Vampire: The Masquerade -- Bloodlines is a terrific RPG that is hampered by some technical flaws.
User Rating: 8.4 | Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines PC
I think that the Gamespot reviewer expected to play “Half-Life with Vampires” instead of a role-playing game, because that’s what the review reads like. “Vampire: The Masqerade – Bloodlines” is not a first person shooter. It is, however, a great RPG, filled with terrific script, intriguing story, a sense of mystery, unprecedented character interactions, dazzling style, lots of colorful personalities, and a cool role-playing system. It doesn’t live up to being the spiritual successor to Deus Ex, but it is still better than any other PC RPG so far this year. To start with, this game is beautiful to look at. Is it as astounding as Half-Life 2? No, but that’s not exactly saying anything. A regular Corvette isn’t as great as a Calloway Corvette, but that doesn’t mean that the regular ‘Vette isn’t great. There is a huge variety of highly detailed and beautiful environments here. The game features a wide variety of gorgeous environments that show the glamour and sleaze of LA. The streets are lit up with neon while the bums and prostitutes stand around flaming barrels. Characters show realistic facial expressions that change based upon what dialog options you select. Dialog in this game becomes the best part, largely because of the realism that these characters show. The games numerous NPC’s don’t suffer from the “attack of the clones” problem, except for the bums and prostitutes. This is a highly underappreciated quality for this game. The biggest problem with the game is the walking, running, and fighting animations for the game’s various characters. Some animations are done poorly. Some of the NPC’s in combat seem like they only have a few frames of animation. This game could have really used some motion capturing. The voice-acting for the game’s huge script is excellent. The writing, itself, is excellent, and hearing it delivered by the game’s interesting characters is a real treat. The firearms also sound great. The licensed music is very good too, and so is the moody ambient music that plays in the game’s various areas. Unfortunately, the audio does have some problems. One of them is the low variety of ambient and licensed music, which ends up looping quite a bit. The audio also has some hiccup glitches from time to time, and enemies in combat only have one or two barks, which aren’t very convincing. Every set of enemies uses the same sound bites – this sticks out like a sore thumb as a cheap shortcut. There is also a nagging glitch in the audio that causes your footsteps to be heard a full second after you stop walking. “Vampires” has a somewhat simple but very unique and flexible role-playing system. There are seven clans to choose from, each of which has their own unique traits. You start off working for the LA Prince of the Camarilla, a strict society whose rules revolve around preserving The Masquerade -- the process by which Vampires keep themselves a secret from humanity. Your character has a bunch of attributes for fighting, infiltration, stealth, and persuasion or seduction. He/she also has three disciplines, which are supernatural powers that can be used for a short period of time. There are no levels in the game. You receive points to assign each time that you complete a quest. The true highlight of the game is solving the game’s various quests while exploring all of the environments and interacting with all of the characters. “Vampire” has a cast of colorful characters that easily rivals any RPG ever made. Or any game, for that matter. Dialog is even better than “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic”, and that’s saying a lot. The dialog is often influenced by your conversation skills. Special lines of dialog only show up if your skills in intimidation, persuasion, or seduction are high enough. The game forces you to make some pretty tough choices and live with their consequences, so you had better watch what you say and do. The quests have you doing some pretty interesting stuff, like shutting up a blabbermouth who is breaking the Masquerade, infiltrating a museum, and investigating the origin of a bizarre snuff film. This game earns its “M” rating, and is not for the faint of heart. Combat is clunky and not very deep, but it’s still fun. The game does a good job of mixing your role-playing stats with your twitch gamer abilities. Combat generally involves using one or more special abilities while furiously clicking the mouse during melee, or doing your best to move and shoot your guns. You also can feed on enemies during combat, which you will often need to restore your health and blood level. Firearms are somewhat underpowered damage-wise, but using them keeps you safe if you’re not very tough. This imbalance isn’t as bad as you find in lots of 3D RPG’s, which always seem to favor melee combat. Combat usually isn’t the strength of these types of games, and “Vampires” is no exception. The worst part about this game though, is the tiny areas and annoying amount of loading screens. “Bloodlines” has literally dozens of tiny maps. Some maps are only one room. Yes, one room. This means that you are constantly looking at loading screens throughout the game. This game would have benefited from a better layout of the maps. The video also seems under optimized, as there are occasional frame rate slowdowns in the streets and during combat. Thankfully, I did not encounter any of the famous big bugs that have hit other people playing this game. The Gamespot review inaccurately states that it will take you 20-30 hours to play this game your first time through. You would have to not be trying to enjoy yourself to finish it in 20 hours. It’s more like 30-50 hours, and after you are done playing, you can choose a different clan and get an entirely different experience. This is especially true if you are a Malkavian, since this clan gets an entirely unique set of dialog. There is a lot of content here. Despite its rough edges, “Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines” is a resounding success as an RPG, and it is Troika’s best game to date. If you are looking for a great role-playing game, then you need look no further than here.
