Game News Bloodlines spanked at Gaming Groove

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

<A href="http://www.gaminggroove.com/">Gaming Groove</a> has posted <a href="http://www.gaminggroove.com/article.php?id=26">a review</a> of <a href="http://www.vampire-bloodlines.com">Bloodlines</a>, giving it a <b>6.5/10</b> due to a lack of polish. Here's the conclusion:
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<blockquote>Even buggy as it is, I loved the game, I just can't give it a higher score in good conscience. Overall, the game is a truly excellent game that if given more polish would shine in a big way. The lack of polish however brings the game down far lower than it should be. If it ran as well as HL2 and CS: Source do for me, I wouldn't hesitate to give this game a solid 9 or 10. </blockquote>
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Polish is never a bad thing, unless it's furniture polish and you drink it.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.shacknews.com">Shack News</A>

 

[dojoteef]

Wow, I wouldn't reduce the score of the game that much just for a lack of finish. Though I guess I can understand why the reviewer is upset. The problem comes in if a patch fixes the refinement issues of the game, will the reviewer re-score the game?

 

[Sol Invictus]

Owned.

 

[jiujitsu]

Polish is never a bad thing, unless it's furniture polish and you drink it.

Mmmm, brings back memories of my highschool woodshop's finishing room..

 

[Whipporowill]

Or if it's that weird slavic (it's slavic, right?) language that noone understands... damn them poles! :D

Oh, and as for the rating. At least he explains that he'd given the game a 9 in another state - although I don't agree with the number he arrives on.

 

[Screaming_life]

A fairly accurate score but for the wrong reasons!

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Polish is never a bad thing, unless it's furniture polish and you drink it.

Actually, it's only bad if you drink it then smoke a cigarette right after.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Wow, I wouldn't reduce the score of the game that much just for a lack of finish. Though I guess I can understand why the reviewer is upset. The problem comes in if a patch fixes the refinement issues of the game, will the reviewer re-score the game?

I was kind of thinking the same thing. A lot of things he mentioned as bugs didn't seem like bugs to me or were things I haven't seen with the game. He mentions that the mouths don't sink up with the speech, and I've never seen that. Load times and animation issues certainly aren't what's keeping this game from being a 9 or 10 out of 10, that's for damned sure.

 

[dojoteef]

I've actually seen a few reviews where the reviewer actually went back and rescored the game when a patch was released, that's the main reason I posited that question since he says he would have given it a much higher score if it was more polished.

In fact, funny thing is, I've seen that in a review for V:tM Redemption. A number of reviewers were so upset about the save game issue (rightfully so) that they lowered the score, and some of them actually went back and gave the game a higher score when the patch came out.

 

[Volourn]

"Wow, I wouldn't reduce the score of the game that much just for a lack of finish."

Meh. I pulled an Exitium. The game is good but it still doens't deserve a high score. A game where one can't finish because of a non existent frame rate deserves to be punished.


:evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil:

 

[Sol Invictus]

You pulled an Exitium? Please, Volourn.

Please... I am Ugoff. I fell for the game in the beginning, too. But as it progresses it doesn't seem like such a great game anymore. If I were a gambling man I would wager that the guy who reviewed Bloodlines was only one of the few reviewers who actually got to finishing the game before writing their review.

 

[Volourn]

"I fell for the game in the beginning, too. But as it progresses it doesn't seem like such a great game anymore. If I were a gambling man I would wager that the guy who reviewed Bloodlines was only one of the few reviewers who actually got to finishing the game before writing their review."

Wrong. I still like the game. I have actually enjoyed the 'dungeon hacks". The game content is not the problem; it's the Worst Engine Ever tm. that's the problem.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Different reasons, then. Source isn't a bad engine, either. Half Life 2 runs perfectly. Bloodlines doesn't. Troika wasn't good enough.

 

[Whipporowill]

Well Rex, Hl2 is built on a later build on the Source engine - there's no debate on that. HL2 ran pretty much perfect on my comp and I didn't have all that much problem with BL considering, although I probably wouldn't have guessed it was the same engine. I'd just argue that the engine point is pretty moot - ever consider why it took 6 years to get HL2 in that shape?

 

[Volourn]

HL2 is irrelevant. The engine is bad. Plain, and simple. This game should be a classic, and its the engine (in spite of the good graphics) that trash it and make it just another unfinishable game.

 

[LlamaGod]

Bloodlines needs a good PC to run good, oh well. Remember how the old reports of what HL2 needed were like? Same thing.

I have a really really shitty PC and with logical tweaks, Bloodlines runs perfectly for me.

The only problem i'd say is alot of tweaks could just be simple Graphics Options stuff but arnt for some reason, which I hope will be included in a patch (like Heapsizes, DX8 option, windowed mode).

 

[Volourn]

Bloodlines needs a good PC to run good, oh well.ant a PC needs to be to be classified as 'good"; but I sure as hell know my PC specs are wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy above the reccommended specs for BL.

 

[PrzeSzkoda]

Polish is never a bad thing, unless it's furniture polish and you drink it.

Or if you don't have to use it on a daily basis and make helluva' lexical and grammar errors each day.

 

[Seven]

Bloodlines needs a good PC to run good, oh well.ant a PC needs to be to be classified as 'good"; but I sure as hell know my PC specs are wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy above the reccommended specs for BL.

This is one thing that I found odd. Before I upgraded to a gig of ram the load times were horrendous and the game could play choppy at times, even though I was above the reccommended specs. After I upgraded to a total of 1 gig of ram it ran beautifully with everything maxed out, so go figure.

 

[LlamaGod]

I too noticed most people with 1 gig of ram seemed to get fine performance, while people with 512 (like me) get shit if they try to run it right off. 512 is Recommended, so maybe the specs on the box are just wonky or something.

 

[Calis]

God damn it, now I'll have to buy & play Bloodlines just so that I can chide Dann for giving Redemption a much higher score than Bloodlines (at GA-RPG he gave it an 8.9, same mark he gave Deus Ex, which was a load more fun to play IMO).
Well, at least he explained his reasons for the score properly, and none of us here place too much value on scores anyway.

 

[space captain]

i dunno, i felt that Arcanum was superior to Bloodlines in terms of RPGness.... and as games go i tended to enjoy it a bit more - but Arcanum wasnt the best game on the planet either

i just cant believe the RPG greatness of Fallout and Fallout 2 have never even been approached by any other game since then.... its totally fuckin sad... a goddamn travesty... i mean, HL2 is about 100x better than Doom - why cant CRPGs be the same way?