Editorial Bloodlines - a great game you've never played

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: Troika Games; Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

<a href=http://www.computerandvideogames.com>CVG</a> has put together a <a href=http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=147504>list of great, but overlooked games</a>. <a href=http://www.vampirebloodlines.com/>Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines</a> is #7.
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<blockquote><b>You haven't lived until you've played this game because</b>:
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While it wasn't as beautiful as Half-Life 2, Vampire made good use of the engine to create a nightmarish version of LA, based on the White Wolf RPG. And what a sense of humour too...
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The amputation-fetishist attacking you with a severed mannequin limb; the Evil Dead mini-game in the graveyard; the werewolf, golem and Chinese-monster scenes where you realise you're not the nastiest thing this world has to offer; the four-way split-ending; the crazy combat and the multiple paths through every level; the enormously varied character classes; the endless moral and political content expressed through the exposition of the world. This is Deus Ex with vampires, and each time you play it rewards you.
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<b>People probably didn't play it because</b>:
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It was rushed out on the same day as Half-Life 2 was released! Duh, Activision! Also, developers Troika were shut down on the same day, so patches were left to the fans. Which was a problem because you couldn't finish the released version, due to a bug halfway through the game.
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<b>Stand-out moment of brilliance</b>:
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The old hotel in Santa Monica. This turns out to be a near-perfect in-game version of The Shining, full of poltergeists, kids' toys and a flashback that ends with you running through flames and plummeting through the vanishing ghostly floor of the hotel.
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<b>The panel's views</b>:
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Steve: "It's got that one with the big tits who looks like Britney Spears in it!"
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Dan: "And the twist with her, which I won't say out loud, is just ingenious."
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Will: "I like Vampire as it's been ignored: Troika have gone bust, Activision aren't interested - but there's a community that keeps it going with fan-made patches."
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<b>The conclusion</b>:
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The best buggy game ever released. God bless Troika, wherever they are now. </blockquote>
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[Ladonna]

Its a surprise that more people didn't buy it after their 10 hour experience of HL2 ended...

I would have thought the shiny crowd would have bought this game? I didn't actually buy it until a few months later because A) My PC at the time could not handle it and B) It didn't look like the kind of game I would like.

Overall, its not a bad game. Could have been better if the second half wasn't a rush job though.

 

[filogreek]

Yeah it gets annoying after about half-way through, because of the sudden focus on combat rather than multiple-paths that where given to you earlier in the game.
I got up to the game-halt bug under the monastery before they patched it, had to use some workaround console-fiddling procedure, just to continue my game
Overall I loved it though, rushed and buggy as it was.

 

[EEVIAC]

One thing that they didn't mention was that Bloodlines missed a key part of their audience by being delayed. The game was meant to tie in with White Wolf's Gehenna book that ended the product line. If I remember correctly, Vampire : The Requiem had already started by the time Bloodlines was released.

 

[Grafo]

Hey VD your link to the list doesn't work.

 

[Drakron]

Bloodlines was delayed because <s>someone stolen Half Life 2 code</s> Half Life 2 was delayed and Activision deal with Valve over Steam engine forced then to only release the game after Half Life 2 was released.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Hey VD your link to the list doesn't work.

The link is correct. Maybe CVG removed the article for whatever reasons?

 

[obediah]

Bloodlines was delayed because <s>someone stolen Half Life 2 code</s> Half Life 2 was delayed and Activision deal with Valve over Steam engine forced then to only release the game after Half Life 2 was released.

Arcanum and Bloodlines both released after delays, and yet both still had more bugs than the bloated corpse of a kitten in the summer heat.

I would never make it in the games industry, if I had a buggy pile sitting on a shelf waiting to sell, there's no way I could ignore it and start working on the next broken piece of shit.

At one point, I though shitty pathfinding was as frustrating as gaming could get, but the sorry state of software makes me nostalgic for a party member going out of his way to trigger a trap or bring back an army of foozles.

Console games were my last hope, but Microsoft has busted that hymen all to hell. Oh well a barrel full of PS2 games and the underdogs should get me through life.

 

[Ladonna]

I agree with you Obediah.

Instead of working on two titles, thinking they were heroes, Troika should have really put all their effort into TOEE instead. Polished it up, added in more roleplaying, etc. Once it had become successful, maybe then they could turn to something else.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

One thing that they didn't mention was that Bloodlines missed a key part of their audience by being delayed. The game was meant to tie in with White Wolf's Gehenna book that ended the product line. If I remember correctly, Vampire : The Requiem had already started by the time Bloodlines was released.

I don't see how it tied in, really; the only Gehennaness of Bloodlines was the vaguely unsettling feeling coming over the vampire population and the wild rumours about the sarcophaggggus.

 

[Volourn]

BL was a GOOD game. Not great. And, that hotel was overrated. There were much better stuff going on in BL espicially the B00BIES!!!!!

 

[Voss]

What was the game ending bug he's rattling on about? I clearly remember gritting my teeth and wading through the hordes and hordes of enemies (enough to populate the entire World of Darkness)

 

[Grafo]

The link is correct. Maybe CVG removed the article for whatever reasons?

Yeah maybe, I can't seem to find the article anywhere on CVG.

EDIT: There's a review of Gothic 3 on there though. Scored 8.5

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=147535

 

[aweigh]

You could increase the size of the breasts on female NPC's by using the console command "money x" where 'x' was the variable, in decimal, by which you wanted to manipulate breasticles. I found 1.05 was a comfortable value that gave most of them nice double d's.

 

[Volourn]

Voss: There was a bug when you got in a boat to escape the exploding monastry island where the game would CT 99% of the time. I actually manged to get past it without a patch on the second try though I had to wait 5 minutes during the load screen others.

Many others had to whine, and get a patch for it.

 

[Greatatlantic]

Though it seems Bloodlines found a second life (no pun intended, I swear!) on Direct 2 Drive. Last time I checked it was the 9th ranked game in sales listed there. Not bad for the $30 price tag and the fact is been listed there for several months now.

EDIT: Oh, and for whatever reason, it seems like CVG pulled the article. Curious and curiouser.

 

[suibhne]

Perhaps they pulled it for accuracy? IIRC, Troika was still around when the first Bloodlines patch was released, fixing that potential showstopper at the monastery - and the showstopper wasn't universal, as implied by this article. If my recollection on the Troika timing is correct, maybe Activision kicked and CVG is just correcting their article.

 

[Greatatlantic]

Maybe, but it seems more likely they'd simply correct it while leaving the original up, remember Bloodlines was only 1 of 10.

As for the bug, I never experienced it even with out patches. That being said, somebody posted the console work around with in a few days. How many people actually experienced the bug? I don't know, but I do know it wasn't everybody.

 

[Blacklung]

All I know is that my computer could run HL2 without a hitch while Bloodlines turned into a slideshow at quite a few points. I can't even say I had that much fun playing the game. It seemed dull, empty, and didn't even draw me into my role as a vampire (one of my favorites by the way...no I'm not a goth). I was expecting so much more from the game, but it just didn't deliver.

 

[Jim Kata]

The main link is bad/dead.

 

[Elwro]

And the article was nowhere to be seen around the site last time I searched for it.

 

[The_Pope]

Bloodlines was delayed because <s>someone stolen Half Life 2 code</s> Half Life 2 was delayed and Activision deal with Valve over Steam engine forced then to only release the game after Half Life 2 was released.

I can't imagine how buggy it would have been if Troika got to release it when they wanted.

 

[Volourn]

btw, The article title lies. It claims I didn't play BL yet I'm 100% sure I did. Go figure.

 

[Bradylama]

All I know is that my computer could run HL2 without a hitch while Bloodlines turned into a slideshow at quite a few points.

That's because Troika was given a mid-production build of HL2 to work with.

 

[Drakron]

Yes.

Funny thing, I had a issue with VtM:B crashing back to desktop at loading but it was solved by moving some files to the main directive and guess what?

Same happens with HL2 ...