Review GameSpy sez Bloodlines good but not great

[Spazmo]

And have a nice day!

 

[undead dolphin hacker]

In other news, ATI's beta 4.12 driver release is specifically designed for Source-engine performance. Might be worth a shot if you're the brave type.

 

[errorcode]

UDH...you've completely made my entire week.

 

[butsomuch]

Here is IGN's review
http://pc.ign.com/articles/567/567009p1.html

 

[Trash]

In other news, my ol' shitty pc can run this game pretty fluent. Though I did have to give up quite a bit of detail to get to this. If my one gig athlon, 768 mb ram and 128mb geforce 4 can do this, I bet most gamer pc's will be up to it.

Turn of enviroment sound
Turn sound detail to low
Turn graphics to lowest setting
Put decals and shit to about 20%
Turn of shadows (biggest leap forward)

Play vampires, forget about roxor graphics and get immersed into the game. For me it's the best fuckin' rpg since fallout. Not having the power pc to play it on full settings won't stop me from enjoying it. (though I'm a bit surprised at the farcry detail levels lately, game runs smooth with all details except resolution put to max. Some kick ass programming in that latest patch)

Trash out.

 

[Mr. Hand]

Here's a hint, you indolent, inbred, assfucking faggot newbie turd:

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.

SUCK IT DOWN, FAGGOT ASSLICKING BITCH.

Says who? And as Ive indicated to you, Ive already tried that and the problem still
remains. Your pointless name-calling is unnessesary and does not change that fact.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Hey, it's nice of you to mention the 4.12 beta drivers without posting the link. Post the link please, it's not on ATI or Blues.

Forget it.

http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/4701.html

 

[Shevek]

Hmmm... I had that problem once when running the original Halflife on my Acer back in the day. All I did was bump the resolution down on my monitor and it sort of fixed the problem. I was able to see then, but it was all off to the side so I would have to adjust it everytime I played the game.

Maybe if you changed res on your monitor or possibly refresh rates. Also, can go get updated drivers for your monitor?

okay, fixed it. I used the Nvidia setting to force a refresh rate of 72 at my desired resolution in D3D applications and that worked like a charm. thanks for the solution goes to activision - their rep gave me 3 very timely replies to resolve the issue.

 

[Ortchel]

Mr. Hand, don't sweat UDH, he's just messing with you.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

okay, fixed it. I used the Nvidia setting to force a refresh rate of 72 at my desired resolution in D3D applications and that worked like a charm. thanks for the solution goes to activision - their rep gave me 3 very timely replies to resolve the issue.

Cool. I figured it was probably something to do with your monitor res or refresh rate. As I said, I've experienced it a couple of times in the past. Weird that you had to go to a rr of 72 though. I've never had to go anything beyond the normal rates. Glad you got it fixed though. Games like this are meant for fullscreen.

 

[butsomuch]

Gamespot's review

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/vtmb/review.html

 

[Sol Invictus]

Otaku_Hanzo, quit picking on me! Though you're partially right, I'm really very fed up with how almost all PC releases are sent to stores BROKEN, this should be unacceptable and I shouldn't have to report anything to anyone, or have any contact with the company if I don't want to.

Stop whinging, then. I don't know why you've got your panties in an uproar in your ass over Bloodlines seemingly negligable bugs that haven't bothered me, not once. The only time I encountered a retarded game stopping bug was when I saved the game upon exiting an elevator and pressing the button too many times. It refused to work later so I had to reload from a previous save. That was the worst bug I've encountered, but since the game contains 3 different autosaves in addition to any quicksaves you make, it wasn't a big deal at all.

Morrowind was completely unplayable upon release and yet you herald it as being a game of superior quality to Bloodlines? Just about everything in Morrowind was inferior to Bloodlines. The framerate was completely unacceptable, and still is, even on my 9800 XT, upon which it chugs at a slow 40fps constantly, and you're making a fuss over Bloodlines?

Imagine if 90% of the food you bought was rotten, would you write the meat industry a letter explaining the various diseases you've contracted from their carrion? No, you'd just stay the fuck away.

Rotten food can't be fixed. Games can be patched. The industry, including its customers, allow more leeway for mistakes. Also, buggy games won't contract any diseases to you, or your computer.

I've been playing games for fifteen years and I remember a time before patches and all this other bullshit. I dont think my annoyance is uncalled for, in fact, it should be expected when a game is released with these issues. Yet everyone seems so eager to latch onto Bloodlines (so to speak) they're willing to look past these bugs (which I've hardly taken issue with, in comparison to it's other charms).

How convenient that you pick Bloodlines, the only RPG in years to unload all of this crap on. Couldn't you pick a game nobody here cared about? One that was actually buggy, with game-stopping bugs and unplayability? It seems to me that you are just starting a fire on Bloodlines and Troika's regardless of how good a game it is in order to gain some degree of attention, and as such you are making yourself into nothing but an attention whore. Nobody would care if you whined about how buggy, or ugly, or stupid Bloodrayne II is.

Yeah, sure, I'm a grump, but I'm not biased, and I gave Bloodlines an honest chance. Also, I've said before that once it's patched I'll give it another chance, for the time being though, it's a bugged mess and I'm not going near it. You'd think Troika would learn from all it's past broken games, but I guess this kind of indifferent stance to quality is par for the course these days.

Oh please. I can see through your bullshit, and I know you're just doing it for the attention. As I said earlier, we wouldn't care less if you were whining about a game that actually deserved a bad rep. You're just saying the things you say about Bloodlines because you'll know it'll get us into an uproar. Unlike you, my cynicism towards Bloodlines had a lot of validity given the bugginess and lack of 'appeal' in Arcanum due to its myriad of issues, but it is clear that your display of dislike over Bloodlines is nothing more than a facade to push some issues you might have with the industry as a whole.

Take that chip off your shoulder.

 

[Sol Invictus]

DISABLE EAX, MORONS

I'm serious. This fixes the memory leak. I played the game for 12 hours straight yesterday and got to the 2nd hub without the game ever slowing or crashing to desktop. It would crash intermittently and slow down if I had EAX enabled. The voices would also sound extremely garbled with EAX enabled, with the music being louder than the dialogue and so forth. Just disable it and it'll doubtlessly fix most of the problems you have.

Shit. EAX even causes the framerate to lag. I shit you not. I've witnessed this problem in Call of Duty: United Offensive and a myriad of other games. Just disabling it will fix most issues, including framerate problems.

Until then, quit fucking bitching.

 

[Ortchel]

And he calls me an attention whore.

I don't like Bloodlines, thats a completely seperate point to the fact that I don't like how buggy Bloodlines is. Why do you always throw a fit whenever I don't like your gush of the week?

Your tactics and tantrums are really exhausting, Rex, let's just drop this.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Gamespot's review

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/vtmb/review.html

I find it rather amusing that Gamespot gives it an above average score of 7.7, while on the flipside, 197 of their viewers have given it a superb score of 9.4.

I trust the public more than I do Gamespot. I've never had any faith in Gamespot. They suck.

 

[Ortchel]

As far as the super big review sites go, I'd sooner trust GameSpot over GameSpy or IGN, as I think most would.

And for the most part I agree with their reviews, they don't seem as susceptible to the apparent bribes the McGriddle twins are lining their pockets with.

 

[Sol Invictus]

GameSpot is notorious for its shitty rating system that includes a 'Tilt' option that can make or break the game's score. I've seen good games go down as 7.x's just as Bloodlines has, due to its tilt, and bad games get bumped up to 8.x's because the reviewer gave it a tilt of 10.

GameSpot is garbage, and I do not trust them for their Bard's Tale review, either. Everyone else seems to like it.

 

[Ortchel]

I don't think it's fair to let one writer's review make or break a site for you, think how many employees they have, all with unique opinions. Also, never trust the ratings, trust the review. In the HL2 review you can see the writer clearly doesn't think much of the game, yet the rating would make you think it's the coolest thing since sliced bread.

 

[Sol Invictus]

He wanted an FPS. He got an RPG. He is dissapointed. His opinion is invalid.

 

[dojoteef]

DISABLE EAX, MORONS

I'm serious. This fixes the memory leak. I played the game for 12 hours straight yesterday and got to the 2nd hub without the game ever slowing or crashing to desktop. It would crash intermittently and slow down if I had EAX enabled. The voices would also sound extremely garbled with EAX enabled, with the music being louder than the dialogue and so forth. Just disable it and it'll doubtlessly fix most of the problems you have.

Shit. EAX even causes the framerate to lag. I shit you not. I've witnessed this problem in Call of Duty: United Offensive and a myriad of other games. Just disabling it will fix most issues, including framerate problems.

Until then, quit fucking bitching.

Okay, Ex, calm down. I've had EAX disabled the entire time I've played and I still had those issues, so for me it has NOTHING to do with EAX. I'm glad it helps you, but that was not my problem. I can't speak for anyone, so if they haven't disabled it, it's their fault.

And the other thing is, if you feel the need to make light of the myriad of albeit minor bugs, then feel free to. You can't expect everyone to share your opinion. I for one don't. Now I've been playing the game for about 8-9 hours now and it's gotten to the point where I don't notice most of the bugs anymore, which is fine by me. When I first started playing they were fairly glaring and I couldn't help but comment. I wish someone would have spelled these things out clearly to me earlier so I wouldn't have felt let down. As it were, people were just mentioning vague comments about their being bugs which I didn't really take much to heart (probably my fault anyway). The game is a good one, but it does have faults. Ignoring them doesn't make it so that they don't exist. I would fault anyone for the bugs that I've seen in Bloodlines because the ones I mentioned seemed so very obvious to me within the first half hour of play. Just because this is the first decent RPG in a while doesn't mean people have to sit around and ignore these issues.

I do hope Troika stays in business and continues to make RPGs. I loved Arcanum and it's shaping up that I'm going to love Bloodlines; the thing is I love them despite their blemishes, because after a while you get used to them (unless they are major game fucking over bugs, like in ToEE). I just hope that next time they can for once make a game that works fine and as it's supposed to work from the get go, otherwise like I stated I will probably wait for the game to hit the bargain bin before buying it because I don't feel the need to spend money on a good game with slightly poor execution. I want polish damn it! :wink: Oh who am I kidding, if it gets hyped like Bloodlines did, I'll probably be pre-ordering it, but I can claim restraint now because the future is far away, indistinct and fuzzy .

Anyway, everyone be forewarned .

 

[Lemon]

But wasn't the game pretty much done some time ago and they were just sitting on their hands unable to release it before HL2?

Not true to my knowledge

 

[Ortchel]

Yeah it was, they'd made an agreement not to release Bloodlines before Half-Life 2, so they got dicked each time Valve delayed the release. However, I think it only set them back a month or two. Time, yes, but not enough to catch every bug.

 

[plin]

Yeah it was, they'd made an agreement not to release Bloodlines before Half-Life 2, so they got dicked each time Valve delayed the release. However, I think it only set them back a month or two. Time, yes, but not enough to catch every bug.

Where has it ever been said other than kids on a message board that troika was sitting on a game for months because of valve?

No offence, but none of us know what troika's schedule was for the game besides "can't ship before valve". I know leon had said they were in beta the last couple months of interviews... but that's it.

 

[Ortchel]

It was mentioned in several news items on this site, I'm sure if you run a search you'll find what you're looking for.

 

[o-dawg]

On the topic of Morrowind, I played for 25-30 hours and experienced no CTDs, no lockups, no dialogue errors, nothing. Without patching.
Of course, I got bored halfway through twice and never got around to finishing, but that shouldn't surprise anyone here.
So, considering the reported experience numerous posters (as opposed to people) encountered with Morrowind, a similar result with Bloodlines is to be expected.
One guy gets constant bugs, one guy gets nothing, one guy needs to tweak something, it's always the same.
And it's not new either. My C64 copy of BTI got damaged and the game would crash 50% of the time you encountered a monster that used the old man/wizard picture. Major problem for those days.

Yeah, I registered just for that. MAybe I'll post again in another couple of years.