"Let me show you something..." - The Embrace. The best experience from The World of Darkness ever made.
In another way, Troika Games successful reach good controls and sounds, even when this last item present some low quality effects and some bad voice acting, while presents a terrible AI and a poor, shallow and repetitive combat.
Maybe I should talk about the combat after write things like that.
Like a first look in the game, we notice that Bloodlines is a mix between FPS and RPG. It also let us use and choose close combat weapons, like knifes, axes and swords, or use ranged weapons, like some few variation of fire weapons and crossbow. If using melee weapons, the camera go to a third person view, and ranged weapons is like a normal FPS.
But all these means nothing when we have a few weapon variation combined with a mediocre model animation. Also, the Disciplines don't add much of what should and our enemies don't present any real challenge at all. Not for my taste. We can also perform some combos, but nothing that add to the feeling to combat using a powerful vampire. At least, the sneak killings are cool to achieve.
Until now, I made my opinion about the "action" that is clearly not the main attractive. The strongest point is the history and all the background that Vampire The Masquerade have.
To start, after we click in "New Game", we must choose one of the seven biggest and strongest vampire "races", called clans. After that, we can edit our initial Attributes, Disciplines, Feats etc, like in the pen-and-paper. And if you're a fan of the pen-and-paper game, probably, you'll fall in love with this game in this point forward, don't minding about all the drawback of the combat and unpolished use of the Source Engine.
Really bad that we cannot customize the appearance of our vampire, even along the game we have a very few options to change appearance, lacking clothes and types of armor.
Then it begins throwing us in a modern Los Angeles and, being a "new born" vampire, we must start following some orders from the Prince and all will surround about many of the vampire tales and histories, like the sects and apocalypse. And here is where Bloodlines shine, in the way how happen the storytelling and all the background world of Vampire The Masquerade. All comes alive and we can interact in this world of mysteries, power, violence and luxury, with the possibility of four endings. Not only that, but the clan that we choose will change completely the way how we see and experience Bloodlines.
Also, there are a lot of side quests to be completed, with a good variation, creativity and quality, making the game lost some of its repetitiveness because of the shallow combat.
Actually, in the sum of its part, Bloodlines can be a great game. Presenting a superb and well detailed script and storytelling, together with all the natural background linked to the World of Darkness, more amazing and unforgettable characters with some amazing voice acting, a good level up system, a nice range of clans and four possible finals that rise up the replay value, all this can immerse the player in a unique experience that, even in the present days, we cannot see in no other game.
My feeling is that I finished this game wanting more, not only because it's good, but because of all the potential that is still hiding inside the Vampire The Masquerade. If I wasn't a fan of the pen-and-paper game, probably I would score it in "6", because of the high range of bugs and graphical glitches that MUST be corrected through unofficial patches to proper playing. But my final score to it will be "7", and if I could score it through my tastes would be an easy "8".