Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

The Good
Vampire Bloodlines is, without a doubt, a huge improvement over its predecessor. Vampire: The Masquerade: Redemption was perhaps more polished to some degree, but it had its share of awful bugs and game design decisions, and a less satisfying story. Vampire Bloodlines turns the game into an FPS RPG, and for the most part, this is a good move. It retains the dark and gritty feel of the first game, and puts it to good use, creating a garish, sin-filled version of Los Angeles.

I am normally amused and disappointed by games that are formulaically “mature.” The use of the word mature often means three things: cursing, lots of violence, and overt sexuality. Bloodlines has these in spades, buts it’s a testament to the game’s good writing and plot that these elements were only a minor deterrent. Most characters have interesting stories and dialogue to impart, and the Source engine brings their faces to life, as does some surprisingly good voice acting. Just brace yourself for some very vulgar and sexually explicit dialogue. This is supposed to be an L.A. filled with vice-ridden, hedonistic, super-violent immortals, after all.

In the world of Bloodlines, there are 7 clans of vampires. You can play any of them, and all have their own strengths and weaknesses. Some, like the Nosferatu are hideously deformed near-animals. They may be powerful, quiet and deadly stalkers, but they can’t blend in with humans. The Toreador, on the other hand, are powerful, suave aristocrats. They can’t feed on “impure” (re: rats, poor humans, “low blood”) victims, but they have political clout and old-money class.

Regardless of what class you pick, you’ll be able to level up your combat, magic (various “blood” spells) and more intellectual skills. These affect the gameworld noticeably. Try picking a lock, sneaking past a guard, or firing a shotgun at first level, and then do it again when you’ve spent 3 or 4 points on the skill. You will notice a huge difference. Bloodlines is an RPG to its core. Don’t make the mistake of letting its FPS perspective fool you. This is the natural evolution of its third-person predecessor, stat points, imaginary dice-rolls and all.

Bloodlines offers some surprisingly scary and well-designed levels. When you aren’t wandering around Hollywood or Santa Monica, looking for quests and blood, you’ll be sent on individual missions, which take place in separate levels. Some levels, like the abandoned (and possibly haunted?) hotel, the insane asylum, and a graveyard practically drip with fear and tension. One quest that has you investigating a series of increasingly sadistic snuff films is one of the scariest encounters I’ve ever had in a video game.

The combat is fun, if a bit awkward, and all of your abilities are useful, in one way or another. The persuasion and intimidation options are fun, but the best conversation technique of all is saved for one particular clan of vampires. The Malkavians are all half insane, and thus your responses to conversations are all in bizarre Cheshire cat speech. Even better, you can use some blood to make other people just a little crazy, winning them over to your point of view.

The game allows you to really customize your world, with different apartments to move into, different clothes and armor, and different ways of completing almost every mission. You’ll realize that you can complete each mission a number of different ways: sneaking, fighting, magic, charming, intimidating, and ultimately a combination of several of these. This free-form gameplay reminded me a lot of Deus Ex, but in a much more interesting world, to be honest. That is actually on of the highest complements I can give this game, actually. It is the spiritual successor (in gameplay if not in style or construction) of one of my favorite FPS RPGs of all time.

The Bad
Sadly, Bloodlines is absolutely chock-full of mistakes. The animations are for the most part awkward and badly implemented. Likewise, the interface for combat is clunky and hard to use. The Source game engine, used so masterfully by Valve, looks close to ugly here. While the graphics may muster up some truly frightening set pieces, they can also break you out of the game entirely, textures popping in and out and people sticking their arms through walls.

There is evidence of missing or cut quests all over the place: pointless items, broken dialogue, etc. It’s obvious that Troika had some grand plans for this game, and couldn’t or didn’t have the time to implement them. Some of the weapons are overpowered, and some of the classes aren’t balanced properly. The game takes forever to load in many cases, despite being run on a computer that easily destroys its recommended requirements. Finally, the game is incredibly unstable, glitching and crashing frequently.

The Bottom Line
Despite that seemingly insurmountable list of problems, I would still recommend this game to fans of RPGs, FPS RPGs, and White Wolf’s Masquerade universe. This game is one of the deepest and most interesting RPGs I have ever played. It actually puts its gritty urban setting to use (unlike so many games), crafting a bizarre nightmare version of our own dangerous cities. It provides a truly interesting story, great character development, and a terrifically tense and atmospheric experience. However, the number of bugs, glitches and imbalances in the game threaten to ruin it.

The only way to get this great game to be even barely playable is to download the latest fan-made patch, unfortunately. The community patch provides all of the fixes that Troika should have put into the game before it went gold. Modern resolutions are added to the game’s options (this makes a huge difference), broken quests are fixed, missing quests are added, powers and weapons that got cut are added in, character creation is fleshed out, and most importantly, the game is stabilized.

So, if you want a deep, scary and engrossing RPG, get Vampire Bloodlines. You’ll have to a masochist or an extremely odd brand of gamer to appreciate it though, even with the patches.

The Good
Troika proved with its first game that it really knew how to create depth in a game world when handling role playing. This game proves to continue that tradition, as role-playing really shines in this game.

You start by selecting a vampire type, each with its own strengths, weaknesses and a special power only allowed to the particular vampire family. And each character type is an experience in itself: The ugly Nosferatu who must hides its visage from humans or risk revealing the masquerade; the beautiful Toreador who easily moves through humanity, seducing their victims; the Brujah who viciously use their muscle to get what they want; the insane malkovians who can’t seem to communicate to others without creating and uncomfortable situation, yet have better insight for it. As you see, there are many paths to follow allowing some replayability as you try various vampires.

From this you will go into the dark under belly of LA, feeling your way through intrigues, lies, and plots. In the process you will get various quests you can solve to ingratiate yourself with the denizens of the everlasting night. On resolving each quest, you gain experience and levels, which allow you to pour points into various skills and abilities. You may do so as you wish, though your choice of vampire type will make some skills more expensive than others. This allows even more customizability by choosing individualized skills for your vampire.

When you do go into the world, you will need to work within the rule of the Masquerade. You must avoid human understanding of what you are, or you could be punished. This is a great gameplay obstacle, and can be used to change how you are looked at. On top of this is the bloodlust you must satisfy. All major skills use blood and damage taken can only be healed by blood. So, you will need to find ways to sate the lust or risk permanent death. These limits of the game world do add to the gameplay and keep it fresh and risky.

As you move through the various areas of LA, such as Hollywood, Santa Barbara, and China town, you will meet quite a few great and personable NPCs. Each has memorable dialogue and are generally well voiced. Main NPCS are well rendered as well, making them feel more real. I always enjoyed interacting with them, as the menu driven conversations have many paths and allow many reactions. Even your powers will add more reactions, depending on ability. The best are the Malkovian responses, creating quite humorous reactions.

Various quests these NPCs will give you will keep you interested and are rarely repetitive. You will get to try your hand at fighting monsters, sneaking into various companies, hacking computers and many other actions. You will even get to try various skills in missions to accomplish your tasks, such as either talking or fighting your way in the Chinese theater. But this is not always the case as I mention in the bad.

Various locations are generally well done, and a few are pretty darned exceptional. The hotel is one of the best scary places I’ve seen in gaming in a long time. It oozes a kind of fun house atmosphere that is really enjoyable. I also found the psychiatrist’s mansion a weird but interesting area, reminiscent of Thief’s Balfor mansion.

This leads to the area of graphics. My first error was to play this alongside Half Life 2, which truly is an unfair comparison. Though there are bugs (mentioned below) many of the scenes are well detailed and nicely designed. Some are better than others, such as Chinatown and the Nosferatu town. For an RPG, the look of the graphics are well done. But there are some issues with performance, and some areas leave much to be desired.

Finally the story is very good. It is rather linear, but has its own twists and turns, mostly depending on you. Much of the best story is in the sidequests where you learn more about the politics of being a vampire. And you do get to determine the ending, and I suggest you try them all for they do have some surprises and nice cinematics. I felt the ending was well done, though there are some other opinions. And though you never really get to know your character, you do get a taste of White Wolf’s vampiric world.

The Bad
When it comes to role playing and characterization, Vampire gets a gold star. But battling enemies is another story. Despite multiple skills, battles devolve mostly in to clicking on the enemy to defeat them. Magic allows for some strategy, but the speed of battles can undermine thoughts of strategizing. And some of the tougher battles will use up your blood skills quickly before you can finish off the enemy. Enemies have a tendency to run up and attack without much thought to their actions. Many times you will use your powerful skills to kill enemies quickly without much more action.

For all the intricate character customizability, some of this gets lost in many actual quests one can undertake. Many of the actions emphasize only one or two skills, such as the zombie hunt requiring good gunplay. This would not be so bad if it were only the sidequests, but many of the main quests demand use of few skills, such as the need to sneak through the museum to get some of the best experience. If you leveled in the personality orders, you’ll find they get lost through many of the missions. There are some spells that will allow you to buff up your weaker skills, but it would still be nice to play through each as you have developed your character, not force your character into unnatural actions.

The final levels are the worst. Be prepared to use the last of your experience to beef up fighting skills and battle magic. You will be doing a lot of fighting and will have a hell of a time if you only poured your skills in other areas. This undermines the role playing strength of the game.

Another issue is the bugs. Many of the worst were fixed in the patch, but there are plenty of others. The graphics are choppy on the best of machines (I figure my ATI Radieon on 2.5 GHz machine is no slouch) and moving areas such as elevators skip around. I don’t blame Troika as much on this because Valve made a patch for the same issues in Half Life 2, but did not distribute it to Troika, leaving many problems in.

Load areas feel much like another bug, but they are a weakness a graphics heavy engine. Going in and out of buildings lead to all sorts of load times, and it can be frustrating to move around. On top of this, the places you go are both limited to a few areas and the areas feel artificially closed. There are many times I was confronted with strange barriers that shout “You are in an artificial room created by game developers!” Plus, it appears more areas were promised than delivered. Take a look at the box, I never saw that cowgirl anywhere.

Along with this are the graphical issues that can undermine believability. There are a lot of twins in the game at various places. Many of the body models can be so simple compared the the NPCs that it feels shoddy. And some areas are rather bland and repetitive (welcome to the sewers). Of course, much of this comes from the Half Life 2 comparison, and for an RPG, its not too bad.

The Bottom Line
Troika’s third and final game takes them to unfamiliar territory in creating Deus Ex style shooter. What they add is a deeper role playing system and in-depth character interactions. But, there are problems standard to Troika’s fare: bugs, a less then satisfying breadth of area, a linear finale with minor, though intriguing, choices in the end. They overreach at expansive gameplay and world but come up somewhat short, concentrating their efforts in a few areas leaving the game unbalanced, as if there could be so much more.

Despite the flaws, Troika does excel at what they concentrate on. This leads to a game that is well worth playing for to see how well they can do some things and leaves one wondering how well they could have made games had they found balance. So, if you want a fine example of idealistic zeal for creating great role-playing, characterization, and story, you can’t go wrong with this gem.

The Good
As every fan of role-playing games should know, the guys from Troika Games played a major role (no pun intended) in the creation of the landmark title Fallout. As they established themselves as an independent game-developing company, they delivered Arcanum, one of the most interesting and flexible RPGs known to mankind. Bloodlines is their most original work; based on a pen-and-paper rule set used, to my knowledge, only once before in a video game, it is gorgeous, deeply satisfying, and impossible to put down for all the reasons you love RPGs for.

Bloodlines draws inspiration not only from classic "pure": RPGs, but also from hybrid games, most notably Deus Ex. A more traditional RPG than that seminal game at heart, it nevertheless has elements of a third-person action game and first-person shooter. Its action is clever, it depends on the way you have customized your character, and most problems can be solved in two or more different ways. In fact, Bloodlines belongs to en exceedingly rare breed of role-playing games that retain much of their genre's depth but are no strangers to inspiration coming from other styles.

Already the character creation gives you an idea about what a wonderful role-playing experience you are treated to. Different vampire clans are defined in a uniquely appealing way: instead of the usual fighters and clerics you'll have a choice between beast-like Gangrels who can summon ferocious animals; insane Malkavians who have unique dialogue lines seemingly taken from a surrealist book; ugly Nosferatu who must hide from humans during the entire game, and so on. The differences in the playing styles of all those creatures are sometimes so big that the game begins to shift genres depending on your choices: it can become a hack-and-slash melee game, a shooter, a stealth game, and more.

Unlike most other RPGs, you don't gain experience points from battles in this game, but only from completing quests. This encourages speech-related approaches and also makes it possible to run away from some difficult battles without fear of losing valuable experience. When you gain experience points, you distribute them to raise various attributes of your character. The role-playing system of Bloodlines is varied and flexible. Besides just making your character stronger and tougher, you can upgrade such skills as lockpicking and stealth, as well as feats such as persuasion or seduction. In a true role-playing fashion, the game allows you to do whatever you like. Feel like hacking computer terminals, picking locks and silently creeping past unsuspecting guards? You can do that. More inclined towards diplomacy? Raise your charisma and persuasion, and you'll be able to complete many quests which can't be solved with stealth or brutal force. And maybe you'll spare yourself a fight or two. Or just make yourself sexy and seduce people in bars and discos. You can do all that. Welcome to real role-playing.

There is also plenty of vampire-exclusive stuff in this game. After all, you are playing an immortal creature, you can't be killed in conventional ways, and you can drink blood, right? Of course! All those vampire aspects are beautifully integrated into the gameplay. First of all, there is the Masquerade. It means that you are not allowed to reveal to humans your true nature. So, if you are playing as a Nosferatu (who don't look human), you can't even allow yourself to be seen. If you violate the Masquerade, be it through reckless mentioning of vampires in conversation, public blood-drinking, or usage of your special disciplines in front of human witnesses, you get a warning. Five such warnings, and the game is over. You should also pay attention to your Humanity: you are constantly reminded that even as a vampire, you needn't be evil. Yes, you are a dark creature, a predator, a blood-sucker, but that doesn't mean that you should go on a rampage killing innocent people. If you do anything of the kind, you'll lose Humanity. The less Humanity you have, the more you will be inclined to uncontrolled frenzy.

The "meat" of this game are the quests. Of course, theoretically you can just follow the main story quests and be done with the game, but first, you'll really need the experience, and second, those quests are for the most part quite exciting and original, sometimes even more so than the main storyline. You'll get various simple bad guy-killing or item-retrieving assignments, but also such interesting material as preventing a book from being published, criticizing food in a restaurant, or convincing a girl her boyfriend is really not interested in her. Many quests can be completed in various ways - persuasion skill plays a particularly important role. Will you kill a person, lockpick his office, or convince him to do what you want? The choice is yours.

When you fight, you do it either by punching your enemies, using melee weapons, or shooting. To use your vampire disciplines (some of which are unique to certain clans, so you'll never see all of them unless you play the game several times), you need blood. Blood points is another excellent vampire-related twist to the traditional usage of MP. Each discipline requires a certain amount of blood. Those disciplines range from increasing your attack power to driving your opponent insane. Blood points can be replenished by drinking blood packs, but of course a much cooler way is to feed on your enemies, if they are human. High unarmed combat rating increases your chances of successfully feeding on an armed enemy. This way you can replenish your blood points and health as well. The fights are exciting, there are different melee weapons and guns to try out, and overall combat is nearly as satisfying as are the quests.

Bloodlines is set in one of the most unforgettable worlds ever seen in a video game. The atmosphere in this game is, quite simply, amazing. The visual design is absolutely fabulous. Never mind the technical quality of the graphics - it's their artistic touch that makes them shine; the incredibly stylish set-up, with all kinds of weird and grotesque ideas, full of imagination - gothic horror, immense sensuality, and decadent glamour are mixed together to create something really special. This is one of those games where extensive usage of adult-oriented imagery - sex and gore - has a true artistic value. There are many bloody locations in the game; suffering and physical pain literally surrounds you. At the same time, the game feels erotic - in a dangerous, menacing way. There are reasons for all that: these stylistic elements are there because they help to create a believable, convincing, seductive world. Bloodlines is a masterpiece of dark beauty.

Some locations and setpieces in this game stay in your memory long after you've finished it. When I was running around the haunted mansion early in the game I felt as if I were having an unsettling dream. And when I descended into the sewers to investigate the video tape murders, I was genuinely scared by those terrifying demons. I nearly jumped on my seat when the first of those creatures suddenly attacked me in the internet cafe. And the werewolf chase? Undeniably, that was one of the most nerve-tickling, scariest moments in my game-playing career. I remember how I ran away from that beast and crouched helplessly in a dark corner of that tram shack. The werewolf was madly running about, crushing the door of the shack. It didn't notice me and continued howling and hitting the walls. It was terrifying. The only thought I had was: "Don't move! Just... don't move". And then the tram finally arrived, and I jumped into it at the same moment as the werewolf's claws hit me... I escaped alive, gazing at the spectacular panorama of nocturnal Los Angeles spread in front of me, sensing deep relief and still trembling at the thought of what I have just experienced.

Yes, this game is very intense - poetically, artistically intense. But the more "normal" locations, those you visit all the time, and where scripted events rarely occur, are visually as appealing as those unique sequences I described above. There are four main "hubs" in the game - Santa Monica, Downtown LA, Hollywood, and Chinatown. Each one of those big locations is depicted with great care and enormous attention to detail. I often found myself simply stopping and staring at the dark skies, with all those neon signs cluttered on top of the skyscrapers. Character graphics are excellent as well: conversations are shown up close, with remarkable variety of facial expressions. You won't forget those faces even if you try to. Not to mention the technical side of the whole thing - shadows, reflections, lights, and so on: everything just looks fantastic in this game.

Bloodlines also has an intriguing plot rooted in rich lore. The story mostly revolves around politics and power struggle in the vampire world. The various vampire organizations of Los Angeles are believable and well thought-out. There is the leading party of Camarilla, a conservative movement, corrupted from within, but with clear inclination to order-preserving; the Anarchs, sort of radical leftists who don't recognize any authority and believe in a "free world"; the vicious Sabbat, who exploit the beastly, cruel part of the vampires, and whose goal is utter destruction; and finally, the mysterious Kuei-Jin, Chinese vampires with different traditions and ideas about spirituality. The best part of all this is that before the endgame begins you'll have to decide which side you are on. Some decisions won't be possible, because during the game you were too rude to representatives of certain organizations, or did something to offend them. In the end, it is you, the player, who has to find his own ideology and believe in it. You get different endings depending on which side you choose. You'll also skip one of the two final areas if you side with certain people.

Most of the characters in the game are memorable and interesting. It's a pleasure just to hear those characters talk - first, because the voice acting is of surprisingly high quality, and second, because the dialogues themselves are wonderfully lively and often quite witty and humorous. The humor plays an important role in the game - there are hilarious dialogue lines, messages, and Eastern eggs spread around it.

The main plot itself is just the tip of an iceberg. One of the most impressive aspects of Bloodlines is the whole background information you receive about the game world. I never played the pen-and-paper RPG, but I enjoyed reading all this info on the loading screens (I had more than enough time to read them...), or grilling various NPCs for news coming from the World of Darkness and its inhabitants. It was great to read about the history of vampires, their clans and societies, their nature, Caine, Antediluvians, all kinds of prophecies, blood relations, social rules, etc. It is a fascinating world, and the game makes you believe it exists alongside the real one.

The Bad
The problems of Bloodlines are mostly technical. Every location in the game loads separately, and the loading times are too long even on a powerful machine, resulting in poor performance. Clunky, choppy movement is not uncommon on a system exceeding the minimum requirements, making you physically connect to the pain of the computer trying to load so many things at once. On top of that, the original release was plagued by bugs, which were later corrected by several patches. Downloading a patch is pretty much a must.

Everything else is nitpicking. Perhaps firearms should have been made more rewarding - playing as a melee-oriented character is too tempting, since close combat weapons are generally more convenient to use. I wish certain areas were more interconnected - there are a few quests taking place in seemingly open, rural locations, but all you can do there is just go inside and complete your mission, unable to physically walk back to the city. Some may argue that combat is overused and only buffed-up characters can survive towards the end; however, investing points into speech skills results in additional quests leading to more experience you could easily apply to combat attributes later.

The Bottom Line
Bloodlines is a triumph of RPG design: it has both style and substance, and the wonderful flexibility of its gameplay doesn't detract in the least from its uniquely strong personality. It is an ultra-stylish, refined gourmet role-playing experience tailor-made for lovers of the genre.