I have been waiting for long time to get my hands on a new Vampire The Masquerade game, since I enjoyed the first game a lot, even though the replay value wasn't high and the story line a bit linear. The second fledgling of the Vampire series has bettered it's older brother in replay value by giving you more options in character setup: you can now choose your characters sex and define his/her clan - groups of vampires related to each other through the Embrace (the ritual of siring a vampire) that share the same unique disciplines and attributes. The game sets off with you being 'Embraced' followed by the execution of your sire, who has violated the rules by turning you into a vampire without asking for permission from the local vampire prince. This vampire prince soon takes you under his wing and you start running errands for him. Quickly you learn though that not all vampires in your gameworld (modern day Los Angeles) follow the prince and you will be sucked into all sorts of superhuman political intrigue. The tensions between the several vampire sects is one of the strongholds of the story line and it works pretty well for me. You'll learn that all sects have their own view on vampire society and they all make sense in their own way, so you can feel free to choose... You can be a faithful henchman of the Prince of LA or be more of a two-faced bastard trying to play both sides. You can even work for another sect as their inside man. The gameworld is also quite nice. Los Angeles by night looks quite good and the characters it is filled with supply a wide arrange of experiences towards the player - they will talk you down, flirt you up or act plain stupid or crazy. One of the biggest improvements over the first game - 'Redemption' - is the inclusion of humor. Where 'Redemption' got you stuck with a mister duddly-do-right that lacked any sense of humor and with NPC that were as entertaining as 'Saved by the Bell - the 2nd Class', 'Bloodlines' delivers from time to time some very hilarious NPCs (GO FIND THE ARMS DEALER IN CHINATOWN!) and you too can make some funny remarks. You can take cracks at the Bush family, make jokes or just talk non sense. So far so good... but why did I grade this game with a 5.6? Well first off: the numerous bugs! Secondly: the numerous bugs... I read on some forum that Troika made the game deliberatly buggy when the game has been cracked... They state that if you don't have an original VtM - Bloodlines disc in your computer, you will be bugged a lot. But I do own an original copy of 'Bloodlines' and I suffer the same problems. The game crashes and stalls a lot... loading times seem to take forever and the games graphics don't look too good, even though I meet all the hardware requirements easily. My third point of critic is that I find the importance of vampiric powers a bit underrated. So far I managed to do quite well (I am nearly at the end of the game) without upgrading my vampiric powers at all. I spent all my XP's on combat, security, hacking and sneaking skills to get where I need to go. I had hoped for a bit more necessity of Vampiric powers. My last point of remark is that the quests aren't very well done. Most of the quest follow this pattern: you need to get object X, so you will need to speek to Mr. or Ms. Y, who will then tell you to go do a quest for them. This results in finding another object or another person. Then you head back to Mr./Ms. Y and he/she will tell you that in fact THEY cannot help you, but person Z. is in fact the person to talk to and so on and so on... Well this may be a bit typical RPG story telling and you might not be irritated by it like I am. It gets frustrating though when you sometimes cannot complete a (side) quest for failing to do something which at that time you could not have known it was a requirement for the quest. Example: I met this NPC (A) who told me to whack another NPC (B) I just ran into in the same building and whom I told to wait for me. I go back to the room to look for B, but he was gone and nowhere to be found. Ergo, I couldn't finish him off and A refused to do business with me. Also I finished another side quest and the reward was to be delivered in the mailbox of my hide-out... I just got myself installed in a second hide-out and couldn't find my reward there and neither did I in my first hide-out. When I replayed the side quest and finished it before I received a second hide-out, I was able to receive my $ 500 in the mailbox. It is exactly those bugs that makes me think that this game would have so great if Troika Games had spent a little more time and effort in testing their product... I hope Troika Games will come with a perfomance and bug fixing patch very soon...since I cannot complete the game because it keeps crashing at a cerain cinematic sequence... Now it seems a bit of a waste of programming... Still, if you really like vampires and first person RPG's and don't mind running the risk of serious bugs/crashes, you won't find a more gripping, immersive RPG that is a beauty in all its darkness then 'bloodlines', you should buy it and pray fo a performance patch to reach you soon...
Other Helpful Reviews for Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
If I were to tell you that Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is one of the best roleplaying games I've ever played, that'd be a statement without much weight – Bloodlines is the only true RPG I've ever played, so ther... Read Full Review
Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines (VtMB) is the most immersive game I have ever played. Dark and chilling, the game's environment, music, and storyline come together to create a somber and perpetually bleak atmosphe... Read Full Review
