Review GameSpy sez Bloodlines good but not great

[Spazmo]

Tags: Troika Games; Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

<a href=http://www.gamespy.com>GameSpy</a> have <a href=http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines/566646p1.html>reviewed</a> Troika's latest, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. They give it <b>four out of five stars</b>, praising it's RPG goodness but slamming a poor FPS component and--woefully for us ToEE vets--technical issues.<blockquote>The White Wolf paper-and-pencil RPG that this game is based on has 13 years of history and storylines behind it and it seems as though Troika has tried to stuff as much of it into the game as possible. Fans of the Vampire property will be in heaven with this game as they encounter representatives of the coolest vampire clans including lunatic Malkavians, paranoid Nosferatu, autocratic Ventrue, degenerate Giovanni, and even the vile Tzimizce. There are also plenty of other bits of vampire lore including encounters with Kuei-Jin, Thin Bloods, tragic Gargoyles, Lupines, and even a couple of Ghoul fanboys. If you don't know what those things are, though, don't worry about it, the game does a wonderful job explaining the more esoteric bits of Bloodlines back story without loading the game down with a ton of exposition -- starting with what may be one of the best tutorial levels I've ever played. Rest assured, you'll know your Toreadors from your Tremeres in no time.</blockquote>Good to see a Troika game getting some good press, but those 'technical issues' worry me. Could it be as bad as Troika's previous games or is GameSpy on crack as usual? I guess we'll find out when we get our hands on Bloodlines.
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Thanks to <b>Pooperscooper</b> for the heads up.
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[Sol Invictus]

GameSpy is on crack, as usual. But 4 out of 5 stars is better than most of the RPGs they've rated. When it comes to GameSpy, it's the rating that sells the game, not the review.

4 out of 5 stars is a keeper.

 

[kumquatq3]

What is wrong with what they said then Ex?

You sound like you thought the game was better than the score. So did you disagree with thier comments about the bugs or their comments on the combat?

 

[Volourn]

It's simple. He cums over the game. Anything less than 5/5 and "This is perfect!" isn't good enough.

4/5 isn't a horrible score and it seems to be on the "low end" of scores BL is getting as opposed to the "highish end" 80% was for TOEE. That's all well, and good.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Just the comments about the combat. The combat gets better as you improve your skill. It sounds to me like they didn't play beyond the first hub, hence the reason why they said that the gunplay is crap. I'm sticking to Melee weapons at the moment, but I'll likely switch to Ranged as I get the experience to put points into it.

It's kind of like how Deus Ex was. The ranged combat was utterly crap at the beginning, but it became good as you progressed and put points into it. Melee combat was a lot better at the start for that game, too.

I haven't encountered any technical issues aside from a single hooker refusing to follow me to a private place after I told her to come further into the alley. That was a silly bug, but paying 40 dollars for a hooker is a waste of time anyway, considering the fact that she isn't even a Blue Blood.

 

[DrattedTin]

I haven't encountered any technical issues aside from a single hooker refusing to follow me to a private place after I told her to come further into the alley. That was a silly bug, but paying 40 dollars for a hooker is a waste of time anyway, considering the fact that she isn't even a Blue Blood.

Gentlemen, this is groundbreaking stuff. Finally we can live out our serial killer fantasies of luring well-heeled prostitutes to dank basements only to dice them up into kibble and feed them to small hobo children.

 

[Sol Invictus]

I prefer feeding on guys who are taking a piss in the alley behind the goth club The Asylum. While they're taking a piss.

 

[Mr. Hand]

Actually, there have been reports of a number of bugs, among them a large memory leak as
you progress into a gaming session (hits ATI users but not NVIDIA apparently). Having played the game for a few hours, I can validate that these concerns are valid. I
run a P4 3.0 with 1.5 Gigs of RAM and a Radeon 9800XT and in some areas the
framerate reduces me to tears. Ive also been experiencing issues with choppy sounding
audio when an NPC transits from one spoken sentence to the next, and enemies getting
stuck in walls. Ive also encountered an infinate dialog loop that I had to reload from.

Its a good enough game so far in terms of storyline and voice acting, but my point is
that those "technical issues' they mentioned are valid concerns.

p/s sorry bout the bad grammar. in a hurry.

 

[kumquatq3]

I haven't encountered any technical issues aside from a single hooker refusing to follow me to a private place after I told her to come further into the alley. That was a silly bug, but paying 40 dollars for a hooker is a waste of time anyway, considering the fact that she isn't even a Blue Blood.

Gentlemen, this is groundbreaking stuff. Finally we can live out our serial killer fantasies of luring well-heeled prostitutes to dank basements only to dice them up into kibble and feed them to small hobo children.

:D

Its a good enough game so far in terms of storyline and voice acting, but my point is
that those "technical issues' they mentioned are valid concerns.

System is quite a bit closer to the minimum specs than yours, that really really worries me.

 

[Spazmo]

Gentlemen, this is groundbreaking stuff. Finally we can live out our serial killer fantasies of luring well-heeled prostitutes to dank basements only to dice them up into kibble and feed them to small hobo children.

You're talking my language. Let's find a transient, cut him open and do some finger painting!

 

[space captain]

could it be that the RPG elements like dozens of quests, NPCs and persistent non-linear availability of locations causes a performance hit when compared to a straight-laced FPS like HL2?????

nooooo.... that could never happen....

my vote is definately for the "on crack" designation

 

[kumquatq3]

could it be that the RPG elements like dozens of quests, NPCs and persistent non-linear availability of locations causes a performance hit when compared to a straight-laced FPS like HL2?????

nooooo.... that could never happen....

my vote is definately for the "on crack" designation

I havn't played either game yet, but to be fair, I know in HL2 you sometimes have 5 or 6 NPCs with you (in a squad). I'd assume that you have more enemies on the screen at a time too.

 

[Sol Invictus]

The slowdowns in Bloodlines are related to their use of EAX. I've disabled it and the game runs better now.

 

[undead dolphin hacker]

Here's an AMAZING technical hint:

IF THE GAME STUTTERS ON THE VOICES, MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, YOU SHOULD ADJUST YOUR SOUND SETTINGS.

Fucking. Morons.

 

[space captain]

I havn't played either game yet, but to be fair, I know in HL2 you sometimes have 5 or 6 NPCs with you (in a squad). I'd assume that you have more enemies on the screen at a time too.

id be willing to bet that bloodlines has about 50x the amount of scripting than HL2... and i would assume this could cause a more system intensive experience.... in HL2 the NPCs dont do anything but fight... in Bloodlines, they have dialogue and memory states - and again, i bet there are quite a few more that are heavily scripted compared to HL2

 

[Mr. Hand]

Here's an AMAZING technical hint:

IF THE GAME STUTTERS ON THE VOICES, MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, YOU SHOULD ADJUST YOUR SOUND SETTINGS.

Fucking. Morons.

Maybe I have, and Ive all the latest drivers installed?
If you know jack shit about a topic at hand, here's a hint: Shut the fuck up.

 

[Surlent]

Here's how Gamespy reviews
http://www.gamespy.com/reviews/ratingsystem2/
Here's few snippets:

We call them like we see them.

They don't give a crap.

Unless it's got something for them.....

Money Matters.

Gamepspy is easily bribed by megacorps like EA.

We love multiplayer!

No multiplayer in BL, so no cookie for Troika.

You're in this with us!

You are just plain screwed.
Actually no, fan input matters. So those 2 million or whatever Doom3 fans can have the most impact.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Actually, there have been reports of a number of bugs, among them a large memory leak as
you progress into a gaming session (hits ATI users but not NVIDIA apparently).

Fuck's sake, why does ATI always get the shaft? Wankers. All of them, wankers.

 

[Mr. Teatime]

The framerates are the biggest issues. I haven't encountered many quest killing bugs, apart from some messed up cut scenes. The framerate is the most annoying thing, especially ater seeing how HL2 runs.

 

[Mr. Teatime]

Also, is there a forum anywhere where I can report and get feedback on technical issues for the game? TIA.

 

[Spazmo]

I personally give the game bonus points for hilarity.

CLICK ME

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Bring out the gimp.

 

[Sol Invictus]

What framerate problems are you having? The game's been pretty smooth for me so far. Environmental Audio was the leading cause of the sound stutters and the memory leaks, I've discovered. Turn it off and it should fix most problems.

I really don't know why people make such a big fucking deal about framerates. Well shit, so maybe you won't get 80fps constantly, and it occasionally drops to 40 during heavy combat in the rain. Is that such a huge problem?

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Well shit, so maybe you won't get 80fps constantly, and it occasionally drops to 40 during heavy combat in the rain. Is that such a huge problem?

You'd be surprised how many people have a problem with this.

NOLF2 runs beautifully on my system at high detail even though it doesn't meet the specified requirements. Yet my friend was watching me play one day and started insisting I needed to turn the detail down because the game was running choppy. I'm all like "WTF are you talking about?! Runs fine." to which he started going into this explanation about how I was not getting the right framerate and yadda yadda yadda. I told him it looked fine to me and it played fine to me and not to be such a framerate whore. I mean, come on. Sheesh.

 

[Mr. Teatime]

HL2 has more complex scenes and superior graphics, but the framerate is a significant improvement on bloodlines'.