by Rick - December 17, 2004

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is a game of horror and action. It throws you into the life of a Neonate (a fledgling vampire) who was created without the permission of the governing body of vampire society, the Camarilla. Your character has to learn to cope with this strange new world and survive the collective pull of all the dark denizens of modern Los Angeles.

Masquerade Violation #1

Bloodlines runs as a standard third person RPG. You control your vampire with the basic "w-a-s-d" control setup, and you attack and activate you special vampiric powers, called disciplines, with the mouse. Unlike most RPGs, you don’t level up. Instead, for completing certain tasks, you are rewarded experience. You then spend your xp towards receiving the fabled and all mighty dots. These magical dots sit beside your various stats, such as strength, charisma and stealth, and let you know how powerful you are in those stats. This system of raising your power resembles strongly the table top RPG that Bloodlines is based on. With a few exceptions, the game emulates the pen and paper game with nostalgic results, bringing the usually slow paced gaming experience to a visual and convenient medium.

However, portions of the game feel rushed, and it's actually kind of sad. It's like they took the recipe for the world's greatest cake, put it all together perfectly, and then took it out of the oven way too early. Bloodlines could have used some serious play testing. The game was chock full of visual bugs (which don't really hinder the game as much as ruin the immersion) and had it's fair share of technical bugs.

Some of the environments were also a little nutty. At one particular place in the game, there is a narrow archway that leads to a club, and a large collection of people just outside of the club often ensures that at least two people will be standing side by side in the arch, preventing your passage. You can't jump over them, you can't push them to the side, and more often than not, they're stuck there. Your only options are to run back to the nearest transition point, walk into another area and walk back out, or you could simply kill the infuriating humans... at the cost of your humanity. Fortunately, these occurances are rare enough that it won't drive you completely insane.

However, these rare issues in the gameplay make me teeter on the verge of infuriated. Every other aspect of this game was amazingly well done. If the game had been more extensively play tested, and if the developers had allowed the game to stay in development longer, Bloodlines could have easily been the best RPG I've ever played. But the huge amounts of bugs and the atrocious loading times ruined that. Perhaps these issues could be redeeemed with a patch or two, and I hope that they will.

Blood Blood Everywhere...

Besides from the few dangly mesh problems I saw in a few of the cut scenes, the graphics for this game were spot on. The crazy bloodthirsty monster that popped out from behind corner was convincing enough to make me jump in my seat. The dark damp abandoned building, lit only by the occasional burning drum of trash had me fearing what might lie in the shadows.

Be it the ghostly visage of a long dead axe murderer or the decaying abomination of molded flesh, the things that go bump in the night were represented with a decent level of beauty, if you can call it that.

Best aspect of the game's graphics? That would have to be, hands down, the facial expressions of the many Non Player Characters you meet throughout the game. Almost everything moves! Characters can smirk, wink and even recoil in horror. All of these emotional features are augmented by the awesome level of detail put into the mouthing of words. I can't tell if they used motion capture of if they simply animated the mouth by hand. Either way, kudos to the developers graphics department.

Shh... What Was That?

How scary would the crazy, murder driven, beast with the deep red eyes be if it didn't snarl and growl at you as it approached in the darkness? Well... scary as hell. But that's besides the point. As a game of both personal and external horror, the sound in Bloodlines reminds the player that sometimes, the scariest things in the night are the ones you can only hear...

I'm a big fan of voice acting. I think it can make or break a game. Fortunately enough for Bloodlines, the former is true. This game sports some of the best voice acting I've ever heard in a video game. And it isn't just good for some of the characters, it's of a consistent quality throughout the entire game. Sure, there are a few I enjoyed more than others, but what's important is that each voice seems perfect for each character.

As if awesome voice acting wasn't enough (and it is), the game also sports a sound track that keeps you in the feel of things. Whether it's the deep bass of a dance club or the melodious organ music in the old church, the music sets the mood for the areas as much as the way the area looks.

Most interesting part of the audio? Well that would have to be the sound dampening system. The further away you get from the radio or from people talking, the less and less you can hear them. It's also greatly effected by walls. You walk out your front door and the TV suddenly gets quiet. Very cool.

Dracula Ain't Got Nothing On Me

Having extensively played the table top RPG that this game was based on, I can easily say this game was incredibly enjoyable. As an experienced game player, I can say that even someone who has never dipped there toe into White Wolf’s World of Darkness would find that they don’t need the compendium of vampiric knowledge that one gets from the pen and paper game to enjoy this game. There are plenty of horrific and humorous themes interlaced masterfully throughout the game’s story, and I have to say that the ending of the game is probably one of the best endings I'’ve ever experienced. Of course I'’m not going to ruin the ending for you by telling you about it...though I every fiber of my being wants to share what an awesome story it is.

Bloodlines takes two highly used game themes and mixes them nearly flawlessly. Half of the game is spent mowing down your enemies with any of the numerous weapons you acquire throughout the game. The other half is spent navigating your way through conversations with the prince or with the blood thirsty murderer. I can’t express my joy for experiencing a boss that is simultaneously an interesting character and a difficult fight. A few particular enemies stick out in my memory, but they were all awesome.

Needless to say, I enjoyed this game with gusto.

Raiders of the Lost Feature

Bloodlines has a very interesting feature that seemed to have been removed at the last second. Histories is a quality you can set at the begining of character creation, if you hack the game that is. You get a list of histories ranging from Highway Drifter to Corporate Schmo. These histories give you various benefits and appropriate penalties. Highway drifter, for example, lets you start with some skill in firearms and gives you a gun at the start of the game. Not bad, you might think, but you also start with low humanity, which can cause some problems down the road. I played through the game again with one such history and I found it interesting. However I also found that the game crashed a lot more frequently. I suppose that's one of the reasons the developers decided to take the feature out.

Normally I would dock points for taking such an interesting feature out of the game, but since I was able to re-activate the histories fairly easy, I can only simultaneously commend and scorn the developers for making such an interesting feature, and then deciding not to use it.

The Beginning of the End, or the End of the Beginning?

This game receives the illustrious honor of being one of my all time favorite games. In fact, I can easily say to any of you, that if you can look beyond the various bugs and glitches the game suffers from, this game is one of the best games ever made. If you aren’'t allergic to violence and gore, then Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines comes highly recommended.