Into the Lair

The story begins with us waking up as a vampire. We've been turned in order to free us from thralldom to another vampire named Viscardi, and at this point we can choose what we want to do about him. Not that it actually changes the game, much: we're still entering his lair and choosing our route through to the end, where Viscardi lies sleeping in his coffin.

It actually feels a bit too easy. I get the idea that some of our missteps are supposed to reduce our health and ability to handle the final thrall before Viscardi (who is asleep and trivial to kill) and that perhaps we're supposed to be able to restore some of that health by drinking from people along the way (ah, but at what cost to our soul?) but no. No matter what we do, we can make it to the end and win. At which point we leave the lair and ... cut straight back to the title screen. The "game" part of this thing doesn't seem to have been completed.

Tonally, I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Some of our responses, when we're addressed in the game, strike me as having come from the Modern Badass playbook, yet we're fighting with swords and the final guard is fully armoured. While the world and the actions are well described, the characterisations don't seem to quite fit with everything else.

As breakfast, it's buttered toast, a scrambled egg, and tomato juice. Somehow I get the idea that this was going to be French toast, but fell short.