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90% from NLGaming: http://www.nlgaming.com/nl/asp/id_1037/nl/reviewDisp.htm94% from Console Gold: http://www.consolegold.com/Reviews/review/293.htmlFrom Console Gold:
Pros:
* Graphics are without compare
* Music, sound, and voice are incredible
* 7 clans are unique
* Vast speech options
* Interactivity is incredible
* Storyline is unrivaled
* Gameplay is rumored to reach 60+ hours
Cons:
* Odd occasional graphic glitch
* Occasional AI freeze
* Unbalanced weapon / claw attacks
* Occasional sound glitches I wonder how GameSpot and IGN will score this one. So far, so good. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Last edited by MysterD; 17/11/04 03:27 AM.
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The soundtrack has been out for a few years now. They have been working on the game that long. If you like Goth & Goth Metal then you'll love the soundtrack. In fact one of the best songs ever done by "Bella Morte" is on the soundtrack. Fafnir <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
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GameSpy gives it 4 out of 5 stars: http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/vampire-the-masqu....html?fromint=1Pros
Awesome storyline, great dialogue, Beautiful character models and animations, statistics really impact world - a great RPG. Sounds good. Cons
Mediocre combat, some graphic and other bugs, Santa Monica hub is fairly ugly, poorly implemented FPS elements. Hmmmm.... This week's release of Half-Life 2 was one of the biggest gaming stories of 2004. Almost lost in the deluge, though, was another game built on Valve's Source technology, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. Here's the irony, though. Bloodlines is, by almost any measure, a spectacularly successful game -- a near-classic, in fact. The problem, though, is that what keeps it from being as great as it might have been is the very fact that it was built on Source technology. Everything that Troika is known for -- deep storylines, great character development, amazing world building, wonderful dialogue, and masterful use of the White Wolf Vampire: The Masquerade intellectual property -- combine to create an unparalleled RPG experience. Sounds good. But everything that the Source technology was supposed to bring to the party, including extraordinary graphic power, a revolutionary physics engine and awesome first person shooter style combat, ends up being Bloodlines' greatest weaknesses. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> Taken purely as an RPG, Bloodlines is almost flawless. Forget everything you've read about this game being built on a first-person shooter base, or the fact that you play the game from that perspective. Bloodlines is an RPG thorough-and-through. Players build their character using a slightly modified version of White Wolf's traditional character sheet. There they use points to give themselves ratings from one to five in things like strength, intelligence, wits, and appearance. Each of these initial ratings also has an impact on skill sets that are part of your character such as Research, Lockpicking, Firearms or Brawling. As you go through the game and gain experience, you'll be able to gradually increase these ratings. Interestingly, it's impossible to ever "max out" a character. Unlike most RPGs where your character eventually become a walking engine of destruction, the experience system in Bloodlines really forces you to make significant choices as your character develops. Pouring all your experience into jacking up your strength and combat skills will give you a slack-jawed bruiser whose dialogue choices are limited to variations on "Give me what I want or I'll smash you". Putting all your experience into cerebral abilities, on the other hand, can leave you at a severe disadvantage when it comes to facing down some of the nastier residents of the World of Darkness -- many of whom have far too many teeth and far too little impulse control. It's a tough job to give the player a feeling of advancement while still offering credible challenges. Bloodlines pulls it off brilliantly, affording a great feeling of satisfaction as your alter-ego advances in power and knowledge while never allowing you to become so powerful that it spoils the atmosphere of fear, horror, and paranoia the fills the game.
Still sounds good.... Even better, your character's skill ratings and persona are intimately tied into the world. In fact, I don't believe I've ever seen an RPG universe that's as affected by the player as the one in Bloodlines. Everything from player dialogue choices to NPC reactions to the way you travel around is affected by the way you build your character. These reactions can be overt, such as news reports on the radio describing your recent activities. The best moments, though, are subtle, such as one character's reaction to my screw-up on a cargo carrier mission. It started out as a stealth mission, but my lack of skill eventually started a brawl that ended with me killing a bunch of crooked cops. The mission was a success, but my patron was angry at me anyway because of the difficulties I had caused him by having to cover up the murders. The story went on, but the experience was different and I may have missed out on some benefits (such as cash) that a happier Prince could have given. *starts to drool* That sounds rockin' to me. The best example of this, though, is a player's clan. What vampire clan you belong to is extremely important in the game, as each clan has its own strengths and weaknesses. Play as an attractive human-like Toreador and you'll find that your seductive and persuasive abilities open up lines of conversation and interactions that are closed to everyone else -- but you'll be hard pressed during combat when a silver tongue isn't as important as a sharp blade. Play as a hideous Nosferatu and be prepared to skulk in the shadows a lot, as your very appearance is a Masquerade violation that sends most humans screaming into the night. On the other hand, your intelligence, investigative powers and skill with computers opens up information to you in some surprising ways. Play as a Malkavian and your dialogue choices reflect your madness and you'll occasionally hear voices through your PC speakers telling you secrets about the world and giving you clues -- unless they're lying. With seven clans to choose from, five endings, and all kinds of different ways to experience the game, the potential for replay is massive. Sounds like my kind of RPG, w/ lots of replay value. Of course, none of this would matter if there weren't interesting things to do. Here too, Bloodlines doesn't disappoint. The game's storyline is a Byzantine labyrinth of double-dealing and backstabbing that must be navigated by the player via conversations with dozens of characters. All the dialogue in the game is extremely well written (although there are a disturbing number of typos in the subtitles) and the game's cast of professional voice actors gives amazingly subtle and nuanced performances. Special kudos goes to the actress playing Malkavian twin sisters Jeanette and Therese Voermann who run the Asylum nightclub in Santa Monica. The final confrontation between these lunatic vampires who hate each other is an absolute classic. I'm still waiting for the reason theygave this 4 stars and not 5.... The missions and quests that the game sends you on are a mixed bag of bizarre, though mostly fun tasks. Particularly good missions include a run through a haunted hotel dodging a nasty poltergeist to help put a ghost to rest; a raid on a crack house that rapidly becomes an homage to Dawn of the Dead; four minutes of sheer terror trying to dodge an enraged werewolf; a descent into an abandoned hospital to find a murdered TV crew; and even an optional side quest where you play a vampire detective hunting down a serial killer. Sweet. In fact, the only place the game really bogs down is during a couple of missions that are very combat-oriented. There's one particular slog through the sewers underneath Hollywood that just seems endless. Sounds like hack-n-slash fest in that level. Whenever the power of the new Source engine is applied to things that enhance the RPG aspects of the game, the results are a good as you might expect. Character animation and design is amazing. Talking to beautifully modeled NPCs that have full lip synch is a joy that never gets old. Most of the areas you'll travel through are gorgeous from both a technological and artistic point of view (the ugly, flat-looking streets of Santa Monica a notable exception). Sweet. Unfortunately, having powerful technology and knowing what to do with it are two completely separate things -- and building the game with this relatively new tech is the root cause of most of the game's problems. Here we go....two pages of praising, now here comes the downer... Consider that Source was created for Half-Life 2, a pure FPS shooter. Combat in Bloodlines, on the other hand, runs the gamut from standard FPS to third-person armed and unarmed combat. Woohooo @ you can do either 1st or 3rd person. More games should allow for that switch to be available. That's a tall order for even experienced action game creators. When it comes to Bloodlines, the team certainly tried, but in the end, it feels like what it is -- a fighting system created by RPG makers. Bloodlines' third-person fighting controls feel sluggish and sloppy. While there's some attempt to offer variety by attaching different moves to different key presses, in the end it degenerates to little more than button mashing against fairly stupid enemies. So, the AI isn't so hot.....uh oh.... Using a gun is almost as difficult. Gun combat is played out in traditional FPS perspective, but your abilities affect how straight you'll shoot and how long it takes to target things. Even with all of your abilities maxed out, though; gun combat never feels like a smooth, intuitive experience. Even when maxed out? That's weird -- it'd make sense, if you're a newbie and can't shoot straight. No one was expecting Half-Life 2, but what we got ends up being a drag on the gameplay experience. There were a number of times where (despite my character having no skills in that area) I tried to use stealth options because I just couldn't take another fight with a Vozhd War Ghoul. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> Half-Life 2's vaunted physics engine is also wasted in Bloodlines. It's in there, all right, but it's mostly ignored. Except for one interesting puzzle where you have to use a barrel to stop a machine, the physics engine only comes into play a couple of times when you need to dig through piles of trash to uncover something or move stuff out of the way to find secret passages. In fact, the couple of times the game tried to use physics to create great set-piece battles, the novelty was buried under the annoying combat. One in particular had a monster flinging the bodies of dead sewer workers and metal barrels at me. I finished that fight by climbing up into a catwalk and emptying a .38 into it. The creature just stood there, apparently having lost track of me, and let me blow it away - a tragic loss of what should have been a memorable gaming moment. Now it sounds even more so that the AI is quite questionable. The game also suffers from minor (though persistently annoying) bugs. There are a number of small graphic bugs such as NPC arms sticking through doors and walls, the occasional polygon disappearing for a moment and graphic tags (like blood on the walls) fuzzing in and out as I moved through the world. The good news is that I didn't come across any really show stopping graphic glitches, but gamers should really make sure their graphic drivers are up to date (which initially caused us a larger set of problems). There's also an issue with quitting the game. It took an awfully long time for the game to stop running and our PC to return to normal functioning -- as long as two or three minutes in some cases. What the hell? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> The game also has the potential to slow all but the most robust systems to a crawl. Ick! My system is pretty robust and while Bloodlines ran smoothly at 800 x 600, it started to chug a bit at 1024 x 768, just one setting higher. It's an interesting comparison -- Half-Life 2, which is a much prettier game, also seems to run a lot smoother, showing how important the difference can be between developing your own technology and licensing someone else's. Quite interesting. I wonder what Troika was trying to push over there to bog the game down. In the end, though, the problems with mediocre combat wouldn't have stopped me from playing Bloodlines; having gone through the game once, they won't stop me from replaying it, either, in order to experience the different endings. How that will affect gamers in deciding whether to purchase the game depends very much on what kind of mind-set they go in with. If you go in with the idea that Bloodlines is a hybrid FPS / RPG, you're going to be dramatically disappointed. I didn't expect it to be a hybrid RPG/FPS. On the other hand, if you're looking for one of the best role-playing game experiences of this year, then you should really look into Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. That part sounds good to me <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Congratulations, Troika, on producing a Vampire game that doesn't… um… suck. How many Vampire games were there before this? I know of Vampire: The Masquerade by Nihilistic -- is that the only one?
Last edited by MysterD; 17/11/04 05:58 PM.
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I remember my brother bought a Vampire PC game some years ago. At the time we where still stuck with our old, suck... not too developed computer, so he couldn't install it. He described the space required for the minimum installation though, I think it was around 700 mb, which at the time was pretty big. I wonder what happened to that copy. He never installed it on oner of our computers though, that's for shure...
Übereil
Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.
Ambrose Bierce
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I remember my brother bought a Vampire PC game some years ago. At the time we where still stuck with our old, suck... not too developed computer, so he couldn't install it. He described the space required for the minimum installation though, I think it was around 700 mb, which at the time was pretty big. I wonder what happened to that copy. He never installed it on oner of our computers though, that's for shure...
Übereil Sounds about the size of probably what Vampire: The Masquerade by Nihilistic was, from reviews I've read. That was party-based, if I recall. Wasn't a great game, I heard -- but for its time, graphics were good.
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8.4 from IGN: http://pc.ign.com/articles/567/567009p1.htmlNovember 17, 2004 - Most of us who've been gamers for a while are familiar with the history behind Troika, which was formed from key members of the Black Isle group that made the Fallout, among other talented individuals. With high hopes, we dug into Arcanum, and many of us found it slow to get going and visually unimpressive, although it was rewarding in the long run. Temple of Elemental Evil apparently suffered from being pushed out the door a wee bit early. Therefore, the anticipation for Bloodlines isn't nearly as high as it could have been, in an ideal world where every game went out the door polished to a high gloss. It's unfortunate, because Bloodlines is a true RPG that hearkens back to Fallout and its Baldur's Gate brethren, while providing the impressive visuals of Valve's Source engine. *drools over Fallout 2 and BG days* The story is rich, the world is deep, and the heart of the RPG pumps strongly in its veins. Sounds good. I'm probably getting some details wrong, but the point is that the Masquerade universe has a complex backstory and the game does a great job of easing you into the role of a Fledgeling. During the fairly frequent but reasonably short loading screens, you'll be treated to bits and pieces which, by the end of the game, help to give you a sense of the big picture. The bulk of your understanding will come from in-depth conversations with the other characters in the game. Or, of course, you can choose to ignore it and just do your thing. Cool. I loved how FO had loads of dialogue trees. Good to see that V:TM:BL is staying on that route. And herein lies the beauty of Bloodlines: choice. You'll get to pick what looks to be any of the Camarilla clans, and each one has a very different inherent skillset. The Tremere, who stole the secrets of vampirism ages ago, are very good with blood magic but have a cap on their physical combat abilities. The Toreadors and Ventrue are very good socially, but are similarly handicapped in combat. The Gangrel and Brujah, however, are beefy warriors but not so good at a cocktail party. Cool. Experience is gained not through killing beasts but from completing a quest, although the two may coincide. You'll get a few points to distribute among your favored stats, and believe me, you'll spend more than a few moments pondering your choice. As with the Fallout S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system, there's no way to become good at everything, although I would recommend putting points into combat, as it is unavoidable. You'll also want to consider lockpicking, which can give you a shortcut around some tough areas, or computer hacking, which you can use to open doors, unlock safes, and disable various security measures, thus making your life a little easier. Suffice to say you have a ton of options for character development. I loved the SPECIAL system and how replayable that system made the game. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Looks like Bloodlines is gonig for that route, while under the Vampire ruleset. And what's great about having all of these options is that it can become a very different game depending on what you choose. You'll have separate abilities for intimidation, seduction, haggling, and so forth, allowing additional dialogue options. Just outside your apartment in Santa Monica, for example, is a well-dressed guy who has no quests to give you or things to sell you. If you didn't have high enough intimidation, you'd never know that you could shake him down for cash and even convince him to give you his fancy watch. You won't be able to talk your way through the game, but you'll get plenty of amusement from the imaginative threats and cheesy come-ons. Hehe. Cool. But I haven't said a word about the visuals. Most of you know by now that Bloodlines uses Valve Software's Source engine. This doesn't include physics, animation, or character models, but you get lighting, water effects, some great shader capabilities, and those eerily realistic eyes that follow you as you walk past. In a word, the game looks great.
The faces of the characters can be awesomely realistic, particularly with The Sheriff, Skelter, VV, and the Baron of Santa Monica. Besides the owner of the LA nightclub, though, hair doesn't get quite the same treatment, and clothing doesn't look as good when viewed up close during the numerous conversations. It's something that only sticks out every once in a while, though, and doesn't detract from the overall experience. What can put a kink in things is the occasionally kludgy animation, particularly during the cutscenes. In-game, animation is fine, aside from a overhead-reducing effect that makes people look a little robotic at a distance. Sounds good, still. Since I mentioned visuals, I shouldn't neglect sound, either. Although the song that plays in the main menu took more than a few cues from Massive Attack, the rest of it is original and generally appropriate. It's fun to be in the clubs especially, because there's always some good stuff playing. You can even boogie down on the dance floor. You can even dance? Okay....Interesting..... Voice acting is great across the board, with some familiar-sounding voices here and there. Everyone seems to be taking their job very seriously--no phoned-in performances. And the amount of dialogue in the game borders on the surreal. Always good to see a good voice-acted game -- especially once you play some where it's just "okay." Lip syncing isn't quite as sharp as it is in Half-Life 2, but it's pretty good on its own. There's plenty of facial expressions as well, and often their expressions will change according to how you talk to them. You can be an [nocando] to anyone in the game, or you can be polite. It usually pays to be nice, though. Makes sense. The pump of the Utica shotgun is the best I've heard in a long time, but unfortunately you can't fire while reloading, which is a no-no in my book. You load six shells at a time, and it seems like it takes forever in the middle of a firefight. In general, though, the many firearms available just don't seem to be as effective as melee. With enough points in the Protean skill (provided you chose the appropriate clan), you can transform into a man-bat and really tear people up. There's also a couple nasty weapons along the way, like a sledgehammer and katana.
And with each different melee weapon comes a different silent kill. If an enemy isn't aware of your presence, you can sneak up behind them and take them out quickly. The katana plunges through their chest, the sledgehammer whips around to smash their head in--this game ain't for kids.
The point is that the game is chock-full of detail. You can become a partner in a club, obtain a ghoul (a human slave, basically), and get some unique and very useful items for certain side quests, of which there are dozens, some of them fairly involved. With most of the quests, you have multiple ways of solving it, and can get extra rewards for being the hero. My kind of RPG. In Bloodlines, it's crucial to not expose your vampiric abilities in public. If you do this five times, you lose the game. However, certain quests will earn you Masquerade Redemption, and there's more than enough of those to go around to keep you safe through the end credits. One Redemption in particular doesn't involve a quest at all. Bloodlines, like all good RPGs, rewards exploration. One thing I loved about Morrowind: exploring the world. Looks like more of the same will hold true for BLoodlines, from the sounds of things. I have to say that combat was a little underwhelming, though. The firearms are only really useful if you sink a good deal of points into them, and your skills without any points are a lot worse than they should be. Everybody can figure out how to point and shoot a pistol, so it doesn't make sense that my aim should be pretty bad--and my reloading skills top notch. Your character is a pro reloader, but the accuracy is kinda drunken. With melee combat, the knockback can get frustrating. There are a lot of attacks that will stall your own, and for a vampire, you don't handle multiple targets well. Sounds like something to work on for a patch. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Even with respectable defense, you can get nearly killed by two or three guys. When I think of a vampire, particularly one who's supposed to excel at combat, I picture superhuman speed, huge leaps, and lots of evisceration. I guess it's a balance you have to consider, and since this is mostly an RPG, it might tilt things too much towards action if you had weaker, more numerous enemies coming at you. You can do different moves with key combinations, but there's no super move. Combat was good, but I think it could have been better. I also experienced some glitches late in the game where I became immobile when switching to Warform Protean. Was is it action-RPG's make it a pain for battling multiple enemies? Gothic series does this (mainly b/c of its targetting system), now BL. But the majority of the glitches seem to reside in the AI. I think Bloodlines is a very enjoyable RPG otherwise, but stealth seems to be given a lot more weight than it should. I played a Gangrel with two out of five possible points in stealth, and I was able to sneak behind people way too often. Their cone of vision seems to plummet dramatically in low light, and there's more than enough of that to go around. So, should you call it Vampire: The Masquerade: Thief: Dark Shadows? Unfortunately, it gets worse. Many times I was able to silent kill or feed from a guard while another one was standing right next to him. This is just not good. Deus Ex 1 AI, eh? Wake up, guard! Second, stealthing seems to break some trap triggers. A guy busts through a wall or comes crashing through the ceiling, the odds are he's going to stand motionless instead of continuing the charge. It broke immersion, and it tended to happen a lot towards the end of game. It didn't make things easy, though, because there were a lot of these set pieces, and plenty of boss monsters to go around. I'll just say you better stock up before that final quest. Most games, you should stock up on potions, weapons, and inventory. Speaking of final quest, you have multiple options here, which I've always been a sucker for. Depending on which way you decide to go, things will end up much differently. What's also nice is that there isn't a clear way to go. I'll just leave it at that. Sounds good. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Closing Comments
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is a much stronger game than the previous one in the series. It does the genre right, with character choices that effect the world, dialogue choices that effect your fate, and plenty of things to do and places to poke around in. Replayability lies in the widely varied character design options, since the story is pretty linear, multiple endings notwithstanding. Unfortunately, the AI has the intelligence of a doorknob sometimes, which keeps the shine off an otherwise delightful and multilayered experience. Sounds like a good RPG, despite having idiotic AI and some odd combat issue. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
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I remember my brother bought a Vampire PC game some years ago. At the time we where still stuck with our old, suck... not too developed computer, so he couldn't install it. He described the space required for the minimum installation though, I think it was around 700 mb, which at the time was pretty big. I wonder what happened to that copy. He never installed it on oner of our computers though, that's for shure...
Übereil If you're talking about Vampire: Redemption, you aren't missing much. That game was so terrible that I never even managed to make it past the first dungeon.
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