Vampire®: The Masquerade - Bloodlines™

The bugs and combat soured me on Bloodlines, and I don't think the writing is very good, either. I know that vampires are intrinsically corny, and you can't ever completely escape that, but still, it felt like I was playing a game written and designed by the goth kids from South Park. I can appreciate how Bloodlines anticipated lots of later, and now mainstream, design ideas. For that, it deserves credit, and with more development time, funding, and polish, who knows what could've been. Lots of squandered potential here.

I've had this game on my wishlist for a while and have read some good reviews for it. Apparently, it's one of the best rpgs of all time. Well, after playing it, it's one of the worst I've ever played. The story is mediocre at best, the combat is awful with some stupid boss fight mechanics, the world is very small and doesn't offer much to explore, and some of the final levels are literally mazes that you have to traverse through, with a bunch of enemies to get in your way. I honestly don't see where all the hype for this game is coming from. Even though I bought this game on sale, the 14 hours I spent on it felt like wasted time.

As with Sim City 3000, as soon as I launch the game, it minimises itself and keeps doing so whenever I try to restore it.

So I loved Arcanum and thus Troika and I read some critics in the game magazins when it was released and I thought - wow that game will be pure awesomeness... But I got disappointed very early in the game. There is nearly nothing to explore. Yes the atmosphrere is great, it's dark and shabby but the levels are really restricted in every aspect. And there aren't many people to talk to and I think there weren't enough sidequests to gain experience from, so I had always a lack of abilities. The dialogue choices made no difference most of the time. Sometimes only a little. I had the feeling the different answers only existed to read them and they often lead to the same thing - quitting the dialogue, a simple goodbye would have done suffice. And the overall feeling of being a much feared mighty vampire, or at least a weak vampire struggling with his/her fate was completely missing. You felt like you had no identity and there was no identity to develop in the game. Then there were those levels... The ghost haunted hotel was really brilliant, I have to admit. It was spooky and exciting, I felt like trapped in a horror movie, Nightmare on Elm Street like running through narrow boiler rooms. (They should have made more levels like that in the game) The Brotherhood of the 9th Circle was pretty cool, too. But there also were the sewers and China Town.... and those last levels really ruined it for me. And the 'visit' at the Giovanni Family was very frustrating if you haven't gathered every single skillpoint you could and have failed in one or the other quest. I wonder how it is to play a Nosferatu, being mainly confined to the sewers must be a real fun killer since it is the worst part of it (like in most of the games I've played before). That to say, the stealth mechanism in this game is really a strange thing. If you have few skillpoints they will most likely directly see you no matter how much you try to hide and if you have some more they won't even see you when you are right in front of them, there wasn't really something between that. I can't really understand why so much people are raving about this game, it has so many flaws, the nice design of the very small levels won't justify all the anger you will experience if you are once more killed or once more running through ugly sewers or warehouses. Maybe the game would have been better if they hadn't made it 3D source engine based. Well tastes are different....I will keep playing Arcanum instead and being sad about the demise of Troika games, maybe they could have released another more polished game if they had the time. And : I think the price is to steep considering that you get a boxed version for about 4 euros...

Bought it years ago around the time it came out at an EB or Gamestop. Probably one of the best vampire games out at the time. Today, the game doesn't hold up and the graphics aren't all that great either. On a 5 star scale I can only give it a 2, on a more accurate 10 point scale I'd give it maybe a 7 or 7.5 yo be fair. I'm surprised GoG is still trying to sell this OLD game decades later for $20, total rip-off. Not worth more than $4 to $9 at most.