One Of The Best Vampire Games In Existance... If You Ignore The Second Half
Based on the pen and paper role playing game of the same title name, Bloodlines tells the tale of various breeds of vampire living in the world of humans, trying to uphold the Masquerade that they're just normal everyday humans... Which means fit in, or they're going to be sending the disciplinary squad after you!
The game opens up as pretty much a turf war, and later descends into an end of the world prophecy story. Your progression from lowest rung on the ladder to working for the big cheese/being responsible for the fate of the world is jarringly fast...
I did have to use a patch to get the game to work on Windows 7, even through Steam (which seems crazy that the game "as it comes" doesn't boot), so its hard to say how much was the original game and how much had been modified...
But in the form I played it the game still looks pretty damn good aesthetically and the voice acting holds up, adding a lot to the memorable cast of friends and foes.
The early game missions are easily the best bits the game has to offer, the later ones feeling like an unnecessary dragging out of the game, especially with the number of "dungeons" that are incredibly dull to walk around. They're also where most the roleplaying goes out the window and it's just straight up combat.
This was the most disappointing part for me, I chose the "cop" backstory, and felt I was going to try and stick to that, putting my "level up" tokens into boosting my deductive or intimidation skills, putting very little into fighting... This left me at quite the disadvantage in the late game, leading to a lot of dying, reloading, and subsequently, frustration. The worst part is that the game colour codes dialogue options to let you know "you have this options because of your observation skill" for example... But there aren't many situations where these come up and when they do, they only have minor changes to the outcome, sometimes none.
In addition to this, I found the powers you unlock as a vampire ultimately kinda sucked, though they may be different for each faction (I only played as Gangrel). I could summon birds to fly around and distract a character, but in combat, the moment I got close the spell would cease and they'd return to slapping me around. There are stealth sections, but only if you choose to treat them as such (there's no real penalty for just slaughtering everyone except some angry dialogue from the boss), and really they're not difficult to get through without utilising powers. Ultimately the heal spell was the only boon I seemed to get from being a vampire.
Fortunately despite this, there's a whole load of vampire related side content that really helps flesh out the world in ways the main plot fails to deliver on. In mean this in the sense that outside the main players, the other kindred are just generic cannon fodder in the same way they are in any game, other than being more grotesque character models, and perhaps some pouncing attacks, the fact they're vampires themselves is kind of forgettable. Other than it taking place in a kind of seedy, shadowy underside to the city, the kinds of tasks you end up doing feel incredibly generic and fail to take advantage of the fantastical setting. The side quests however are generally more personal tales of the vampires dealing with their day to day business that humans don't have to deal with, or at least if they do, this is a more messed up take on those activities.
Though it has to be said, despite my personal disappointment with the aspects the later game decides to focus on, there is some gold in the main story, including dealing with vampire hunters, a really messed up torture sequence, snuff films, a haunted house... When the game dabbles in the more mystical side, it's absolutely fantastic to play through.
This is an incredibly story focused game. If you're not interested in that and seeking out side quests, really you're not going to get anything from this game, the combat is weak and the dungeons being not all that interesting to fight through compounds that problem. But if you're willing to forgo the annoyance of some substandard fighting mechanics, you'll find some incredibly well done story beats, some of which are pretty unique to this game.
