Vampire: Bloodlines review:3 stars (A tough one to review.) - There's a lot to like in Vampire: Bloodlines, and a few things to love. That there are also moments that had me gritting my teeth, and so many "buts", is what makes this review a tough one.

The graphics, for example, are by and large quite lovely, very atmospheric... But. Half-Life 2, the game engine's parent, made better use of them, from both a hardware and a software perspective. Half-Life 2 ran well on my system with 512 MB of RAM; Vampire stuttered somewhat(when I upgraded to 2 GB, it smoothed out nicely.) Half-Life 2 also just _looks_ better, and doesn't distract with clipping, strands of wavy hair passing through the sides of people's faces, and moments of rough texturing.

The game combines RPG and action elements, which is frequently fun and interesting, but... It expects you to react too quickly for an RPG, and the way numbers are crunched will annoy action gamers. Even with your "natural" stats maxed out in a particular set of combat-based stats, you can easily find yourself gunned down by a larger group, or by some of the more powerful bosses. Some of the "supernatural" abilities may offset this; I can't say for certain, having only played through the game once. What I do know is that my character was pretty combat-centric, and still only won certain battles because of bugs or defects in the AI- enemies unable to hit you from certain positions, or getting stuck on pieces of the scenery.

The game allows a fair amount of flexibility in how you approach problems... But some of the options are either so convoluted or so difficult as to be unworkable, while others are excessively easy. Stealth in particular seems broken; I "stealth killed" any number of people who walked right into me, then turned around a few seconds later.

On the whole, the game feels poorly tested. Some abilities are far, far more useful than others, and unless I'm missing something, a character without at least one area of solid combat focus is simply going to die. You can't carry more than one of a type of gun, though selling all the duplicates one runs across on dead foes would have made it easier to raise money (which is ludicrously available at some times and completely sparse at others.)

Then there's the end game, where... Well, without spoilers, let me just call it kind of unsatisfying. Other endings may be available, but what I saw suggests they're merely variations on a theme, and that theme focuses more on some of the other characters you meet than on your own. After some of the ridiculously hard battles I fought, I'd like to know how _my_ character ultimately fared, maybe a spot of congratulations. Doesn't seem so much to ask, y'know?

Oh, one more word about those battles. The final boss or bosses are so ridiculously over-powered that I felt no shame at all in using any exploit available. One of them can repeatedly teleport and hit you from behind before you can react. The only way to avoid this is very precise timing and repeating a pattern over and over again. Said foe requires more than ten times as many hits to defeat as he does to defeat you. This kind of fight really makes you go: "Guys? What were you _thinking_?" When _succeeding_ isn't even any fun...!

Despite bugs and combat, I must give some significant praise: The dialogue is terrific, both in the writing and in the performance. I especially appreciated some of the humorous moments, much needed in the grim setting. The atmosphere is great, from the haunted hotel you encounter early in the game to the lairs of twisted, unholy creatures. The game generally feels _adult_, not in the sense in which the term is often used (where it could as easily be termed 'juvenile') but in a willingness to recognize shades of gray and handle uncomfortable topics without flinching.

Though I would hardly call the game an unqualified success, I enjoyed it, and I mourn for Troika, the now-deceased company that created it. Hardly anyone makes role-playing games combining character depth, plot depth and flexiblility to different player approaches the way they did. If only they had done a little more testing... If only they had settled the combat system more firmly in the RPG or action arena... If only...4 stars (One of the good RPGs.) - For those curious about this title, let me just say it has the most in common with Knights of the Old Republic. I skipped this title browsing Amazon for a long time with the assumption it was for Occult fans or a vampire/zombie blaster. It is very far from that..

Now that I am a bit more knowledable on it...It is a game world based upon White Wolf's Pen and Paper RPG (Yeah an RPGlike Dungeons and Dragons complete with 20 sided dice and Stridex pads). The world is very developed and what makes this game extremly fun (5 stars) to play is the fact the story in it is very very good. The entire main plot and subquests are extremly well done and engrossing. Additionally, each quest has multiple ways to complete it. You can sneak through it, blast through it, talk your way through it or a combination of all of the above. The more creative you are completing the quests the more expierience you get to improve your character.

The opening sequence enters you well into the world of the Underworld of the Vampire and Supernatural. It's no mere Dracula game, but an entire shadow world beneath the mortal world which is very interesting (I might even look for some White Wolf novels if there are any).

Here is a brief list, in my opinion, of all the good points and a few bad.

Pros
- Excellent story

- The music is some of the best i've heard in a game, even if you are not into Goth/Alternative. It's very atmospheric and fitting

- Lot of replayability based upon you can play a wide variety of Vampire Clans who all specialize in one thing or the other and the game changes in significant ways depending on what you focus in.

- Graphics based upon the Half-Life 2 Source Engine. Nuf said.

Cons

- Only thing that prevented a 5 star rating was the fact there is some minor annoying bugs. Jump around too much and get stuck between boxes, doors get blocked too easy etc...but very minor in the overall gameplay.

Bottomline

Definately worth picking up if you liked Knights of the Old Republic type games, although this has more interaction in the fighting.
5 stars (A truly great game) - I had never played a vampire game, computer or otherwise before tI played this game. I do like vampires though. When I got this game I just thought it looked interesting and didn't quite know what to expect. I hoped it was good and that it would not be a waste of my money. It was in fact very good and I got more than my money's worth out of it.

I started playing this game and I just messed around and tried to figure it out, enjoying the little things. It is set up well, very good gameplay. I found it very helpful to save the game a lot, but that's really my method of playing almost any game. As I got going I decided my brujah character wasn't quite what I wanted and thinking of him as my test game, I just went back and started over with a new character now knowing what to do to start off(I hadn't gotten too far and was still on the firt part in Santa Monica). Then I played the whole game through as a toreador character, male. As you go through the game it is fun to collect different items and develop your characters skills through the many quests they give you. I liked the freedom in this game. It had a general path you had to follow in the story but you could do things a lot of different ways. Often I could talk my way through something and not have to take a bullet, whereas sometimes late in the game I just wanted to hack and slash or shoot some people, and that could also work. There were multiple endings which I thought was cool. I would often just save my game and go on killing sprees because it was so fun sometimes, I'm not gonna lie, but the police will come after you, you can fight them as long as you want then hide when you are hurt to badly and while you heal they look for a little while then just stop entirely and forget about you. This was funny at times, but its true. The whole vamp thing was fairly well done and easy to get into, so was the story. I personally reeally liked the story, but I did feel like I wanted more out of it later on. They left me hanging on so many things. It almost cries out for a sequel or a movie or something, just something more to fill the emptiness it left when the game just ended. I kid you a bit here though because I should mention that after some time I came back to this game and played it through again. I played the game maybe halfway through again as a ventrue male,(slight cheating used in character creation here, nice little trick I learned), then I went back to the beginning and got a tremere female and played it from start to finish. I thought the tremere sounded mysterious and interesting so I figured I'd give it a try. The tremere I want to say, is great. Their special discipline is really cool and very handy. Plus the tremere chick was hot. I was pleasantly amused later in the game when you come to the point with VV, if you're playing a girl, she still comes on to you, not that I minded at all, it was fun, but the lesbian implications here were an amusing thought. There are a few points in the game that were quite hard and I had to play numerous times to get through, but all in all I was very pleased with this game. This game although a bit strange with the whole vamp thing, was absolutely terrific, and if you like that kind of thing, even better. I really enjoyed this game a lot and I hope you do too. I could say a lot more but I want to be sure not to get too in depth or bore anyone. Overall, I'll admit it's not perfect and it has it's faults, but it is well worth your time and money. I have played a lot of games in my day and this ranks among the best. I don't want to say too much, but go ahead and try it for yourself if you are at all interested.
Vampire: BloodlinesAmazon Features:
Computer Games
Action
Adventure
Computer Role Playing Games (Game, rpgs, rpg, crpg, crpgs)
CD
ESRB Rating: Mature
Genre: Strategy/RPG
Mission: Set foot into the dark world of vampires in this rich RPG/first-person hybrid.
Platform: Not yet available

Vampire- Bloodlines is the CD-ROM version. The full version can be purchased by clicking on the "CLICK HERE TO ORDER" button below for around 39.99USD.