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This thread has been linked to the game 'Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines'.
'Real vampires don't sparkle' is a phrase frequently trotted out by critics of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. And while Twilight may indeed be a self-indulgent load of old rubbish, it's not true to say that there is or that there has to be one vampire template. In actual fact, there are many different vampire legends - each country typically having its own spin on vampire myths. Bulgarian vampires, for example, supposedly have only one nostril and instead of having fangs they have a barb under their tongue which they use to drain blood. And they can only be stopped by placing wild roses around their grave. And Dracula, perhaps one of the most iconic vampires of all time, was able to walk about during the day and didn't even have fangs. The traditional western view of vampires, that they have fangs and burst into flames in sunlight seems to been derived from the various Dracula films that were made.
So I was pleasantly to surprised to find that Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines features several different types of vampires, each with their own abilities. Bloodlines, which is based in part upon White Wolf's paper and pen based role playing game, lets you play as a vampire from one of several different clans. You can be a Ventrue, a particularly posh type of vampire, a magic-using Tremere, a completely loopy Malkavian or a rather gruesome looking Nosferatu. Each clan has it's own pros and cons - the Nosferatu, for example, are shunned by the general public, who write them off as being grossly deformed people, but are excellent at stealth. The Ventrue, on the other hand, are treated well by both human and vampire society, but can't feed on rats meaning that if that's your only source of nourishment at any time, you're up the creek.
Whichever type of vampire you choose to play as, the game - which is best described as an action-RPG - starts with you having your head on the chopping block, quite literally. Forget about all those hundreds and thousands of years of history the vampires of True Blood and other shows seem to have - in Bloodlines you're as green as they come. A one night stand has ended with you being turned into a vampire by the guy/girl you hooked up with. Trouble is - apart from the whole being a vampire thing - anyone who wants to turn a human has to seek permission from the city's vampire leader, who in this case is Prince LaCroix. Failure to do so is a death sentence, both for the vampire and the person they turned. Fortunately for you, however, the prince agrees to spare your life - not out of the goodness of his own heart, that is, but because he wants someone to run around the city doing his dirty work.
And that's pretty much how things are for the whole game - since you're at the bottom of the vampire heirarchy, you end up running around doing things for other vampires. And while not all of them may be out to get you killed, it becomes apparent that each person has their own agenda and there's very few vampires you can actually trust. Unlike the previous Vampire The Masquerade game, Redemption, Bloodlines isn't a dungeon exploring game. Granted, there are a few occasions when you have to head into the sewers but most of the game takes place above ground in a variety of locations in and around the Los Angeles area.
Bloodlines isn't an open world game in the same way Grand Theft Auto is, but it's not as linear as some games. You start off having access to one small area - Santa Monica - with a couple of side quests to undertake as well as a main story quest. Then once you've finished that area - as well as the individual locations the quests take you to - you unlock another area and so on. You can go back and forth between unlocked areas and some quests require you to do just that.
The quests can be tackled in a variety of ways - you can sneak around, you can try and sweet-talk people into doing things using your vampire powers, or you can just murder your way through the opposition. Although the latter is not always the best option - there are some locations where you can kill people willy nilly, but slaughtering people in the streets will get you in trouble fast. You'll lose humanity points if you kill innocents, and if you lose them all, and your character may start attacking people at random moments. You also risk exposing the existence of vampires to humanity and if you lose five masquerade points, it's game over. It's an effective of way of stopping you going completely loopy. Although if you're playing as Malkavian you're halfway there, and can look forward to having conversations with televisions and stop signs. No, really.
There are too many cool vampire powers for me to list here, but you need to think carefully before you spend any of your experience points. In particular, think about how you're going to tackle the game - stealth or slaughter. Sneaking around will be really hard if you've not spent any experience points on upping your skills. Similarly, if you've put all your points into gun combat and you run out of ammo, you're in trouble. Yes, you are a vampire, but you're by no means invincible. The one ray of sunshine, sorry, moonlight, in this respect is that you can regain your health without needing health packs, though you can buy blood packs. You can just sneak up behind some unsuspecting human and dig your teeth in, restoring your health. You can also seduce various men and women into letting you feed on them willingly. Although if you let them die, you lose your humanity again.
Bloodlines is powered by the Half Life 2 engine, which means it looks pretty good, though the graphics aren't spectacular. The game locations are all pretty atmospheric - in particular, there's one location that will scare the living daylights out of you. Not because it's filled with monsters - it isn't. It's actually haunted by something even more terrifying, and the game pulls off all sorts of psychological and graphical tricks to freak you out. The game's story is also excellent. I won't give too much away, but there's an item that has turned up in town that most of the vampire population seems to be interested in and you're tasked with finding it for the Prince. There are also multiple endings, depending upon what alliegances you forge. Many of the game's moral choices are also grey, which makes a change from being supremely good or breathlessly evil.
Sounds great, right? It is. But unfortunately, the game didn't sell well enough upon its initial release and the company behind it, Troika, went bust. It probably didn't help that the game was released in a buggy state and while it was patched once or twice, it still had bugs. Surprisingly, though, a large community has sprung up around the game and it's now being unofficially patched by various dedicated individuals who have not only been fixing software bugs but also making subtle alterations to the way the game plays.
Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines is a fantastic but sadly overlooked action RPG that is an absolutely joy to play. It's scary and entertaining in equal measure and deserved to more successful than it actually was. It's hard to track down on disc, but it can be purchased on Steam or Direct2Drive for download. If you're a fan of vampire fiction - Twilight excepted - then you'll love this game. And even if you aren't, you owe it yourself to check it out.
(this review also posted by me on Dooyoo.co.uk)
So I was pleasantly to surprised to find that Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines features several different types of vampires, each with their own abilities. Bloodlines, which is based in part upon White Wolf's paper and pen based role playing game, lets you play as a vampire from one of several different clans. You can be a Ventrue, a particularly posh type of vampire, a magic-using Tremere, a completely loopy Malkavian or a rather gruesome looking Nosferatu. Each clan has it's own pros and cons - the Nosferatu, for example, are shunned by the general public, who write them off as being grossly deformed people, but are excellent at stealth. The Ventrue, on the other hand, are treated well by both human and vampire society, but can't feed on rats meaning that if that's your only source of nourishment at any time, you're up the creek.
Whichever type of vampire you choose to play as, the game - which is best described as an action-RPG - starts with you having your head on the chopping block, quite literally. Forget about all those hundreds and thousands of years of history the vampires of True Blood and other shows seem to have - in Bloodlines you're as green as they come. A one night stand has ended with you being turned into a vampire by the guy/girl you hooked up with. Trouble is - apart from the whole being a vampire thing - anyone who wants to turn a human has to seek permission from the city's vampire leader, who in this case is Prince LaCroix. Failure to do so is a death sentence, both for the vampire and the person they turned. Fortunately for you, however, the prince agrees to spare your life - not out of the goodness of his own heart, that is, but because he wants someone to run around the city doing his dirty work.
And that's pretty much how things are for the whole game - since you're at the bottom of the vampire heirarchy, you end up running around doing things for other vampires. And while not all of them may be out to get you killed, it becomes apparent that each person has their own agenda and there's very few vampires you can actually trust. Unlike the previous Vampire The Masquerade game, Redemption, Bloodlines isn't a dungeon exploring game. Granted, there are a few occasions when you have to head into the sewers but most of the game takes place above ground in a variety of locations in and around the Los Angeles area.
Bloodlines isn't an open world game in the same way Grand Theft Auto is, but it's not as linear as some games. You start off having access to one small area - Santa Monica - with a couple of side quests to undertake as well as a main story quest. Then once you've finished that area - as well as the individual locations the quests take you to - you unlock another area and so on. You can go back and forth between unlocked areas and some quests require you to do just that.
The quests can be tackled in a variety of ways - you can sneak around, you can try and sweet-talk people into doing things using your vampire powers, or you can just murder your way through the opposition. Although the latter is not always the best option - there are some locations where you can kill people willy nilly, but slaughtering people in the streets will get you in trouble fast. You'll lose humanity points if you kill innocents, and if you lose them all, and your character may start attacking people at random moments. You also risk exposing the existence of vampires to humanity and if you lose five masquerade points, it's game over. It's an effective of way of stopping you going completely loopy. Although if you're playing as Malkavian you're halfway there, and can look forward to having conversations with televisions and stop signs. No, really.
There are too many cool vampire powers for me to list here, but you need to think carefully before you spend any of your experience points. In particular, think about how you're going to tackle the game - stealth or slaughter. Sneaking around will be really hard if you've not spent any experience points on upping your skills. Similarly, if you've put all your points into gun combat and you run out of ammo, you're in trouble. Yes, you are a vampire, but you're by no means invincible. The one ray of sunshine, sorry, moonlight, in this respect is that you can regain your health without needing health packs, though you can buy blood packs. You can just sneak up behind some unsuspecting human and dig your teeth in, restoring your health. You can also seduce various men and women into letting you feed on them willingly. Although if you let them die, you lose your humanity again.
Bloodlines is powered by the Half Life 2 engine, which means it looks pretty good, though the graphics aren't spectacular. The game locations are all pretty atmospheric - in particular, there's one location that will scare the living daylights out of you. Not because it's filled with monsters - it isn't. It's actually haunted by something even more terrifying, and the game pulls off all sorts of psychological and graphical tricks to freak you out. The game's story is also excellent. I won't give too much away, but there's an item that has turned up in town that most of the vampire population seems to be interested in and you're tasked with finding it for the Prince. There are also multiple endings, depending upon what alliegances you forge. Many of the game's moral choices are also grey, which makes a change from being supremely good or breathlessly evil.
Sounds great, right? It is. But unfortunately, the game didn't sell well enough upon its initial release and the company behind it, Troika, went bust. It probably didn't help that the game was released in a buggy state and while it was patched once or twice, it still had bugs. Surprisingly, though, a large community has sprung up around the game and it's now being unofficially patched by various dedicated individuals who have not only been fixing software bugs but also making subtle alterations to the way the game plays.
Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines is a fantastic but sadly overlooked action RPG that is an absolutely joy to play. It's scary and entertaining in equal measure and deserved to more successful than it actually was. It's hard to track down on disc, but it can be purchased on Steam or Direct2Drive for download. If you're a fan of vampire fiction - Twilight excepted - then you'll love this game. And even if you aren't, you owe it yourself to check it out.
(this review also posted by me on Dooyoo.co.uk)
Excellent review Hannard...most worthy of a GAD :¬)
This was a game that I always considered playing but never did :¬( What a lost opportunity...because everything in your review brings back memories of the game :¬)
This was a game that I always considered playing but never did :¬( What a lost opportunity...because everything in your review brings back memories of the game :¬)
'Real vampires don't sparkle' is a phrase frequently trotted out by critics of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. And while Twilight may indeed be a self-indulgent load of old rubbish, it's not true to say that there is or that there has to be one vampire template. In actual fact, there are many different vampire legends - each country typically having its own spin on vampire myths. Bulgarian vampires, for example, supposedly have only one nostril and instead of having fangs they have a barb under their tongue which they use to drain blood. And they can only be stopped by placing wild roses around their grave. And Dracula, perhaps one of the most iconic vampires of all time, was able to walk about during the day and didn't even have fangs. The traditional western view of vampires, that they have fangs and burst into flames in sunlight seems to been derived from the various Dracula films that were made.
So I was pleasantly to surprised to find that Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines features several different types of vampires, each with their own abilities. Bloodlines, which is based in part upon White Wolf's paper and pen based role playing game, lets you play as a vampire from one of several different clans. You can be a Ventrue, a particularly posh type of vampire, a magic-using Tremere, a completely loopy Malkavian or a rather gruesome looking Nosferatu. Each clan has it's own pros and cons - the Nosferatu, for example, are shunned by the general public, who write them off as being grossly deformed people, but are excellent at stealth. The Ventrue, on the other hand, are treated well by both human and vampire society, but can't feed on rats meaning that if that's your only source of nourishment at any time, you're up the creek.
Whichever type of vampire you choose to play as, the game - which is best described as an action-RPG - starts with you having your head on the chopping block, quite literally. Forget about all those hundreds and thousands of years of history the vampires of True Blood and other shows seem to have - in Bloodlines you're as green as they come. A one night stand has ended with you being turned into a vampire by the guy/girl you hooked up with. Trouble is - apart from the whole being a vampire thing - anyone who wants to turn a human has to seek permission from the city's vampire leader, who in this case is Prince LaCroix. Failure to do so is a death sentence, both for the vampire and the person they turned. Fortunately for you, however, the prince agrees to spare your life - not out of the goodness of his own heart, that is, but because he wants someone to run around the city doing his dirty work.
And that's pretty much how things are for the whole game - since you're at the bottom of the vampire heirarchy, you end up running around doing things for other vampires. And while not all of them may be out to get you killed, it becomes apparent that each person has their own agenda and there's very few vampires you can actually trust. Unlike the previous Vampire The Masquerade game, Redemption, Bloodlines isn't a dungeon exploring game. Granted, there are a few occasions when you have to head into the sewers but most of the game takes place above ground in a variety of locations in and around the Los Angeles area.
Bloodlines isn't an open world game in the same way Grand Theft Auto is, but it's not as linear as some games. You start off having access to one small area - Santa Monica - with a couple of side quests to undertake as well as a main story quest. Then once you've finished that area - as well as the individual locations the quests take you to - you unlock another area and so on. You can go back and forth between unlocked areas and some quests require you to do just that.
The quests can be tackled in a variety of ways - you can sneak around, you can try and sweet-talk people into doing things using your vampire powers, or you can just murder your way through the opposition. Although the latter is not always the best option - there are some locations where you can kill people willy nilly, but slaughtering people in the streets will get you in trouble fast. You'll lose humanity points if you kill innocents, and if you lose them all, and your character may start attacking people at random moments. You also risk exposing the existence of vampires to humanity and if you lose five masquerade points, it's game over. It's an effective of way of stopping you going completely loopy. Although if you're playing as Malkavian you're halfway there, and can look forward to having conversations with televisions and stop signs. No, really.
There are too many cool vampire powers for me to list here, but you need to think carefully before you spend any of your experience points. In particular, think about how you're going to tackle the game - stealth or slaughter. Sneaking around will be really hard if you've not spent any experience points on upping your skills. Similarly, if you've put all your points into gun combat and you run out of ammo, you're in trouble. Yes, you are a vampire, but you're by no means invincible. The one ray of sunshine, sorry, moonlight, in this respect is that you can regain your health without needing health packs, though you can buy blood packs. You can just sneak up behind some unsuspecting human and dig your teeth in, restoring your health. You can also seduce various men and women into letting you feed on them willingly. Although if you let them die, you lose your humanity again.
Bloodlines is powered by the Half Life 2 engine, which means it looks pretty good, though the graphics aren't spectacular. The game locations are all pretty atmospheric - in particular, there's one location that will scare the living daylights out of you. Not because it's filled with monsters - it isn't. It's actually haunted by something even more terrifying, and the game pulls off all sorts of psychological and graphical tricks to freak you out. The game's story is also excellent. I won't give too much away, but there's an item that has turned up in town that most of the vampire population seems to be interested in and you're tasked with finding it for the Prince. There are also multiple endings, depending upon what alliegances you forge. Many of the game's moral choices are also grey, which makes a change from being supremely good or breathlessly evil.
Sounds great, right? It is. But unfortunately, the game didn't sell well enough upon its initial release and the company behind it, Troika, went bust. It probably didn't help that the game was released in a buggy state and while it was patched once or twice, it still had bugs. Surprisingly, though, a large community has sprung up around the game and it's now being unofficially patched by various dedicated individuals who have not only been fixing software bugs but also making subtle alterations to the way the game plays.
Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines is a fantastic but sadly overlooked action RPG that is an absolutely joy to play. It's scary and entertaining in equal measure and deserved to more successful than it actually was. It's hard to track down on disc, but it can be purchased on Steam or Direct2Drive for download. If you're a fan of vampire fiction - Twilight excepted - then you'll love this game. And even if you aren't, you owe it yourself to check it out.
(this review also posted by me on Dooyoo.co.uk)
So I was pleasantly to surprised to find that Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines features several different types of vampires, each with their own abilities. Bloodlines, which is based in part upon White Wolf's paper and pen based role playing game, lets you play as a vampire from one of several different clans. You can be a Ventrue, a particularly posh type of vampire, a magic-using Tremere, a completely loopy Malkavian or a rather gruesome looking Nosferatu. Each clan has it's own pros and cons - the Nosferatu, for example, are shunned by the general public, who write them off as being grossly deformed people, but are excellent at stealth. The Ventrue, on the other hand, are treated well by both human and vampire society, but can't feed on rats meaning that if that's your only source of nourishment at any time, you're up the creek.
Whichever type of vampire you choose to play as, the game - which is best described as an action-RPG - starts with you having your head on the chopping block, quite literally. Forget about all those hundreds and thousands of years of history the vampires of True Blood and other shows seem to have - in Bloodlines you're as green as they come. A one night stand has ended with you being turned into a vampire by the guy/girl you hooked up with. Trouble is - apart from the whole being a vampire thing - anyone who wants to turn a human has to seek permission from the city's vampire leader, who in this case is Prince LaCroix. Failure to do so is a death sentence, both for the vampire and the person they turned. Fortunately for you, however, the prince agrees to spare your life - not out of the goodness of his own heart, that is, but because he wants someone to run around the city doing his dirty work.
And that's pretty much how things are for the whole game - since you're at the bottom of the vampire heirarchy, you end up running around doing things for other vampires. And while not all of them may be out to get you killed, it becomes apparent that each person has their own agenda and there's very few vampires you can actually trust. Unlike the previous Vampire The Masquerade game, Redemption, Bloodlines isn't a dungeon exploring game. Granted, there are a few occasions when you have to head into the sewers but most of the game takes place above ground in a variety of locations in and around the Los Angeles area.
Bloodlines isn't an open world game in the same way Grand Theft Auto is, but it's not as linear as some games. You start off having access to one small area - Santa Monica - with a couple of side quests to undertake as well as a main story quest. Then once you've finished that area - as well as the individual locations the quests take you to - you unlock another area and so on. You can go back and forth between unlocked areas and some quests require you to do just that.
The quests can be tackled in a variety of ways - you can sneak around, you can try and sweet-talk people into doing things using your vampire powers, or you can just murder your way through the opposition. Although the latter is not always the best option - there are some locations where you can kill people willy nilly, but slaughtering people in the streets will get you in trouble fast. You'll lose humanity points if you kill innocents, and if you lose them all, and your character may start attacking people at random moments. You also risk exposing the existence of vampires to humanity and if you lose five masquerade points, it's game over. It's an effective of way of stopping you going completely loopy. Although if you're playing as Malkavian you're halfway there, and can look forward to having conversations with televisions and stop signs. No, really.
There are too many cool vampire powers for me to list here, but you need to think carefully before you spend any of your experience points. In particular, think about how you're going to tackle the game - stealth or slaughter. Sneaking around will be really hard if you've not spent any experience points on upping your skills. Similarly, if you've put all your points into gun combat and you run out of ammo, you're in trouble. Yes, you are a vampire, but you're by no means invincible. The one ray of sunshine, sorry, moonlight, in this respect is that you can regain your health without needing health packs, though you can buy blood packs. You can just sneak up behind some unsuspecting human and dig your teeth in, restoring your health. You can also seduce various men and women into letting you feed on them willingly. Although if you let them die, you lose your humanity again.
Bloodlines is powered by the Half Life 2 engine, which means it looks pretty good, though the graphics aren't spectacular. The game locations are all pretty atmospheric - in particular, there's one location that will scare the living daylights out of you. Not because it's filled with monsters - it isn't. It's actually haunted by something even more terrifying, and the game pulls off all sorts of psychological and graphical tricks to freak you out. The game's story is also excellent. I won't give too much away, but there's an item that has turned up in town that most of the vampire population seems to be interested in and you're tasked with finding it for the Prince. There are also multiple endings, depending upon what alliegances you forge. Many of the game's moral choices are also grey, which makes a change from being supremely good or breathlessly evil.
Sounds great, right? It is. But unfortunately, the game didn't sell well enough upon its initial release and the company behind it, Troika, went bust. It probably didn't help that the game was released in a buggy state and while it was patched once or twice, it still had bugs. Surprisingly, though, a large community has sprung up around the game and it's now being unofficially patched by various dedicated individuals who have not only been fixing software bugs but also making subtle alterations to the way the game plays.
Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines is a fantastic but sadly overlooked action RPG that is an absolutely joy to play. It's scary and entertaining in equal measure and deserved to more successful than it actually was. It's hard to track down on disc, but it can be purchased on Steam or Direct2Drive for download. If you're a fan of vampire fiction - Twilight excepted - then you'll love this game. And even if you aren't, you owe it yourself to check it out.
(this review also posted by me on Dooyoo.co.uk)