Well, after going on an epic FPS kick spanning everything from CS:Source to UT2k4 to Call of Duty and back again, I wound up with carpal tunnel in my trigger finger, the habit of strafing around corners in real life, and making berserk crowbar assaults on any crate that crossed my path. All signs pointed to one thing: I needed a break from FPSery.
After perusing several review sites and reading up on the demise of Troika games, I decided to throw some gaming dollars at Vampire:The Masquerade - Bloodlines, which by all accounts was a superlative RPG that suffered from some pretty glaring technical flaws. I was in the mood for an epic RPG with a plot that I could really sink my teeth into, and something that would give my trigger finger a break and my brain a bit more of a workout. I can definitely say that Bloodlines delivers in spades in the story department, but all those complaints about technical shortcomings were spot on. Read on for the full rundown...
Story, Atmosphere & Characters (Spoilers ahoy!)
Set in White Wolf's Vampire: The Masquerade universe, Bloodlines brings a deep, excellent plot to the table, but above and beyond that, dribbles in a healthy dose of the tabletop game's background lore (aka "fluff") that really helps flesh out the atmosphere and story. The plot is incredibly deep, and has more twists and turns than an extra large box of Twizzlers. The two primary driving forces behind the plot are The Masquerade and Gehenna. The Masquerade is the vampiric code of conduct, a set of rules that all vampires must follow so that humans remain unaware of the existance of vampires in their midst. Violation of The Masquerade by any kindred (aka vampire) results in harsh reprisals from the local vampire prince. Gehenna is the vampire apocalypse legend, stating that some day the vampire elders will rise and kill off all their bloodsucking children.
With that bit of necessary background in mind, your role in the story is that of a newly minted vampire whose sire was summarily executed by the local prince for violating The Masquerade. You're left without a sire to protect and educate you, as well as without allegience to one of the vampire clans, which means you've got no idea what's going on, no protection from rival factions or hunters, and everyone is trying to pull your strings and make you run their agenda in their power struggles for dominance in and around Los Angeles. Confused yet? Be prepared to be, Bloodlines' plot is an engrossing, multilayered tale of treachery and deceit that left me constantly trying to work the right angle, put the pieces together, and figure out who's behind the scenes, pulling all the strings.
Characters are also quite well done for the most part. There are 7 different vampire clans as well as numerous other vampire sects in LA that you will have dealings with. Each clan/sect has it's own unique personality, and all come across very well in the game. From the elegant and aristocratic Ventrue clan to the deformed and hideous Nosferatu, every character shows at least a decent amount of personality.
Atmosphere is one area where Bloodlines also scores big. LA is not the best place in the world, with corruption, injustice and perversion rampant, and every bit of grime and slime is faithfully brought across to the player's experience. There are no good guys in Bloodlines, only vampires trying to push their agenda and rule the SoCal night. The game atmosphere is very well done, gritty in many places, gothic in others, but always thick enough that you could cut it with a knife. There were several places (The haunted hotel and Sabbat missions come to mind) that I nearly jumped out of my seat when something wicked this way came.
Overall, plot characters and atmosphere score a perfect 10 out of 10. Bloodlines story left me riveted, the characters all came across as realistic and flawed with their own game to run, all scurrying about in a decaying metropolis that absolutely drips with atmosphere. The other pro about the plot and storytelling is that it's a refreshing breath of fresh air after zillions of swords-and-sorcery RPGs that get shoveled out. Bloodlines' story is 100% USDA Grade-A hardboiled vampire noir, told by well fleshed out characters, and with a dark, sardonic sense of humor that I haven't seen since Fallout 2.
Gameplay Gameplay is the first area where we start seeing some shortcomings in what would otherwise be an epic game. The leveling system relies entirely on experience gained from completing quests, which makes it quite foreign to those of you coming from Diablo or Morrowind land. The faction system has varying degrees of impact on player choice, as you are nominally a member of a faction, but for the most part this does nothing except affect your skill points, attributes and appearence. Balance is really excellent, it's obvious that Troika put a lot of effort into
making sure that there was no single ubermensch character build that could breeze through the game with no opposition. No matter how well developed your character is, they will always face a legitimate challenge.
The interface itself is where my biggest gameplay gripe lays. A good way to describe it would be to take Deus Ex's gameplay and graft in a soupcon of Tenchu and Prince of Persia. Interactions take place from either a first or third person perspective, and here's where things start to get clunky. It's pretty obvious the combat systems were built by RPG makers, because the first person combat system espescially, is very clunky. Your skill with ranged weapons affects accuracy, so you have to make skill rolls to hit a target even if they're dead on in your crosshairs. This caused me no end of consternation. Melee and stealth are primarily done in a Tenchu style 3rd person above-and-behind camera view. The 3rd person combat system is much better than the 1st person system, but the 3rd person view is saddled with a balky camera and targeting setup. The stealth system is ripped almost directly out of Tenchu, but that's not a bad thing, as it's one of the few parts of gameplay that I really have little issue with.
A note here: This game is definitely not for the kiddies. Women in game come in two flavors: Extremly busty and scantily clad, or extremely busty and almost nude. There's more profanity than Goodfellas, and more gore than a Romero flick. Bloodlines is definitely getting it's money's worth out of it's M rating.
Gameplay gets a 6 out of 10. The interface and combat systems were just too clunky and felt way too rushed to give them more than a mediocre rating.
Tech: Graphics and sound Again, we've got a mixed bag here. Bloodlines uses Valve's absolutely excellent Source engine, but it's painfully obvious that the creators of the engine (Valve) know it's ins and outs a lot better than someone who just licensed it. Character polycounts are high, and all the models are wonderfully done, but they still fall short of Valve's achievements in that area with Half-Life 2. Also, there was a disturbing lack of optimization and plenty of bugs. I noticed tons of clipping errors in models, and a lot of engine bugs that are the hallmark of novice Source mappers. (Outdated node graphs, z-fighting, gaps between brushes, etc.) I also ran into a lot of 'show-stopper' bugs that would cause crashes or stop game progress dead in it's tracks.
With the aforementioned drawbacks above taken into account, graphics are pretty decent. A lot of effort went into the plot and atmosphere, but it feels almost like Source Engine amateur hour in some parts of the game. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that Troika was under a lot of pressure to get Bloodlines out the door, and had to cut corners. This area is probably one of the worst offenders.
Sound on the other hand, is pretty dang good. Activision licensed a lot of professional names for the game's soundtrack, and groups like Slayer, Lacuna Coil and Chiasm's tunes show up both in game, and on the provided soundtrack CD. Sound effects and speech are quite well done, save for a disturbing number of typos in dialogue subtitles. The music and sound work went a long way towards improving the gritty, gothic feel of Bloodlines' eternal night.
Overall, I'll give Bloodlines a 7 out of 10 in the tech department. Excellent soundwork doesn't offset some near inexcusable corners being cut in the graphics and stability departments, but at least it helps.
Overall: This game should have had it all. Gameplay that cherry-picked the best from Deus Ex, Tenchu and the FPS genre, a story that does a good measure of justice to White Wolf's vast Masquerade universe, and that charming Fallout style gallows humor. Unfortunately, that's just not the case. I really wish that Troika had been able to lavish the kind of TLC on this game that it deserved. Had they been able to polish it as well as they could have (and as well as this game really deserves), Bloodlines would have been a truly classic game almost on par with HL2. Unfortunately, the lack of polish hurts gameplay a little too much to give this game top marks. The story was huge and engrossing, and there was a ton of content (7 playable factions, 5 seperate endings, multiple viable paths to complete quests) but despite this, Bloodlines only manages to be a slightly above average game. It's definitely not worth fifty clams unless you're a hardcore RPG fanatic, but if you can find it marked down into the 30-35 dollar neighborhood, and are looking for an engrossing bit of RPG noir to dive into for a while, then you should definitely consider Bloodlines. Overall rating: 6 out of 10.
