A Vampyre Story

Review from Anna - Monday, 08 June 2009 @ 7:20am

Out of the adventurer's gloom, comes a new game that is one of few that have slowly streamed from the darkened studio rooms. Steadily trying to reinvigorate the genre one game at a time, with varying success in both economic and critical terms. The list of those that have come and gone are limited, few are those that stick in the minds of critics, fewer still in the audience they have tried so hard to entice back into the fold.

A Vampyre Story is the latest in a long line of adventure games venturing out on to the market past the genre's prime. Point and click is remembered with fondness but only a few games since the advent of 3D gaming have stood out from the pack. Namely, Good and Evil, Psychonauts and The Longest Journey/Dreamfall.

The game itself is nothing compared to the other stand out adventure games in the past but it has a few aspects to recommend itself to those thinking of picking it up. Firstly, it has a number of former Lucas Arts employees who worked on it, so playing through does seem a bit familiar in the art and writing style but there the similarities end.

Dey vant to suck your blooooood!

The story goes that a young, up and coming opera singer in Paris is kidnapped by an admiring fan, who ends up being a vampire. The opera prodigy is called Mona, who has dreamed of singing on the world stage yet the evil Baron Shrowdy who has a bit of a mother complex has kept her locked up ever since he stole her away. The story itself isn't bad and the writers play upon Mona's predicament quite well, making a mockery of her captor and, in the style of many adventure games, delight in the descriptions of objects Mona encounters. What was frustrating, however, was the voice actors – much of an adventure game depends on the protagonist's observations and having a whiny, bad French accent telling you she can't do something when you try and put cat food on a trapdoor isn't the most endearing way to keep a player hooked. Most of the voices felt over done with accents laid on too thick, to the point that it went far beyond caricature.

Gameplay is pretty straightforward, using a similar system to the Curse of Monkey Island, where clicking the mouse will give you different ways of interacting with an object. Mona walks quite slowly to everywhere you want to go, which is luckily mentioned in the manual and a handy tip is included so you can quickly skip across a room to get to the one you want faster. Some puzzles are a bit tricksy of course, and you'll find yourself retracing your steps a fair bit in order to work out what goes where and how before finding out it was the other way round and again, trekking back to put things in the right order. As with any adventure game, picking up whatever you can is essential and then applying it in improbably situations all occur throughout A Vampyre Story. Some are straightforward, others not so much but once figured out they give you the same sense of satisfaction you would in the old glory days.

On the road again..

Apart from the voice acting, the soundtrack to A Vampyre Story is hauntingly beautiful. The score was composed by Pedro Macedo Camacho and while Mona de Lafitte's voice is annoying as nails on a blackboard, her soprano is gorgeous. If anything, the game can be congratulated on the use of a beautiful soundtrack and is worth a pick up if you're willing to ignore the heavily-accented characters.

Graphics in the game are mediocre, especially if you take into consideration that the game has been in development for five years. It can very Tim Burton-esque with Mona very reminiscent of the title character of the Corpse Bride and because of this, a lot of the environments can get pretty dull. Haunted castle this, spooky field that... I mean, it's great and all that you've done this adventure game for those hanging out for the new renaissance of gaming, but there's only so much you can do in a haunted setting. The backgrounds are well designed though, very pretty and atmospheric. The characters are a bit blocky and can sometimes accidentally get a cloak stuck in a wall but overall it's just quite mediocre. No wows here.

Vampyres are always looking for their necks victim.

So for an adventure game, it doesn't quite cut it for the saviour of the genre. So maybe next time. But in terms of those hanging out for their next quick fix, it doesn't do too badly as long as you can ignore the main character's voice. However, I would like it said that I would absolutely love to be able to meet a person who actually speaks like that. The puzzles are well mixed, with some odd ones every now and then to keep the game from getting too ho hum. The humour is a bit worn though. You might find yourself cringing over a tired gag or overly obvious pun as they get more and more formulaic. That and the self-serving laughter. I'm sorry, you don't laugh at your own jokes especially when no one else is laughing with you on-screen as well as off. A 'teehee' might be fine for an indicator of “Yes, that was a joke” but a good giggle is going a tad far to the point that you're hitting people over the head with the hilarity.

As a recommendation for this game, I'd have to say that you can't go in expecting another Monkey Island. The game is a lot more kid-friendly than I'm used to, which may explain the dodgy humour a bit. It also worked as a watching game, you can play this with more than one person. I'm not sure about other people but my siblings and I grew up watching each other play games, giving out opinions as we saw fit. Much of the time I was playing this game, I had my sister hanging over my shoulder pointing out what I'd failed to pick up or look at.

Pros

No sparkling, variety of puzzles, beautiful soundtrack, LA experience behind development.

Cons

Voice acting - particularly Mona, dodgy vampire lore, slow loading between scenes, bad puns.