"Technical issues mar an otherwise subperb RPG."

I am having a lousy night on the town. I am seduced by a stranger, who turns out to be a vampire. Soon do I know this than I am bitten, becoming a Vampire myself. Now before my first night is over I will survive a vampire attack, raid a beach house for explosives, free a haunted house from an evil spirit, become a bounty hunter, and argue with twin sisters who are slightly... disturbed.

Vampire: the Masquerade Bloodlines is the newest game from Troika. Its an RPG based on White Wolf's Vampire the Masquerade tabletop RPG using Valve's mighty Source Engine. With two powerhouse studio's behind it, it should come as no surprise this is a high-quality game. However, several technical issues prevent this from becoming a game of the year.

Overview

White Wolf's Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop RPG drops you into a World Of Darkness where Vampires and other creatures of the night roam across the world, hiding from mortal view. Bloodlines realizes this world in a way its predecessor, Vampire: The Masquerade Redmeption, could never do. Its a much better game, both artistically and conceptually.

When you start this game, you get your choice of which of the main Vampire clans you will play as. Depending on your choice of clan, that view of the world will be very different. Are you the aggressive Brujah or anamalistic Gangrel? Must you walk thru sewers like the hideous Nosferatu, or does mortal society bend to your whim like the charming Toreador or political Ventrue? Can you command ancient blood magics, like the mystical Tremere? Or has the embrace of the vampire life shattered your psyche, like the loony but unnervingly insightful Malkavian?

This choice of clan has serious impact on how the game is played. Your character must uphold the Masquerade, the illusion that there are no such things as Vampires. Doing things that shatter the Masquerade, such as feeding on mortals or using vampire powers in front of them, will cause a violation of this Masquerade which makes it more and more dangerous for your character to walk the streets. As a Nosferatu, for example, is hideous to look at, even being seen by a mortal will cause a violation. Toreador can speed up time for themselves, making the world seem to be in Matrix-like slow motion. Useful in combat, but you don't use things like that in front of innocents without violating the Masquerade. If you gain too many violations, trained Vampire Hunters will come for you, eager to introduce you to the business end of a wooden stake.

Thankfully, all of the above is explained fully in the game's helpful tutorial. Guided by an elder vampire named Jack, he gives you the rundown of your clan's powers, your abilities, and combat all within the first 10 minutes of play. Before the main game starts, you have a clear idea of what you are supposed to do and what you are capable of doing, which is immensely helpful.

Graphics

The game plays out using Valve's impressive Source Engine. This adds greatly to character detail and animation, giving each person you speak with a unique look and voice to go along with it. However several technical issues create problems that effect the game. For example, you will often encounter enemies clipped thru walls or constantly hung up solid objects. More than once the game froze up on my system forcing me to do a reboot. Once, while feeding of a mortal enemy, I fell thru the floor of an area and into an infinite abyss. This game also suffers the Source Engine's audio stuttering. These issue are rare but when they do happen, they are serious enough to detract from the overall experience. Apparently the designers were aware of this issue, as the game gives you ten Quicksave slots to load from, as well as ten Auto-Save spots to fall back on.

Gameplay

While the game mainly plays from a first person perspective, it will switch to a third person perspective when your character is using a melee weapon such as a baseball bat or fire axe. You can manually adjust the perspective at any time using a key press if you choose to, which is a great feature to have. Your characters skills, clan, and powers determine what he or she is good at. For example, the Brujah are great fighters, with bonuses to melee combat, and powers to increase strength and slowdown enemies. However, their aggressive nature makes them lousy negotiators, making it very hard for them to talk their way out of bad situation. Ventrue, though, can easily make humans dance to their whim, using thier natural charms and Domination power to get what they need; But they cannot feed off the homeless or the dregs of society like other vampires can.

You must also be careful to keep yourself well fed and well protected. If you take too much damage or run too low on blood, your character will enter a state known as frenzy. While in frenzy you have significant boosts to Strength and Stamina, but your character becomes an animal, desperatly trying to survive. You don't have any control over the character and it won't stop attacking until it has killed everything nearby and fed on some blood. Vampires call this Frenzy the 'Beast'. Your character has a stat called Humanity, which gages how much control the 'Beast' has over you. The higher your humanity, the less likely you are going to frenzy. However, killing innocent humans lowers this rating, forcing your character to walk an interesting moral line. You will find that preserving the Masquerade and preserving your humanity may conflict.

Every skill in this game is important, and since you won't gain enough experience points thru the game to master everything, you must take care in selecting what to invest your points in. Do you place experience in lockpicking, so that you can break into places others have sealed? Or do you invest it manipulation, making it easier to seduce mortals into giving up precious blood? Do you specialize in Hacking or Sneaking? Do you make yourself more Charismatic or More resistant to damage?

Combat is somewhat confusing, since your combat abilities not directly related to your skills. No matter what clan you play as, you character will always start out with thier fists as the best combat option despite the abundance of melee and ranged weapons. Early on, these weapons don't have as much damage potential as your fists and are practically worthless. Significant experience points need to be invested in Melee weapons or Firearms before they become worthwhile. Powers such as Auspex (which boosts Perception beyond what you can invest points into, making firearms mor powerful) and Celerity (which slows enemies down) help bridge this gap, but these need points to build as well and not all clans have access to these particular powers.

Conclusion

While not the most technically impressive game to come out this year, Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines is an excellent purchase for any PC gamer. Replay value is huge, and the game is... Well... Just plain FUN. Highly recommended.

Amakusa42 has encountered his Malkavian arch-nemesis again; the Stop sign! And the battle begins...

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/05/04