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#1 (permalink) |
I can't think of a good title
Location: East Bay Area, CA
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Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
I'm surprised no one made a topic about this game already, perhaps it got shoved aside with all the excitement with Half Life 2 and Halo 2. Anyway, I've been playing it non-stop since I beat HL2. They both use the Source engine so I got to compare the two. Half Life 2 utilizes the engine much better of course, Troika made little use of the physics and the graphics can look amazing sometimes and like crap at other times. Most notably, clothes and hair. The face looks pretty good with good animation and facial expressions but the hair and clothes usually looks pretty bad. Overall, it's a pretty game but HL2 has spoiled me in the graphics department.
With that aside, the gameplay and story is great, very engrossing. You play a vampire "fledgeling" who has been sired illegally and your sire is killed. The "masquerade" from the title refers to the vampires' efforts to conceal themselves. If you let a human see you feed or use supernatural powers, you lose a masquerade point. As you lose more masquerade points, vampire hunters start stalking you and if you lose 5 points the game ends but there are quite a few quests that redeem masquerade points so it's not a huge deal if you're careful. You start off working for the prince of the Camarilla, one of the main groups of vampires. They are also split into a number of clans, I think 7 are playable. Each clan is unique and has their own areas of expertise and disciplines (disciplines are basically vampire spells). The nosferatu are so deformed from their vampirism that they can't even reveal themselves to humans and are forced to use the sewers to travel everywhere. Another interesting clan are the malkavians who happen to be insane. They hear voices of "insight" which may or may not be helpful. The amount of dialogue in this game is staggering and it's all voiced with facial expressions and such which does wonders for immersion. The combat is pretty bland, the melee combat is a bit like Fable, you can combo up a few swings and pressing different directions while attacking lets you use different attacks. The ranged combat is like Deus Ex, your skill in firearms determines how accurate you are, how much damage you do and how quickly the crosshairs return to "normal" accuracy. In the beginning though, you will suck with firearms. I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with the pistol with my melee guy even though my firearms skill was 3 or so. It really is a great game, lots of fun to play. Only other problems I have with it was some choppiness in the city and occasional stuttering. Oh and some npcs/locations can be hard to find, I spent 10 minutes looking for this one bum. They hid him behind a dumpster in the darkest part of the alley. I highly recommend it for any rpg fans out there and now it's time to play some more. Here are a couple of screenshots I took. http://s94772067.onlinehome.us/img/bloodlines1.jpg http://s94772067.onlinehome.us/img/bloodlines2.jpg Enjoy!
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The black wind howls... |
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#2 (permalink) |
Crazy
Location: Pennsylvania
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I purchased this as well and have been playing it.
I agree it is a great game, good story lines, decent graphics. One thing that can be noted in your second screen shot that you didn't mention is the use of alot of foul language...Its quite amusing to listen to some of the people tell you to fuck off in the voice overs....not something your used to hearing in a game. I kinda wish you could interact with more people on the streets other then the hookers and select npc's...but then again i guess you really shouldn't due to the fact you don't want to be recognized...still would be fun to harass others tho... I have never played any others in the Vampire series i can't really compare it to them gameplay wise. And even tho the tasks are the same, playing with different combinations of the clans and disiplines truly changes how you accomplish the task at hand. Overall a good buy imo... |
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#3 (permalink) |
Master of No Domains
Location: WEEhawken, New Joisey
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Ya I've been thinking about starting a thread on this one and I'm glad someone else did.
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If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you can read this in English, thank a veteran. |
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#6 (permalink) |
Upright
Location: Australia
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Dam it ain't out here yet (Australia), well not that I know off anyway. I have the first one and I liked it, it actually got me looking up the actual real life game (I can't remember the actual term) but i didn't think my friends would be intrested in dressing up like vampires and role playing them.
![]() But I'll probably get it as soon as it come out. |
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#9 (permalink) |
Natalie Portman is sexy.
Location: The Outer Rim
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Great game. Awesome storyline, decent graphics (Well, comparing it to HL2. It IS running on VALVe's Source engine, but the game can be pretty damn fugly at times. Character models and the enviroment look good, but some textures are just down right ugly.), and nice music that fits the settings (I just wish there was some Industrial music in.). I love how this game isn't linear, you can practically do whatever you please, and work for whomever you please (or just go all lone wolf). The game isn't perfect however, besides the obvious clipping/lip synch/texture problems in cut-scenes (though there aren't too many), some shitty in-game textures, the game does have the tendency to crash from time-to-time (I've had it crash about 3 times in close to 20 hours of play).
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"While the State exists there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State." - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin "Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form."- Karl Marx |
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#13 (permalink) |
Crazy
Location: Montreal
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Thanks for the headsup, I saw several videos about the game- which hooked me onto the game. But before I go out of my way to get it, I wanted a review by a person and not a marketted website before getting fully interested. So thanks.
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#14 (permalink) |
42, baby!
Location: The Netherlands
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I've been playing this game non-stop for the past few weeks. It is incredibly entertaining, even if there are a few problems.
The best part is the fact that you actually *want* to play the game again after winning; I played a fighter-type vampire the first time, and am now playing as a Malkavian girl. It is so incredibly funny to see the dialog go from normal talk to complete insanity for the Malkavians... (And yes, I play a girl. I like looking at that extremely fine piece of digital arse.) Another good thing is that you can finish the game in many different ways, the guns-blazing shoot-everything way, the same killing spree with swords, a sneaky back-stabbing way, a talk-myself-out-of-everything way... Or a combination of these. None of these methods is necessarily better, but they lead to different reactions. The bad things: - No matter how long it is (took me a week to finish), you still want more; I can't wait for an expansion pack... - There are some obvious spelling errors in the dialogue. Furthermore, sometimes there's an assumption you're playing a male character, even if you're playing as a girl. - Some of the missions are nigh impossible to get, due to some bad scripting. As in: if you don't follow these exact steps, you won't be able to get that series of missions. This goes back to my first point - you want more! ![]() - There are some clear bugs which make it pretty much impossible to finish the game without "cheating". <b>(SPOILER!!!)</b> There is one mission where you have to escape an explosion with a boat. This action then leads to a crash. The cause is bad scripting, where the computer expects a character to be somewhere it isn't. There's a patch, though... As for the crashes: apart from that crash with the boat, I haven't had a problem at all. The game does suffer from speed problems at times, especially when you've just entered a new area (still loading). All of that is forgiven when you look at the environments and characters in them... it's gorgeous (and so are the women). |
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#15 (permalink) |
Addict
Location: Tulsa, OK
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The system requirements are pretty high on this game... My comp runs HL2 extremely well on high settings, but it stutters pretty badly when playing Vampire. Nonetheless, it's a great game. I would recommend playing as Malkavian just to see the weird dialogue responses.
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#19 (permalink) |
Master of No Domains
Location: WEEhawken, New Joisey
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I had very long load times while playing it and lots of them...supposedly the recent patch fixed a lot of the bugs.
__________________
If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you can read this in English, thank a veteran. |
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#20 (permalink) |
42, baby!
Location: The Netherlands
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Yes, there's a lot of loading, and it takes a long time to do so (less if you have a lot of memory, I assume). You indeed have to load upon entering/leaving most buildings, but the loading times for buildings are generally (relatively) short.
IMO, the bugs aren't as bad as some people claim. It's not more buggy than many other games I've played (Morrowind was worse, for example). There are some really annoying bugs, but the recent update apparently fixed many of them. Apart from that boat thing crashing the game, I have yet to find a bug that ruins the game. As for buying it... I dunno; I enjoy the game, but it depends on the price, and how much you enjoy this type of game. |
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#21 (permalink) |
Psycho
Location: Canada
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Im rather pleased with the game. I've been playing it off and on the past few days when I have time and so far the storyline is excellent and the game seems to flow quite smoothly. Overall a very nice RPG to play with good flexibility and a great use of the World of Darkness License.
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You did what with a duck? |
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#23 (permalink) | |
42, baby!
Location: The Netherlands
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Quote:
Okay, tell you what... you go find <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/showshot.php?/vampirebloodlines/walkthrough/images/screenshot111.jpg">Velvet Velour</a> in the game, take a good, long look at her, and then we'll see if you still think the graphics are bad. :P |
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#25 (permalink) |
Addict
Location: Tulsa, OK
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It's really nothing like Vampire:Redemption, I'd compare it more to morrowind, except a more linear story because you're trapped inside of small areas instead of having a whole world to explore. I would recommend this game to anybody who likes computer style rpg's though, and has a high end system.
I am running AMD Athlon XP 2500 ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 1024mb pc3200 ddr ram and the game stutters badly all the time. I ended up turning the resolution way down and the graphics detail down just to get resonable framerate... I am a frames per second junkie, I get really frustrated if the game skips frames, and this game skips a ton of frames (at least on my system). So just beware of that... |
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#26 (permalink) |
Addict
Location: Nottingham, England
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The constant loading times when entering and leaving buildings annoyed me, and it seems all the women have had boob jobs. However, I did find it addictive and I did complete it. One point to mention is there is about 4 or 5 different endings which is quite good - and not all the endings are beneficial to you. It is a very good game, but it could have been a great game if they spent a bit more time on it. I would advise buying it, it is worth the money.
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#27 (permalink) |
Upright
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video problems
Anybody here notice a problem with the textures getting corrupted? I seem to notice a lot of the characters faces turn totally black and wall textures sometimes don't display correctly... even the texture on my characters is a little messed up... tried the patch and updated my vid drivers but still get the same problem.
I'm running on: 3.06 GHz P4 w/HT 1024 MB RAM 128 MB ATi Radeon Mobility 9600 (using Igor Pavlov's Driver from Omega Drivers) Sound Blaster Extigy I had a similar problem with Sims 2 (i didn't buy it it was given to me so i tried it out) where the characters were similarly messed up... but a quick change to the texture quality option fixed that right up, although the issue would still occur if I used the body shop feature outside of the game. |
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#28 (permalink) | ||
undead
Location: Duisburg, Germany
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Quote:
![]() Now I play a Malk Girl (very fine digital ass ![]() and after that....we will see, tremere perhaps Quote:
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"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death — Albert Einstein |
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#29 (permalink) |
Natalie Portman is sexy.
Location: The Outer Rim
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I loved the game, and the load times weren't bad for me (15-20 seconds). 3.4GHz P4 w/ HT, 1GB DDR2 RAM, 256MB GeForce 6800GT. You could increase your swap file size, and sometimes it can increase performance.
__________________
"While the State exists there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State." - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin "Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form."- Karl Marx |
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#31 (permalink) |
Crazy
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I just got off playing. This is really a great game, even with the bugs. Get the 1.2 patch and the game as soon as you can, it really is worth it
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DINANZI A ME NON FUOR COSE CREATE SE NON ETTERNE, E IO ETTERNA DURO. LASCIATE OGNE SPERANZA, VIO CH'INTRATE'. |
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#34 (permalink) | |
Upright
Location: Edge of the civilized world
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Quote:
Athlon 64 CPU Western Digital Raptor 10,000 RPM SATA Hard Drive Any New GeForce Ultra Video Card & A Boat Load of RAM
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The Happy Pirate - AARRGGHH!! |
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#35 (permalink) | |
Upright
Location: Edge of the civilized world
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Quote:
The Elder Scrolls III Morrowind BloodMoon Tribunal I got mine at CompUSA for $19.99 about 6 months ago.
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The Happy Pirate - AARRGGHH!! |
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#36 (permalink) | |
Insane
Location: Sage's bed
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Quote:
i woulda thought that should be enough, but i guess not :/
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Anamnesis |
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#37 (permalink) | |
Upright
Location: Edge of the civilized world
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Quote:
I've upgraded the ram in several laptops from that place. Remember WindowsXP uses roughly 230MB of actual ram... so when you start up MW you run out... and then your running off of virtual ram (empty hard drive space). You should notice a little better game play. It's to bad they put an FX series graphics chip in it... it's the budget series chip. The LE is the next step up and then the Ultra chip. But as is your setup should run MOST games out today.
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The Happy Pirate - AARRGGHH!! |
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#38 (permalink) | ||
Addict
Location: Ontario, Canada
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The more I've been looking into it, the more I want to play it. I think after I finish Battle for Middle Earth I will give this game a go. Despite it's flaws it sounds super fun...
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"That's why you're the judge and I'm the law-talking guy." Lionel Hutz |
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#39 (permalink) | |
Insane
Location: Sage's bed
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Quote:
Ah well.
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Anamnesis |
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Tags |
bloodlines, masquerade, vampire |
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