Vampire®: The Masquerade - Bloodlines™

BORING

While some elements of this game are incredibly good, age was merciless with it, and that shows in a lot of design choices. From endless and repetitive labyrinths, to really weirdly designed quests, the biggest issue in my playthrough was that i made a physical character (melee-specialized brujah) but such a character in this game won't work (you can argue that the same is truth on the RPG game, but we're now talking about the game and I played the RPG the last time 15 years ago or more). Combat in terms of controls, mechanics and gameplay is very bad, so that a physical-oriented character i think has a hard time in the game. I did put quite some points in intimidation too, but i rarely had a chance to really use it. A pity cause the story, settings and characters are delicious, but after almost 15 hours, i had to give up in frustration (Chinatown, I am looking at you). And when that happen, i can't be overly happy about a game, no matter its age or reputation. Gets a 60/100 from me, i guess it might have been even a bit less but nostalgia glasses work a bit like beer glasses.

Alright... let me explain... There is Baldurs Gate II... There is KOTOR... There is Fallout 2 AND there is THIS game. Do you @#$## understand? Now, go buy it and play it. You are welcome. This is an ESSENTIAL RPG!

I've lost count the amount of times I've re-played this game.

Let's not look at this through rose-colored glasses, please. I absolutely love this game, but holy fracking frisky grandma Batman, It. Is. A. MESS. The combat is janky, weird and unsatisfying, there are barely any weapons and armor to choose from, there's all sorts of bugs and the whole thing just gets progressively worse and worse right down to the last minute where you can get one of 3(?) different endings, but they all feel like placeholders. By the time I reached the last hour of the game I felt like it was about to completely fall apart. This is NOT a finished product and charging 20$ for it is simply a rip off. On the plus side, the game really is one of a kind. It has a very cool, soothing yet ominous atmosphere, it's the perfect game for a rainy night. I loved the soundtrack, the setting, the quests and dialogues are well written, engaging and fun, there are lots of cool and interesting details that help to bring the story and the world to life, the characters are memorable, some of them lovable and somehow, they have much better facial animations than characters in today's releases. I can't help but feel sorry for the developers, because it's obvious that this game was handled with a lot of love and care, and I know that it really could have been a HUGE hit, had they had more time and resources to complete the project. You should definitely try it if you ever wanted to be a cool vampire dishing out toothy justice to the denizens of the underworld, but you should know that in terms of gameplay it's far, FAR from perfect. There is an unofficial patch out there somewhere that is a MUST if you want to enjoy this game as much as possible. It fixes a lot of things and even restores some cut content.