Vampire:the Masquerade - Bloodlines (PC)

Virtual vampires get no sunlight either

You are a lowlife. A scum. A walking curse. A bloodsucker. You are a vampire. Enter the dark, dreery world of Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines and there'll be no daylight for you, both in the game (it's always night so your *fairly* safe) and back in the real world, our world, as this game more than sinks it teeth into your social life.

Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines is the ...
...the hack and slasher (but such a good hack and slasher) following in the footsteps of games in the style of Diablo. The original enjoyed moderate success, but lack of hype and the linearity of the game held back the game from achieving the amount of recognition that it deserved. The tables have now turned, and VTM:Bloodlines was perhaps one of the most hyped games of 2004, falling just behind games such as Halo 2 and Half-Life 2. Utilizing the revolutionary ... more

Virtual vampires get no sunlight either

You are a lowlife. A scum. A walking curse. A bloodsucker. You are a vampire. Enter the dark, dreery world of Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines and there'll be no daylight for you, both in the game (it's always night so your *fairly* safe) and back in the real world, our world, as this game more than sinks it teeth into your social life.

Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines is the sequel to the original RPG (role-playing game) Vampire the Masquerade, the hack and slasher (but such a good hack and slasher) following in the footsteps of games in the style of Diablo. The original enjoyed moderate success, but lack of hype and the linearity of the game held back the game from achieving the amount of recognition that it deserved. The tables have now turned, and VTM:Bloodlines was perhaps one of the most hyped games of 2004, falling just behind games such as Halo 2 and Half-Life 2. Utilizing the revolutionary Half-Life 2 engine, the screenshots made gamers all over the world excited about how good this game was going to be. And what's this? The screenshots show it in first-person mode?! The Activision-published game has moved away from its point-and-click hack and slasher, to what can best be described as a first-person-shooter. Fans of the original (including me) were stunned that their beloved game had been turned into Half-Life 2 with vampires! Thankfully, this works better than I could have ever imagined, and gets the player more involved with the game and its multiple personalities. The game can also be played in third-person view, and is automatically switched to this view when in melee (hand-to-hand) combat.

The storyline of Bloodlines is a separate story from the original VTM, where you were a Christian Crusader who was embraced unwillingly, and the story was of his struggle against vampirism, desperately trying to cling to his humanity. In Bloodlines, you are a vampire who has gone against the Masquerade, the set of laws set by the Camarilla (basically the Government of the kindred), to prevent Kine (humans) finding out the existence of supernatural creatures (there aren't just vampires along the way, expect to see ghosts, werewolves and the like). The story begins after you have created your character by choosing which of the seven clans you will join (you start off as a rebel without a cause, known as the Sabat, vampires who belong to no clan and are the kind of evil creatures made famous by the media), and the stats of your character. You have been sentenced to a Final Death (remember, vampires are already dead, but can be destroyed) by the Camarilla. In a courtroom in Los Angeles, the leader of the Camarilla, Prince LaCroix, a Frenchman, decides to give you a second chance at afterlife. It is here where you are set off on your quest, and upon leaving the court, a vampire is there to offer you training, which is the tutorial of the game. This is a very good tutorial for getting to grips with the game, and is definitely recommended you complete the tutorial if it is your first time through.

There are many characters in the game that you can interact with, whether it's a fat policeman who just won't shut up, a scantily-clad prostitute, or a demonic creature that looks like it could have come straight out of the horror film Hellraiser. The interaction with character's is suitably gritty, with expletives hardly a rarity in this game. Remember, this game is rated 18, and for a good reason, so definitely not a game for younger children or the easily offended. Every character has a voice-over, and whilst the facial expression usually matches with the voice, there were a few times I noticed in the game when it didn't fit. For example, one character I met was incredibly angry, and the voice reflected this, but the facial expression had a slight smile. Thankfully, this isn't a major issue, and only appears to happen on minor characters in the game.

Sadly, there are a few much bigger issues with this game, the amount of glitches and bugs. Within the first hour of playing Bloodlines, the game had crashed to the desktop twice, which is unacceptable in such a new game. It wasn't a problem with my computer either, the spec of my computer is far better than the minimum requirements. One quick search later, a patch for the game is being downloaded. The game plays fine after patching it, but there shouldn't be a need to download a patch so soon after the release of the game in this day and age. This leads me to believe that this game was rushed out to meet the deadline, and the ending of the game also points to this fact.

The majority of the game is a great blend of fast-paced action and interaction with characters, and is a joy to play. The last few hours of the game are really quite disappointing, with this fantastic mixture is suddenly replaced with wave after wave of the enemies, and this really does get tedius and makes the climax of the game stunningly mediocre, as opposed to stunning, which it should have been to complete an otherwise brilliant game. This also gives me the impression that the game was rushed out to meet deadlines. In it's favour, the game does have multiple endings, although none of them are really satisfying, or even very long.

The game can best be described as a hybrid of Deus Ex and Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, but in a gothic setting, and utilizing the Half-Life 2 engine. For any people reading this who are not familiar with the games, it is a great compliment to be compared to those games, especially when considering that they are both in my top five games of all time, (on a side note, if you don't have these games, you can pick them up for around £5, an absolute bargain). There are numerous similarities between Bloodlines and Deus Ex, such as the cyber-punk style future, the gritty story full of deception, deceit, and disastrous ulterior motives which constantly leave you guessing about who can be trusted. The character development is also reminiscent of Deus Ex, where traits such as physical, social, skills, intelligence and supernatural powers can be upgraded. This is done in a simple but effective way where you will have skills such as lockpicking, hacking and persuade which will ranked from one to ten. The attributes will be worked out by adding two traits together (they have a maximum of five). Whilst this sounds and seems confusing when you first begin to play, simply moving your mouse cursor over your "Ranged" weapons skill will highlight 'Dexterity' and 'Firearms' to show you that it is the combined points of these two skills which will give you your "Ranged" score. Alternatively, moving your mouse cursor over 'Dexterity' which show that it affects both "Ranged" and "Lockpicking." This system makes it easy to create and shape your character into the type of vampire you want, perhaps a seductive vampire who gets their way from their charm, a stealthy vampire who excels in lockpicking and hacking, or maybe just an out-and-out brawler, busting heads with your raw power.

The similarites to Morrowind are mainly in the exploration and quests, albeit Bloodlines doesn't offer the totally free experience of going anywhere and everywhere that Morrowind does. However, this isn't necessarily a bad thing in a game such as Bloodlines, as it would totally distract the player away from the story, and would probably give the game an 'empty' feeling.' The game is a linear game, but if you are like and want to complete every quest in the game, not just the main quests, then you will get many hours of enjoyment out of this game. Side-quests can be obtained by simply talking to characters and finding out if they need anything done. The side-quests, and main quests for that matter, are generally one of three types: kill someone or something, find an object and bring it to the person wanting it, or simply meet someone. While this sounds like it could become tedius, there is enough variety amongst these types to keep the game feeling fresh.

Thankfully, the combat in Bloodlines is less awkward that in Morrowind, and it is easy to fight enemies, whether shooting them from the distance with a sniper rifle, uzi, or shotgun, or getting up close and personal with a knife, baseball bat or a severed arm. Feedback is recieved regarding how much damage you inflict on your enemies, with floating numbers above their head to show how many hit-points you have taken off, although this option can be turned off if you so wish. Despite being undead, you can suffer a Final Death in combat if your lifebar, displayed on the left of the screen, is reduced to nothing. In a boss fight, there will be a visible health bar at the top of the screen for them so you can see how close you are to defeating them.

When using melee weapons, the game automatically changes to third person view, whilst the default for ranged weapons is first-person view. It is not just during combat where you can be in third-person view, as with a simple press of a key, you can switch automatically between the two views. However, I would recommend that you keep on first-person view whilst exploring, as it adds more interactivity to the game, as well as looking better.

Now obviously, being a vampire, you need to quench your thirst for blood. You need blood for two reasons: so you can activate your vampiric abilites unique to each clan, and to prevent 'The Beast' rising from inside you and forcing you to 'frenzy,' a state where your character attacks everyone and everything, which is very dangerous as it could end your game for breaking the Masquerade or purely from being killed from who or what you are attacking. Blood can be obtained in three ways: from a rat, from a blood pack, or directly from a human. However, make sure if you are feeding on a human or a rat you are doing it out of sight of anyone else, and be wary if you are the snobbish clan Ventrue, as they may vomit after feeding on a tramp or prostitute due to their 'impure blood.' Ventrue also see feeding on rats as disgusting and so they refuse to. On the other hand, the hideous Nosferatu live in the sewers, as they cannot walk the streets due to their hideous appearance, and so they live on rats more than humans, and so they get a blood bonus when feeding on them. It is subtle differences like this between the clans, as well as their own unique abilities, such as 'Celerity' from the most humane clam, the Toreador, which when activated lets your vampire move at tremendous speeds, dodging bullets ala The Matrix.

Whilst feeding on humans, be sure not to kill them by draining all of their blood, or else your humanity rating will decrease, a rating of how close you are to your former self. The more humane you act, you will gain humanity, but if you go about killing innocents and other dastardly acts, it will drop. The higher your humanity rating, the less likely you are to frenzy, whilst if it drops, you are much more likely to. It's game over if your humanity drops to nothing as 'The Beast' takes over, so be sure to act fairly civilized to prevent this.

Looking beyond how buggy the unpatched game was (seriously, if you have this game, patch it first), this really is a top quality game. The game drags you into it's dark world and doesn't let up until you've completed each one of it's four endings. Even then you can replay it as a different clan, with a character who is much different, as the game really does play differently if you put all your points into social skills than it would having an abrasive vampire who shoots first, asks later. I definitely recommend you get this game if you are interested either role-playing games or first-person shooters, especially now in the January sales, where I picked up the game for a tenner, instead of it's usual retail price of £30.

An excellent game which just oozes atmosphere, and has legitimately scary moments, such as the haunted Ocean Hotel. This is one game that simply cannot be missed.
 

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