Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

And here's yet another too hastily released game filled with bugs. Fortunately, there's yet again an unofficial patch made by ambitious fans. Thanks to the patch or no, I didn't suffer from any major bugs - apart from getting my character stuck inside a corpse/whatever couple times.

I have played Vampire worth few gaming sessions, although I think it was The Dark Ages and not The Masquerade. The rule system, Storyteller, is mostly the same, however. Of course, there's always stuff that needs to go or at least be changed to import the system into a PC game.

Still, the character sheet seemed similar from what I remember it being - circles to be filled for each stat, to a maximum of five points. For interaction with others and things, characters use feats, which are usually the sum of two stats. Then there's the Disciplines; a set of cool vampire powers, each Clan with their own three (few are shared I think).

In the pen & paper Vampire my character was of Ventrue clan, "--the rulers, leaders and politicos of the Camarilla--", and who have access to Dominate, Fortitude, and Presence. I liked the ventrue but I thought back then he was missing a discipline I really wanted to have: Celerity, which grants unnatural speed when used. So, for Bloodlines, I made a Toreador, "--some of the most beautiful and glamorous of the Kindred.", who seem not too dissimilar to Ventrue... and who obviously have access to Celerity.

I suppose each Discipline has its uses, but being able to move with almost the speed of bullets helped quite a bit. Speaking of bullets... VTMB is a shooter (apart from being an RPG), yet I found shooting to be difficult and ineffective.

Instead, I put my points in unarmed combat (helps in feeding on unwilling suspects also) and clawed my way through most of the game. Well, there was lots of talking too, my (female) character being persuasive and seductive Toreador after all. But firearms I used only when melee opponents proved to be too deadly. On the very last missions of the game I started finally using katana as my weapon. Moving with Celerity 5 and pumped up with Blood Buff, my character was quite a force in close combat.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines has many main and side quests to do - it took me quite a while to finish the game. The storyline works (mostly) and is intriguing. I like the concept of The Masquerade; the Kine shall not learn of the Kindred lest the vampires get destroyed; and all the politics and interests that are born when not all care about it. I found some of the key characters to be lacking, though. For instance, LaCroix didn't seem smart enough to be a vampire prince. Sorry excuse of ventrue if you ask me. Yet I sided with him to the bitter end...

And a bitter end it was; Bloodlines has a few different endings you can get, depending who you decided to side. I apparently chose "wrong" and got an ending that seemed like I had lost. All the trouble for nothing. There was no grand epic ending; the whole thing is just a local skirmish, which holds no relevance to anything else that might be happening in the World of Darkness. Bit of a letdown.

The last third of the game also got repetitive; each quest involved the same hacking and slashing of a whole bunch of ghouls and humans. At least the last mission didn't have submachine guns. I really started hating the sound they make.

Overall, the game contains loads of entertainment value, and it really is a great CRPG. VTMB just lacks the grandeur and scale to make it truly awesome experience. Honorable mention for the amount of experience granted through talking; it is often more worthwhile to avoid bloodbaths.