There's just nothing to recommend about this game. I have not finished it, but it's quite boring. The combat isn't fun, the dialog caps out at competently written, the story isn't particularly interesting, the characters are neither complex nor entertaining. The only character who seems particularly interesting at all is Lou Graham. You don't feel powerful, so it's not a good power fantasy Vampire game, the game isn't gothic or gloomy so it doesn't scratch that kind of Vampire itch. I genuinely do not understand where people are coming from praising the atmosphere. It doesn't even run particularly well, I just hard crashed to desktop for no particular reason and I have regular framerate drops despite having a good computer and running on low settings. This computer handles Cyberpunk 2077 just fine. And with the exception of a few pieces of music taken straight from Bloodlines, the music isn't compelling. I thought at first that this game was being kneecapped by being called Bloodlines 2, that if it was called Vampire: Awakening or something like that I'd feel more charitably towards it. And definitely the comparisons to Bloodlines are not in its favor - it is worse than Bloodlines in every way, even combat-wise. But it also just isn't a very good game in its own right. It is competent, and nothing more. Nine hours into the game, I give it two stars. I would not recommend paying full price for this game. I am irked that I didn't cancel my preorder years ago. Don't preorder, people. Ever. I don't think this game is worth more than $10. I didn't expect much. I hoped it would be as good as possible, I paid good money for it after all. But this is the worst outcome, frankly. It isn't bad enough to hate it or mock it, it's just beige. Edit: I finished the game. It never gets better. There's a longass sewer section filled with tedious monster fights, so I guess they did bring back one thing from Bloodlines. The ending isn't good. The game isn't long but it wastes your time. Don't bother doing sidequests, you don't need experience points and the sidequests are, as far as I could tell, all either fetch, fight, or find a guy to eat. I stopped doing them about 3/4ths of the way through so maybe the last few start mattering, but I doubt it. No idea what the significance of the collection quests are and I don't care. I highly doubt I will touch the DLCs, modding, or anything else about the game ever again. The game this most reminds me of is Gotham Knights, but I can't put my finger on why. I will say towards the end the music started to actually show up to the party and actually set the mood, and throughout the game I think the voice actors turn in good performances, certainly I don't think anyone turns in a bad performance. You don't spend enough time actually talking to people, because I guess we needed more time with the tedious combat. So much time with the tedious combat.
this makes Horse Armor look like Shivering Isles.
There's just nothing to recommend about this game. I have not finished it, but it's quite boring. The combat isn't fun, the dialog caps out at competently written, the story isn't particularly interesting, the characters seem pretty shallow so far. You don't feel powerful, so it's not a good power fantasy Vampire game, the game isn't gothic or gloomy so it doesn't scratch that kind of Vampire itch. It doesn't even run particularly well, I just hard crashed to desktop for no particular reason and I have regular framerate drops despite having a good computer and running on low settings. And with the exception of a few pieces of music taken straight from Bloodlines, the music isn't compelling. I thought at first that this game was being kneecapped by being called Bloodlines 2, that if it was called Vampire: Awakening or something like that I'd feel more charitably towards it. And definitely the comparisons to Bloodlines are not in its favor - it is worse than Bloodlines in every way, even combat-wise. But it also just isn't a very good game in its own right. Five hours into the game, I give it two stars. I would not recommend paying full price for this game. I am irked that I didn't cancel my preorder years ago. Don't preorder, people. Ever. I don't think this game is worth more than $10.
My opinion is probably a bit against the crowd - even on release I had no significant technical issues with 2077, I found it great on release. Since 2.0 and Phantom Liberty's enhancements its only become a better game.
