One thing was certain: I wasn’t the prettiest vampire on the streets. I was part of the Brujah clan, known for its bare-fisted fighting rather than its charisma and good looks, like the Dentrue. Once again I failed to persuade a victim to follow me out of a club, and once again I made a mental note to work on my seduction skills. I needed blood badly, but I wasn’t going to crawl into the sewers and scamper around for rats like before.
The prince wanted me to investigate a shipment on a boat near Santa Monica, and he had asked me to avoid killing everyone this time. The bloodbath of my last mission made him scream at me again about blowing the masquerade, and if I screwed up one more time, well, the corresponding hunt would be my demise. This time I wanted to be full before sneaking in, and the rats have so little blood it would take a dozen or more to get me ready.
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A bag lady down the alley warmed herself in front of a barrel fire. After making sure no one was looking, I stepped up behind her and bit in. I left her with just enough blood to survive before tossing her aside. I didn’t want to lose my humanity. I was headed for the beach when my legs locked in place and I couldn’t move. The old broad must’ve been sick; I should’ve examined her before biting. The sound of my own gagging echoed off the alley walls. Everything I had just eaten splattered on the ground.
My blood level was now dangerously low, which could throw me into an uncontrollable frenzy that would cause a commotion. Completely out of control, I would see red, growl and attack anything nearby. Then police would show up, start shooting, and people would run every which way. Not a good thing with the prince already mad at me.
Luck at last: a half-drunk man peeing on the wall outside a dance club. I quickly stepped up behind him and bit in. I only hoped he wouldn’t urinate on me as I drained his life and made it my own.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is an excellent game, with only a few bits of underdeveloped ideas throughout. The centerpiece is its story, well-written from beginning to end and delivered with top-notch dialog and voice acting. Combining role-playing and third-person action elements, Bloodlines is ocean deep but still manages to leave gamers confident, not lost, without pushing them in any particular direction.
The game starts by players choosing the vampire clan they want to join, which dictates the type of attributes the character will have (Nosferatu, for example, are so hideous that they must hide from humans at all times). With seven different clans from which to choose, the game has a good amount of built-in variation, with customization available through RPG-requisite experience points. The only disappointment is that although watches, rings and attribute modifiers like voodoo dolls and twisted claws can be picked up, nothing changes the character’s appearance throughout the game.
The character sheet is packed with attributes, and the intuitive interface gives hardcore RPGers immediate access to tweak them to their heart’s content. At the same time, Bloodlines does a good job of nudging players to various skills they may have otherwise avoided, making it approachable for more-casual gamers. And, unlike other RPGs, every enhancement makes a noticeable difference.
In a bothersome but intentional move, the first half of the game rewards players with few experience points, which are tied only into competing quests rather than killing enemies. As a result, players may choose to simply run past enemies to complete quests more quickly and earn the five points needed to enhance a given skill. Occasionally characters are willing to train you or you’ll find books to read (if your research skill is high enough), but such skill boosters are only found in side quests.
That may sound like a negative, but it’s obvious the developers carefully planned it this way. Trying to rush through everything will make things harder down the road, whereas slowly building your character will result in a very powerful vampire. It’s just a little slow-going at the beginning. Fortunately, the storyline will keep you moving regardless, because when it comes to the story and quests, the developers have it nailed.
Players find themselves in a masquerade that’s been going on since the days of Cain in the Bible, because Cain was reportedly the world’s first vampire. The existence of vampires has been kept secret to mortals, so attempting to feed in public, having people from your previous (human) life spot you or being gazed upon in your vampiric state earns a “masquerade violation” and unwanted attention from the police. Earn enough violations, and vampire hunters will put you on their Most Wanted list, and with even more violations your own kind will hunt you down and destroy you.
But rest assured that you’re not the only one being hunted. Bloodlines has a wide variety of enemies to slash, shoot, burn and bite. From human cops, hitmen and henchmen to demonized vampires, werewolves and samurai, every form of opposition attacks in numbers and with varying styles, and each is justified in its White Wolf existence through the story. The only problem with these foes is their intelligence, which is very low, an attribute that really only fits the zombies. In spite of their tendency to attack mostly with guns blazing, enemies do have the ability to navigate around obstacles and switch to a melee weapon for close combat, but climbing a set of stairs or going through a door that loads a different section of the map should lose them pretty quickly.
Of course, going through a door will threaten to lose gamers, too, because doors are easily the game’s single biggest flaw. When a door can be opened an icon appears at the bottom of the screen, but step too close to said door, the icon disappears and the door can’t be opened. Having been trained by countless other games to slam into doors and press the action key to open them, it took a while before I realized that I had to stand back to get the icon to appear again. The problem becomes amplified in that not all doors can be opened, which leads to more than one frustrated dance in front of a door to see whether you’re simply standing too close.
What’s more, make sure you have at least 1 GB of RAM before purchasing this game and opening doors, because the load times with the recommended 384 MB are excruciating. The stake in Bloodlines’ side is the loading times, even more so than Half-Life 2, which also uses the Source Engine. Bloodlines also has players in and out of shops and criss-crossing different areas like any other RPG, so the loading is rather frequent.
Still, while role-playing fans will find the loading times a bit easier to digest, how much of an RPG is Bloodlines really? On the one hand, players can have extensive conversations with every non-playable character, all of whom are voiced, and there are multiple responses for everything said. Players can also increased their charisma, persuasion and seduction skills using their experience points, which also end up providing more-powerful responses and open different paths in the game.
On the other hand, Bloodlines has a very Max Payne feel to it, and the action doesn’t pause to let you decide on hit combos or power ups. The combat comes up a little short in early levels when your skills are low, but the melee action overall is good. There are also Disciplines that provide clan-specific magic such as protection, power, sight and mind control, all of which drain your blood meter as a cost. In addition, you’ll find one or two stealth levels, jumping puzzles, timed puzzles and booby traps, all of which lean away from the standard RPG. The best label for Bloodlines, then, is an action RPG, which may help keep some gamers interested but upset others.
One aspect that should interest everyone is the soundtrack, which makes excellent use of cover artists like Ministry and the Genitorturers and fills the numerous dance clubs with beats. Elsewhere, the background music fits perfectly, with a creepy ambiance that picks up when the action does. The sound effects are varied and well done as well, with cell phones ringing, wind chimes clanging, weapons booming, enemies making painful grunts and dogs and chickens doing their barking and clucking thing. Unfortunately, this appears to have come at some cost, because there’s no 5.1 option to be found, and some “stuttering” does occur from time to time, even after the patch.
The graphics, on the other hand, are a mixed bag of poor, good and great. At times you’ll be in a narrow hallway reminiscent of old Tomb Raider graphics, while at other times your eyebrows will raise as you behold a beautifully rendered building. The Source Engine shines through with great looking characters, glass, water and lighting, but sometimes the light shines on some really drab textures. For an RPG game, the graphics more than suffice, but those who bought the game for its action elements might feel occasionally disheartened.
The length of the game, however, should satisfy everyone. I dedicated 40-plus hours into the main quest alone, and I could have easily put in another 30. On top of that, the different clans provide different vampire options, which consequently provide new and different ways to play the game. Bloodlines has easily made it to my “must play through again” list, which is a list very few games ever make.
With members from the original Fallout team, Troika has crafted a very deep and entertaining RPG based on the White Wolf universe. The game slowly seduces you, and once you’re entwined it won’t let you go. As you wait for the Next Big RPG, or even the next Max Payne, I can think of no better way to spend the time than with Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines.
--Robert Dusseau
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