Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines Review

Say what you will about Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, but no one can claim that this is anything other then an extremely well made, mature game for those who wish to escape into White Wolf's wonderful, feral World of Darkness. Sure, the engine, a beta version of Valve's Source, is buggy, but the gameplay more then makes up for the occasional glitch – and the 5.04AT or Unofficial fan patches fix many of the aforementioned stability issues. However, buyers should definitely not purchase this game for those who are not, at the minimum, sixteen years of age, for it full of material that is only suitable for adults or, depending on their maturity level, older-teens.

The game itself is extremely dark and bloody, although a stealth-based vampire can avoid most of the battles, and the player will have to either feed on rats and/or human beings to survive in the nocturnal world of the nosferatu. Still, the violence is not overly gory and the game does not reward the player for killing unless it was specifically part of a quest – something that is radically different from most mainstream role-playing games.

Full nudity never appears in the game -although, ironically, the player can visit a strip joint-, but the player can have sex off-screen and hire, or seduce, either prostitutes or, so-called, "blood-dolls," who are present in the many nightclubs within the game, for their blood – the victims seem to have sexual reactions to feeding based on their dialog options after the act-. The player can also enslave a young, supple college girl, albeit unwittingly and unintentionally, through the act of saving her life, by feeding her some of your accursed "blood," but can release her at anytime and there are no "extreme" dialog options related to her condition – for example, you cannot order her to strip for you and perform sexual acts.

Morality is addressed extremely well by making almost every choice you make have a lasting impact on the world. A classic example of this is, as mentioned above, the fact that you do not choose to make Heather into a “ghoul” – it is instead a consequence of your feeding her some of your “blood,” and thus saving her life. Another illustration of the game’s fairly unique choice-and-consequence system is the, ever memorable, final meeting with the “sisters” Jeanette and Therese. The outcome is based both on your previous actions and your skills of persuasion and if you picked poorly you might have cause to regret your rash actions.

Overall, this is an excellent game -in fact, it is one of my favorite titles, if not my favorite, within my extensive PC game collection- but not one that younger children or younger teens should play, or even watch.

I'm a long time fan of Vampire The Masquerade. Going back to when I used to LARP as a teenager. When I heard of the game I thought. Yeah whatever, but when I played it I was so shocked as to how well they presented the cosmology of it all. It had the mood and atmosphere and while it was basic in it's presentation it was a great thrill for an Old World Darkness Fan to play and see all this stuff in a game, while newcomers to the franchise could get a nice introduction and the same time have a blast! I just wish you could play the Sabbat clans... Tzmisce and Lasombra are my favorite and third favorite clans. Malkavians second favorite. But Tzimisce ohhh man they are like vamperic cenobites! XD

I was going to do a video review of this game before I got sick. Eh I'll get around to it, and oh yeah there is an antitribu mod in the works, which will allow you to play Tzimisce, Lasombra, and 5 other clans that are Camarilla, that aren't part of the 7 mainstream Camarilla clans. So far it looks promising cept for the integration of MAGE... That was my biggest IRK about the game!

Okay I always hated the Kindred of The East aka The Kuei-Jin. I have The corebook, and I never used it... I just totally dislike the Kuei-Jin, and I feel that the whole Chinatown aspect of the game for me was it's low point. Then again I'm bias having had previous knowledge of the World of Darkness. Anyhoo this is still one of the best games I've ever played.. It's just a shame the game was incomplete and they ran of money... But many modders have done well by this game.

Also I do hear of a World of Darkness MMO? The OLD WoD Which means not Vampire The Requiem (the new one I hate) but good old Vampire The Masquerade. We'll see... I fear it'll be the Twilight patrol on board for this game... Guhhh...