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Review Bloodlines mixed blessing at FiringSquad

Saint_Proverbius

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Tags: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

There's a nifty <a href="http://www.firingsquad.com/games/vampire_bloodlines_review/">review</a> of <a href="http://www.vampire-bloodlines.com">Bloodlines</a> over at <a href="http://www.firingsquad.com/">FiringSquad</a>, which pretty much agrees with most of what everyone else has been saying. The game starts off great, but the main plot goes to shit about halfway through the game. The final score would be a <b>75%</b>, with the cons being the level design later on, a few minor bugs, and a lack of frequent auto-saving. I think the last one was added as filler. Anyway, here's the clip:
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<blockquote>Halfway through, the gameplay takes a sudden nosedive into a Doom-style run through a maze of sewers, fighting off hordes of creatures. To make matters worse, there are only two major different enemies in the sewer sequence, although a third type appears eventually, its presence is decidedly unwelcome. The game rebounds from this and still has a few interesting scenes left, but it never regains the charm it had at the start. Incidentally, here's some free advice: Ventrue characters would be wise to be conservative with their powers in the sewers, as non-rat blood sources are few and the sewer run is much, MUCH longer than you'd expect.</blockquote>
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Which is one good reason why you play a <i>Malkavian</i> instead. Malks get most of the cool stuff <i>Ventrue</i> have, but they can eat sewer rats like popcorn. Oh, and they dress better than the <i>Ventrue</i>.
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suibhne

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Aug 21, 2003
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To be fair, there are two opportunities for Ventrue (and anyone else) to return to the surface in the middle of the sewers, then pick back up where they left off. It sounds as if the Firing Squad folks didn't quite figure that out.

On the other hand, those two mid-level exit routes feature more of those magically unpickable doors which unlock from only one side, so a potentially decent design decision is marred by more stupid design decisions. You win some, you lose some. :roll:
 

Saint_Proverbius

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Well, to be honest, there's a lot I don't get about that whole sewer thing. For one, even though there's unpickable locked doors on the one side of the sewers, there are vampire hunter folks in those sewers. Yet, none of the vampire hunter folks never notice the seven subterrian floors of undead flesh beastie doom that are sharing the sewers with them. You'd think the Society of Leopold would have the political pull to get those sewer doors open for them so they could clear that out.

Then again, I hate those damned sewers so much, I could spend an hour writing about all the lameness in them - like how they're seven stories deep even though they were built in the 1800s or how even though they were built in the 1800s, there's computers in them or that the mechanisms in them worked well enough for all those wacky puzzles I didn't like to get in my way.
 

Jinxed

Liturgist
Joined
Aug 5, 2002
Messages
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Special Encounter
Vampire hunters down there? I never saw any. How were your masq points doing? While the Society of Leopald was busy staking out Ash's bar they could do something about those strange creatures from the sewers though.
 

Mendoza

Liturgist
Joined
Sep 24, 2004
Messages
277
There's vampire hunters in the sewers if you escort Ash through them. If you don't do the Ash quest, or use a decoy then you won't see it.

I'm replaying the game and my Toreador has just reached the Warrens 4. It's actually much less painful than I remember and thought it would be. This is with a non combat character too - he has 10 in persuade and 9 in seduction. My only combatish stat is a 6 in ranged, and it's giving me no problems - I'm actually quite enjoying myself. The head walkers are complete wimps, even with a low level brawl you can hit them without taking any damage.
 

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