Vampire Masquerade: Bloodlines Review

Enigma

As I mentioned in a previous thread, I had picked up this game about a week and a half ago. I just completed it tonight so I wanted to place a brief review down.

If you've never played it and will be buying it read at your own risk. Some parts will be general knowledge in this review while others will be spoilers. Although I'll try to keep the spoilers to a minimum.

1. Game Immersion: This game did very well with immersing yourself into the environment. There were a couple places where it just scared the bajeebus out of me and considering I do not scare easily, I found this to be very nice. One house you explore...can anyone say "The Shining"?

The different options of dialogue was very nice as well. Depending on your skills you could drastically alter someone's viewpoint with you..whether it be friend or foe. ************** Game Immersion 9

2. Quest system: It is very nice to see a Role Playing Game that isn't so linear. When buying this game and knowing it also used some FPS (with Source technology) I was a little hesitant. Only because FPS games tends to be increadibly linear. You know, the whole "lead the mouse through the maze with an assortment of weapons" linear. However, I was pleased to see that this game wasn't so.

There are enough Quests to keep you busy. So busy that sometimes you forget about your main quests at hand. These quests aren't simple FEDEX quests; rather, they are very involving and only enhances the storyline and where you came from. ******************* Quest System 8.5

3. Graphics: Graphics are ok. They're not the worse but I've seen better. Especially since this game is using the Source Engine (same engine that Half Life 2 uses) i was a little dissapointed in some of the rendering. For example...the hands look like the artists simply did not have enough time and slap down 5 pointy pixalated cones with dark fingernails and called them fingers. And sometimes your next would stretch about a foot to a foot and a half from the shoulders. Also, some of the clothing was very rough and reminded me more of the Quake engine versus the source engine.

However, the environment had very nice graphics. It was the humoid (human and kindred) that they needed work on. However, some of them were nicely done. It all depended on the character really. Some NPCs were impressive to look at while others you just felt like you were staring at a lower generation graphic model. ************** Graphics 7.0

4. Music/Sound: This seemed to be a little "bugged"...well, not bugged but poorly implemented. While the ambiance sound effects were truly breathtaking, the music was way too loud and the NPC dialogue was painfully too "soft" This problem could be remedied but you couldn't do it through the options...you needed to find a forum and see what they had to do to even the sounds out.

Don't misunderstand me...the sound and music was ok but if you're not wearing headphones, y ou'll be finding yourself messing with the volume knob in between dialogue and fight scenes. On a good note, their music selection for the game is simply awesome!! I found myself in Asylum Nightclub more than I was out doing quests! *********** Sound 7.5

5. Perfomance (bugs, etc): Heh, what can I say. The game is pretty buggy. It is probably the most buggiest single player game Ive played in a while. HOWEVER, there is light at the end of the tunnel. There is a person who made a series of unofficial patches to fix the show stopping bugs that the software producers messed up on. The sad thing is, the official patch was released last week while the unofficial patches were released 3 weeks ago. The unofficial patches have more fixes than the official one and the unofficial patches were done by amateur person who is a fan of the game versus a team of developers who developed the official patch.

So needless to say, if you just bought the game INSTALL A PATCH...either the unofficial one or the official one because there is a game stopping bug 3/4 into to the game that will not let you proceed without the patch (your game will crash to desktop at this one specific spot if you do not download the patch).

Other than that, the patches have cleared many things up. Before patches I would rate the stability of this game at 5.5 but with the patches I'll give it 7.5. Reason why it's still low is because the game's "downtown_hub" is a severe memory leaker. But, don't let that stop ya from buying the game.

Overall I loved the game. Yeah, I experienced a day or two or game stopping bugs but with some research I managed to get out of that. I had a blast playing it and it's worth the 50 bucks. I just beat it as Malkavian. Now, I'm playing as a Triemere clan and going to try a different ending.

There are 4 seperate endings to this game! So it's not just the same ol same ol if you play it for the second time.

Overall I give it an 8.0

If the sound was slightly better and the coding was done better I would give it a 9.5 easily.

Fun Factor: I give it a 9!