a good vampyr story, especially when being a vampire is such a integral part with the gameplay/story progression.

i miss legacy of kain

Really liking it so far spend most of my time talking to people in the hospital.

Played to the point where you first get settled at the hospital, and I'm pretty enamored with it so far. The combat, while certainly not good, isn't nearly as bad as I was expecting, and every character so far has been interesting to talk to (thank god, or else the moral quandary feeding system would be pointless if I didn't care about seeing peoples' stories through).

The controls are kind of assy, and I cringed a little when I saw that there's a crafting system, but otherwise it's totally got its hooks in me.

I've played 1-2 hours so far, I'm enjoying it a lot. I like the combat, or what I've seen of it to this point. Framerate is mostly between 40-60 on my 390 & 4690, though the area I've just got to sometimes drops to mid 20s when spinning the camera around. Story so far is relatively compelling, I am definitely interested in what's going to happen next. Does a good job of dropping you into it as well.

I'm really liking the game so far. The dialogue is generally well written, and all of the voice acting is top notch. The combat feels like a really lousy version of Bloodborne, but it's really easy to cheese with the right build so far (you start out with a heal ability that you can recharge mid combat). I haven't killed any NPCs yet and the difficulty is still pretty manageable.

The two biggest issues so far are the pacing and the linearity. When you get to a new area, you have to dedicate like 2 straight hours to just talking to every NPC about their entire life story, their hot takes on their neighborhood, and whatever other inane nonsense Jonathan cooks up. It's all well done, but it's a drag to realize that you're hitting another exposition block instead of moving the story forward. Also, all the quests are extremely linear. There's one optimal way of finishing each sidequest, and it's wholly dependent upon collecting interchangeable key items from trash cans and lockers. It's also really easy to screw yourself out of NPC clues through dialogue choices, and it isn't at all clear when this is going to happen. Most of the time, you can get away with (and indeed have to) be a bizarrely prying asshole, ordering people to, "Tell me about how you don't love your wife," but every like 30th time doing this locks you out of the end of an NPC quest. It's totally inconsistent and frustrating.

Also, PSA for anyone frustrated by the LA Noire-esque dialogue choice descriptions not matching up to Reid's actions: you can manually back up your saves on PC to prevent you from totally destroying a playthrough. The saves are in C:/Users/Username/Appdata/Local/AVGame/Saved/SavedGames. There's a really, REALLY bad instance of this phenomenon at the end of chapter 2 that I've seen a lot of people get pissed off by, so consider backing your save up when you get into the chapter.

I like the idea of this game, but $50 is pretty rough from what I've heard on the control front. Guess I'll enjoy it plenty in six months when I pick it up during a sale.

@highpriest: I don't think the controls are that bad.

Here's my take on the game.

For a vampire you move like a stiff statue that can teleport and that becomes a chore after a while.I liked the main quests but my biggest gripe with this game is the surprising lack of variety with enemies and combat - for an RPG game, they sure reuse a lot of enemies and beyond a few bosses, most of the enemies you face appear in boss form a little too frequently. God of war has this problem too, but unlike Vampyr there is so much variety with gameplay and enemy selections you have to step up your strategy frequently. With Vampyr I did the same thing over and over again and it pretty much worked 90% of the time. The stiffness of the gameplay can also be a bother, which is only made worse by the sudden loading screens and occasional bug. There was a boss where the entire game was encompassed in a glaring light and I could not see what the fuck was happening. Literally, I basically had to fight a boss completely blindfolded.

Given the nature of the combat and how quickly enemies become a lot stronger than you, it's very tempting not to just eat every civilian and wreck through these assholes. For instance, I was level 22 and the enemies spawning in certain areas (areas related to the fucking main quest) were 29. Now you can BEAT them, but given how unsatisfying the combat is it's less of an "OH SHIT HERE WERE GO" moment and more of a "Ugh, this again?" Enemies behave the same way every time, they just deal more damage and take less from you, so while you can beat them, it would take forever to do so, and every time you die the game loads for ever so basically, it's a hassle. The enemy scaling just works in a weird way - it's not as smooth as Witcher's or bloodborne's for instance where there were moments I genuinely felt dread at the sight of a giant monster near by, or felt relief when I painstakingly defeated one in combat by carefully observing it's move set and AI tactics. There needs to be a rule all enemies abide, and there were times where I felt that the game didn't give me enough room to actually fight beyond the one strategy I assume everyone came up with to defeat stronger foes. I never had to spice up my approach, it was basically "VAPE AWAY, NOW VAPE BACK CLOSE AND HIT AND VAPE AWAY AGAIN." Rinse and repeat.

This forced me to literally avoid and sblitz through enemies constantly because I just didn't want to fight them, which you do in every RPG when you encounter something MORE powerful, but here it was more of a "yeah I'm not dealing with this shit" moment. You do get experience points by healing people and completing their quests , but it's not nearly as rewarding. The game wants you to make hard choices but it never puts you in positions where you really need to do so, and even if you do there's not a lot of payoff in it because the combat is just not that dynamic or satisfying, it's a chore, which is probably the worse thing I can say about the game, it felt like a chore.

The story was interesting, and the game of course isn't without it's merits. It's very fun gathering clues about people, and Jonathan Reid is an awesome character. They do vampires justice in a way I haven't seen in a while, but the combat seriously needs some work, because when you are following an interesting storyline or even a side quest you need to have incentive to actually want to meet challenges along the way, or at least BE willing to face them. I just never got that with Vampyr.

6/10. Again, this is my experience, I'm sure a lot of people had a blast with the game - not trying to be a dick, this is just my takeaway.