The latest game to be based on the Vampire role-playing system makes for an ambitious and generally enjoyable attempt to provide an open-ended experience for any budding Childe of the night, but falls short of delivering on the great initial promise. You start the game by picking your vampire, selectable from a variety of clans with a variety of special attributes and very different appearances. This isn’t Count Dracula and flowing capes, but rather what a vampire might look like in modern day Los Angeles. The clans include the Toreador, who are happiest mingling with unknowing humans; and the hideous Nosferatu, who must always remain out of sight lest they violate the Masquerade - the law obeyed by most and enforced upon all vampires. Vampires can never let the ignorant mortal masses know of their existence, or they risk being exterminated for sure. Despite this primarily being an RPG, the game plays more like an action adventure - Deus Ex albeit with a 3rd person view and more melee combat springs to mind as a comparison which flatters Bloodlines, but gives an idea of the gameplay. In fact it’s likely that the player will opt for melee combat more often than not - most foes can be overcome with a few crude mouse button bashes in their direction. This approach will not always work however, particularly later in the game, when caution and guns may have to be utilised. Between the running around and chatting to people that goes on, the core part of the game takes place in the combat zones. These sequences, which often see you infiltrating some place or another, can be very atmospheric and tense, but are essentially linear more often than not. The excellent use of sound in some of these parts of the game really insists on surround sound, it becomes genuinely uncomfortable in places, to its credit. The graphics on the whole are very good. This was the first chance to see the Half-Life 2 Source engine at retail, and it appears to have been utilised very effectively. The dingy LA locales are very nicely realised, with atmospheric lighting used... sparingly at times, but it works. The people in the game look pretty good, although their animations aren’t always slick or even that consistent. Here I’ve started to touch on the games recurring weakness - instability. The game pretty much requires patching, and I recall many a frustrating moment when a bug in this game influenced play noticeably. In addition, when the camera swings round in 3rd person view you’ll often catch a glimpse of the other side of the adjacent wall. You can even attack enemies through doors and thin walls, which isn’t intentional I’m sure. A real shame that such moments should harm a game so, but they are hard to ignore and go some way to take you away from the vampire in LA back to the frustrated gamer in front of their PC. The Deus Ex comparison made earlier is in fact very valid - maybe more so with its disappointing sequel Invisible War, as the games share a similar open objective-based progression system, and multiple endings based on which faction you align yourself with. Combining this with the variety of vampire clans to try at the beginning means that the game has good replay value, although the big choices only come very close to the end, so you may in fact not want to go through the whole game again, as it is a pretty good length the first time through. Either way there’s good value here. Bloodlines is far from perfect - both technically and in terms of the design of the game, but somehow it’s hard not to like a game which has you stalking a twisted vision of Los Angeles by night, preying on those who cannot know the existence of you and your Kindred. All in all this is an atmospheric, enjoyable, yet somewhat flawed game; still well worth checking out.
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