Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines Review (Hop in the spoilers!)

Yup, I decided to write a review about a 2004 video game, 'cause I won't stop talk about it, and it's the game I've played the most, six playthroughs or something. Considering it's about 50 hours for one playthrough - including the side quests, I became quite the expert on that game. I just love the universe, the depth of the characters, the story; it's gore and gruesome.




A fast summary of how the game was made, first of all. It was developed by Troika Games (their people worked on the first Fallout game, and the company closed its doors in 2005 because VTMB's sales weren't enough at the time) and produced by Activision. The game wasn't received well because of all the bugs making it almost impossible to enjoy the gameplay, basically because Troika was forced to release the game before it was completely done (that's Activision for you). Since then, the community has released many unofficial patches and mods to fix these bugs, but the damage was done, and Troika Games is no more.

I wonder if anyone is using this name IRL... Okay, don't google it. O.O

There's many reasons VTMB is like one of my favorite games ever. As you may already know if you've read my other posts or, well, if you know me, what I love in a game is the content rather than the container, and give me some dark, bizarre content and I'm hooked (I love shows like Hemlock Grove, The Walking Dead, American Horror Story, to only name these ones). All the NPCs in this game have a depth and a story only a few characters in other games might have.

If you take the time to talk to them, explore your conversation, there's a lot to learn on the character but also on the universe as well. VTMB is based on the World of Darkness, a pen and paper game, and it's a pretty complex RPG.

Basically (or at least I'll try to explain the best way I can), at the start of the game, you're able to choose the clan you want to be a part of. There's seven choices if I'm not mistaken: Toreador (the ones who stay the most human), Ventrue (the high society), Malkavian (the crazy ones, each one has different ways of showing their instability), Nosferatu (they look like Nosferatu and are geniuses), Tremere (the sorcerers, nobody really trust them), Gangrel (the ones closest to their Beast and they can shift forms) and Brujah (think "Brutal", they're warriors and rarely philosophers).

You begin as a new Kindred (VTMB slang for "vampire"), and your sire is executed because they didn't ask the Prince, the one who's in charge and who's making sure the Camarilla's rules are applied, for their permission (the Camarilla is the Kindred's Law). You are to be executed as well, but Nines, the Anarchs' leader-ish stops Lacroix, who is the Prince in LA. Instead, you become Lacroix's slave, you execute tasks for him around the city, beginning by Santa Monica, then Downtown, Hollywood and Chinatown. As you complete these tasks, however, you meet many interesting persons from different clans, and it gives you insights of with whom you might want to ally as the game comes closer to its end. During its conclusion, mindless of the choices you made during your gameplay, you'll be able to decide who you want to aid, or you can go on your own and not give a shit about everyone, because nobody really helps you and only ever want something in return. That's also pretty much the case in real life, but at least the people in VTMB let you know right away.

Nice chandeliers you got there; S

As I mentioned already, the characters are probably what keep me replaying again and again. There's too many interesting ones to tell you all of them, so let's keep it short on who I like best. First, there's Smiling Jack, a Brujah, who's the one helping you in the tutorial and when you really need him, he's a pretty nice guy underneath that harsh appearance. Besides, he's funny too and doesn't munch his words.

There's also the Tremere regent, Mr. Strauss, who's interesting. His house is really confusing the first time you step in it, but it's really easy once you know where to go. Kind of a metaphor for life, isn't it? Anyway, the character is as mysterious as his house, but he's wise and very logical in his way of thinking. You can choose to side with him in the end, and he'll choose to not open the sarcophacus and to put it in a safe place instead. As I said, a wise man.

The Anarchs' "leader" is Nines, or the Name-Numbered Street Prince as my Malkavian likes to call him, a fierce Brujah who wants the Camarilla to get out of LA. He claims they were able to control the Kindred before the Prince came in, and they don't want to get ruled by him either. I like Nines, he's cool and doesn't beat around the bush before telling us important stuff. He probably gives one of the best tips ever in a video game (the one I talked about in my previous post), something to follow in everyday's life: Keep your friends close and your enemies in a barbecue pit. That's what I call real talk!

And then there's Lacroix. The big bad boy of the game whom I'd also loved since I first played the game. First, he's really sexy (especially for the graphics, I mean), and his voice, with that little accent, ... divine. I love the way he talks, he's fucking arrogant and only think of himself and doesn't really care if the player knows it because, well, he's the boss. He's really using us to the cord and we know it from the start. He thought making us do the dirty work wouldn't affect his plan of using the Sarcophagus for himself, but he hadn't thought we could change side if we wanted. Besides, the whole ending is a surprise for everyone because someone nobody suspected stole the corpse - Smiling Jack.

Now if you pay close attention to the conversations you have with him, you can guess he's plotting something. That and the fact he knows the taxi driver who's really bizarre with his knowledge on everything. Let's just say I never saw it coming.

What really is cool in VTMB: the plot is excellent. I already said it, I'll say it again. The plot is twisted, dark and mysterious. You don't get all the information right away, you have to dig for it. The music is also awesome, it really gives that gothic vibe.

On the Gameplay side, that's a different story. Thanks to the community, there's been multiple unoffical patchs and mods to improve the way you play, but there's still lots of funny bugs. The combat system is not the best system, with the fact you're constantly clipping through the enemies, but I like the vampiric powers, they're different from the usual.

I'm a Malkavian full of swag

Quests-wise, there's a lot of them, and they're all pretty cool. Including the side quests, the game takes about 30-40 hours to complete. A lot of them are also gruesome, disgusting and/or frightening, but that's VTMB in a nutshell for you. Here's my top 3 favorite quests, in no particular order.

One of the first main quests is Therese asking you to retrieve a pendant in a hotel, the Ocean House. The little thing is it's haunted by a ghost who killed his wife and kids and keeps them prisoner in the hotel. I first played that part when I was 14-ish, and I was scared as fuck while doing this. Hell, I'm 21 and I'm still scared of that part. Ugh.

Another quest I absolutely hated is if you decide to visit the Downtown Hospital, because, you know,it's so not scary to visit an abandoned hospital in a horror game. To hear and watch the film crew get killed by invisible enemies was nerve-wracking, to say the least. The worst part is, you have to visit that place as soon as you get to Downtown or continue in your main quests, because Pisha, the girl behind the killing, asks you to retrieve artifacts. If you do this quest later and didn't retrieve the objects, you can't get them.

The last quest, but not the least, oh hell no, is the main one once you reach Hollywood, and possibly the one I'm most frightened about every fucking time I'm doing it (and it's always at 2 in the morning). It's the one you do for Isaac Abrams, he wants you to investigate a strange VHS movie going around and killing people... Okay, the VHS movie is not alive, but the creatures who are in it are pretty alive and pretty fucking ugly. I was so glad to be equipped with a katana and a magnum, I was in total control with them, in the computer place for example (Yeah, the video is in German, but you don't need to understand the language to understand he's freaked out). Let's say I never looked at a place like that ever since. I mean, they're not only shooting porn upstairs, there's freaking two-legged creatures going on rampage and killing all the porn stars. Porn stars don't deserve this!

I'll only mention theses quests, but really, you won't see anything not horrific in this game. I find that October always gives the best atmosphere to do things related to horror, with the night falling down earlier and Halloween at the end of the month, so it's the best opportunity you have to play this game!