But as anyone who has played Bloodlines will tell you, cramped and unconvincing levels are the least of its problems. In its native state, sans patches, this game is a broken unfinished mess. For the first 20 hours or so, it’s not a huge deal: the performance isn’t great and there are a few wonky quests here and there, but by and large things are pretty excellent. In a lot of ways, this part of the game feels very much like the original Deus Ex – there’s the same sense of depth, the same multiplicity in problem solving.

After the 20 hour mark, things take a turn for the worse. The much, much worse. Creative quests and thoughtful level design (the Ocean House Hotel remains a paragon of both) are gradually replaced by tedious combat slogs through endless corridors of respawning supernatural goons. There are boss fights. Stupid, awful, frustrating boss fights that are totally out of keeping with the rest of the game. Bugs become more frequent, and more serious. Some are game-breaking. In fact, there is one bug that is both game-breaking AND nearly unavoidable.

The official patches fix a few of these issues, but if you’re gonna play Bloodlines, you really need to install the unofficial patches as well. Of course, even they don’t fix every problem. The game won’t crash as much, but you’ll still have to do those sewer crawls and boss fights I mentioned. So my advice is to cheat. Noclip your way through the sewers and godmode the bosses. That way you can effectively skip all the terrible bits and concentrate on enjoying the story, which is the only part of the game that doesn’t get worse as it goes along.

Oh what? You think cheating is wrong? Well, alright then. Enjoy your tedium!
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