Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

"Alas, blood must be spilled."

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines can be a great game, in fact, it's a great game but overshadowed by various flaws both technically and in gameplay.

The story starts off with a long cutscene of your character becoming a vampire during an "Embrace". Your Sire, the vampire who "embraced" you, was sent to death, while you were given a chance to live, as a vampire.

Unlike other RPG games, you are allowed to become yourself (to a certain extent) and do whatever you like in the game. You may want to kill every innocent person in town and lose both special quests and humanity, if you want to. Or, you can be good and only kill people who wants to kill you.

In the game, there is a system called the Masquerade, which prevents you from using your vampire abilities just anyhow, anywhere, in front of humans. Everytime you violate the masquerade, people will run away from you, cops will hunt you and vampire hunters are ready to kill you!

The game graphics are superb, but falls short to another game based on the same engine, Half-Life 2. There are special effects in the game, which are very nice to see, such as the invisibility skill and such. Shadows react to lights on the streets, stretching and shrinking with the light sources "naturally".

The whole game takes place at night, since vampires can never roam in day. Four districts in the game with several sub-quests will occupy your time as you take on the very long main story. Everytime you talk to someone, you will be given choices. Whatever you choose may bring a different outcome. Sometimes, you may fail a quest, or risk losing something important.

In the game, you meet a lot of enemies. Your only way of combat is to either use your vampire abilities, also known as Disciplines, Melee weapons, or firearms. Melee weapons range from your own fists to someone's else's arm. There's a variety of guns in the game as well, but most combats are best taken place in Third-person view, so bear in mind, FPS players. There are options to play in First-person view, but it is extremely restrictive and hard to use.

Everytime you start a conversation, you will switch to a first person view and hear the character talk. This is interesting because it seems that every part of their speech was recorded and played in-sync. The detail at the voice itself is amazingly full of expressions,

However, the game itself has several glitches. Some deter you from starting, completing or playing the game, while others make the game looks weird. Sometimes, doors won't open, people won't talk and things won't happen. At times, polygons of a character will "extrude" out and make the character look spiky. Such things should be addressed by a patch, but the latest one failed to solve problems.

Finally,
If you enjoy the idea of "being" a vampire, get the game. It's fun.
If you don't like games that's "dark all the time", don't get it!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/22/05