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PC | RPG | Vampire: The Masquerade -- Bloodlines

Boxart for Vampire: The Masquerade -- Bloodlines
Vampire: The Masquerade -- Bloodlines 42 screen shots
  • GRAPHICS: 4.5
  • SOUND: 4.5
  • CONTROL: 4.0
  • FUN FACTOR 4.0
  • AVG USER SCORE n/a
  • AVG CRITIC SCORE 3.9

Update: Vampire: The Masquerade -- Bloodlines

Update by FUNKYZEALOT | 10/25/2004 | 07:18:09 AM PST

Activision dropped by our offices to show the newest location--Chinatown.

With Half-Life 2 verging on release and receiving overwhelmingly positive response, attention will be paid to anything Valve-related--giving Troika's RPG an extra boost of attention for being the first licensee of Valve's Source engine.

Based White Wolf's popular (well, as popular as they can be) Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop RPG, the game puts you into the role of a fresh new vampire, who's caught in a power struggle between various clans. Being eternally damned is no cheery state to be in, and consequently the Troika's vision of White Wolf's world is dark, gritty, and full of subterfuge and moral ambiguity.

Most striking in the Chinatown demo was the dialogue, which follows Troika's tradition of diverse dialogue options and NPC scripts with layers of depth and intrigue. The main character meets with a Kuei-jin leader (pretentious Asian vampires who pretend they're not blood-sucking vampires), who pokes at you with guile-laced flattery and advice. If players are so inclined they can dig deeper, but the more impatient gamer can skip through all the dross get cut down to the chase (something which Japanese RPGs should take a hint of).

As was seen in RPGs such as Fallout, your skills play into the dialogue options, and you can make use of your persuasion, intimidate, or seduce skills (in the appropriate times) to cajole humans and other vamps to listen to you.

Using superhuman skills come at a price though, and players need to replenish themselves with blood to keep using powers--a macabre variant of magic points. We saw the character use his seduce skill to have a prostitute to follow him into an alleyway, where he sucked the victim almost dry to replenish his blood stores.

The survival of vampires depends on keeping their existence unknown to humans, and hence hiding your identity is a significant part of the game. The "Masquerade" stat indicates how well hidden your identity is from the human world. Humans aren't too fond of vampires, and if you commit vampy acts in public (sucking blood, using overt special powers) you will draw the ire of both vampires and vampire hunters. Chillingly, after a certain point of violating the Masquerade, human vampire hunters will spawn somewhere and hunt you down--further hampering your freedom.

Another check for wanton acts of evil is your "Humanity" stat, which goes down when committing more malicious acts such as sucking a person's blood to death. If a player's humanity stat reaches a certain low point, the character will enter a frenzy stat when low on hit-points, causing the computer to temporarily take control of your character and go wild--disastrous if outside on a street.

Combat is action-oriented, though not as intense or demanding as other 3D button mashers. The fighting can be divided into two categories--melee and shooting. Players can evil get medieval on their foes with swords and axes, or take the high-tech road of automatic weapons and flamethrowers.

Unlike typical character progression in RPGs, Troika opted for a system without experience points, with your character gaining points to use for skills after accomplishing specific goals.

The graphics in the preview build had all the latest graphical bells and whistles and looked great, especially for an RPG--though it did seem so far slightly below Doom 3 and what's been shown of Half-Life 2. Chinatown oozed an exotic atmosphere with foreboding dark alleyways and impersonal neon lights casting an unsettling glow unto the pavement. The developers didn't seem to skimp out on sound as well, with crisp and believable acting.

Vampires have been the chronic victim of B-rated games and movies, but Troika seems to have taken a step deeper into the psyche of their tortured souls, potentially offering more than cleavage bearing oversexed creatures of the night.