Review IGN approves of Bloodlines

[dipdipdip]

Yeah, I was also able to talk the two into making up.

As for bugs, when walking up the series of step ladders in the beach area, leading up to the astrolite retrieval quest, I saw the silhouette of a character model and two squares or, I dunno, panels suspended in the sky.

Also, has anyone, other than a Malkavian or Nosferatu, yet encountered any points within the game, other than in the tutorial, that has made specific mention of what clan your character is? I've seen very little in the way of clan-sensitive dialogue in the game.

 

[Whipporowill]

As a ventrue I've had 2-3 mentions of my clan - esp from those of the same clan as myself, the prince for instance. Clan doesn't seem to impact the game greatly in terms of dialogue - I bet gender and skills have a lot bigger impact.

 

[Reklar]

Sounds like the dialogue options are at least a shadow of Fallout's. Too bad I can't run the game on my old machine and I hate vampires.

-Reklar
(a Fallout/RPG fan)

 

[Volourn]

" gender and skills have a lot bigger impact. "

From I heard from a reliable soruce; skills are used very well in this way; but gender is pretty much menaingless as it seems that mostf emales in this game are lesbians or bi.

R00fles!

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Mmmm.... lesbians....

 

[baelstren]

There are some gems in this game, including the Ocean Park Hotel. I won't spoil anything for you, but make sure to check it out; you won't forget it.

 

[baelstren]

As a ventrue I've had 2-3 mentions of my clan - esp from those of the same clan as myself, the prince for instance. Clan doesn't seem to impact the game greatly in terms of dialogue - I bet gender and skills have a lot bigger impact.

Everyone thinks Malkavians are crazy (well, they are), and this attitude is showing up in roughly 1/3 of my dialogs. The Malkavian responses are pretty oddball too.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Okay. Well, my friend showed up this evening with the game in hand. I immediately installed it and began fiddling with my system to tweak it (I have a low end system that squeezes by on the minimum requirements for the game). Well, I had some problems starting it up at first, but they were ones already encountered by others and had been fixed. I just applied the solutions and away I went.

I haven't gotten that far, really. I got past the tutorial (kick ass one, btw), and made it to Mercurio. Upon stepping outside from there, I was hit with the nastiest slowdown. At first I was like "WTF?!", but then I noticed it was raining. They REALLY need to give you more tweaking options in this game. I can't do anything now until I can find someway to turn off weather effects.

Does anyone know how to accomplish this? I looked through the directories and found config.cfg, but didn't see anything in there as far as graphics tweaks go.

 

[Vault Dweller]

" gender and skills have a lot bigger impact. "

From I heard from a reliable soruce; skills are used very well in this way; but gender is pretty much menaingless as it seems that mostf emales in this game are lesbians or bi.

Yep, and I'm finally living a dream: I'm a female and I'm hitting on everything with boobs.

 

[Sol Invictus]

The IGN reader rating is at 8.8 now. It was only at 7.8 with 8 or so votes when the review first came out.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Well, I did some more tweaking and, while it could be better, it's at least playable with the rain and all. I'm pretty pleased with the game so far, but I haven't really made it too much into the game yet, I am sure. I don't think it'll disappoint too much though, if at all.

Playing a Toreador babe who is a hacker/thief/seductress. Totally love the computer interfacing. Nicely done. Glad I chose to be a hacker. Also was impressed with the options I gained for my seduction skill. It was nice being able to do the beachhouse without even having to fight one single person. I've been putting some points into melee because of the posts I've read about being forced into some combat situations. Kind of wish they would have rigged the game where you could go through without getting involved in combat at all, but I suppose I'll live.

 

[Vault Dweller]

It was nice being able to do the beachhouse without even having to fight one single person.

I persuaded Dennis the Menace to give me the explosives on credit. I use persuasion and dominate. Nice. I "dominated" the cop at the clinic to give me his keys and leave me alone.

First impression of the game: there are so many fucking options and choices!

 

[LlamaGod]

Otaku, what are all the tweaks you have done? I'm in a similiar situation and would to know.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Otaku, what are all the tweaks you have done? I'm in a similiar situation and would to know.

Mostly what I did was follow this guide to optimize my system completely. The first part of it is common sense stuff, but can make a difference. What gave me the biggest boost in my performance though was using that TweakXP program and having the option for high priority set on. That way whenever Bloodlines is running on my system, it gets high priority with my CPU. This made a noticeable difference in my performance. I still get low framerates from time to time, but it's never been anything I couldn't deal with. As I said in another thread, I just need more ram.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Playing a sneaky/talkie/gunman Ventrue. I find that I can do most combat areas just by sneaking around and getting to my objectives, or if I'm in the mood for some fighting I can sneak and feed on people, snap their necks, or use my power Suicide on them. The glock is excellent at taking people down, but not too useful on vampires. I can't wait to get the Assault Shotgun, though. After helping Mercurio out and being nice to him, he's promised to hook me up with some really good weapons at a later time.

I wish I had known that it was possible to persuade/dominate those Beachhouse fucks. Instead, I snuck through the broken fence thing, shut off the lights, and killed each of them off one at a time by snapping their necks. I beat the other two guys who were sitting down to death.

I could have probably gotten more experience by persuading and/or dominating them into giving me the astroturf, though.

Oh yeah, I also joined the Anarchs. I'm working for them now, telling them the Prince's little secrets. I don't like that guy very much.

Now that's replayability.

 

[Mendoza]

I wish I had known that it was possible to persuade/dominate those Beachhouse fucks. Instead, I snuck through the broken fence thing, shut off the lights, and killed each of them off one at a time by snapping their necks. I beat the other two guys who were sitting down to death.

I could have probably gotten more experience by persuading and/or dominating them into giving me the astroturf, though.

Having done the beachhouse both ways, I think the xp is the same whatever path you choose. The only bonus xp is if you find and return Mercurio's money. I liked the fact that seduction works on both sexes, I used it on the first beach house guard and he was so creeped out he just let me through. So far it seems at least as effective as persuasion, since you can also use it to drink girls in clubs.

 

[Avin]

about lesbians >>> afaik white wolf's vampires experiences sex different from humans... they aren't looking for sexual pleasure the way a human do.

 

[dojoteef]

Regarding gender in conversation. I've had a couple of conversations where my dialog options refer to me as a man, such as: "I'm not him." The thing is, I'm a female Ventrue. I know she might not be pretty, but I don't know why my character would refer to herself as a man. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

That's actually rather funny because in the VtM books, the PC is always referred to as female no matter what context is being used.

But, I am playing a female toreador and only once have I seen my gender get mistyped in a conversation. And it was actually excusable because it was the NPC saying "You're not him..." or something to that effect.

Well....... duh!

 

[Sol Invictus]

How is it a typo if the person he was referring to was male?

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

That's why I said it was excusable.

 

[dojoteef]

Otaku's experience is excusable, mine isn't. Well to be perfectly honest, if I'm nitpicking about something like this, I might as well trash just about every other RPG I've ever played. For some reason they can NEVER get the dialog 100 percent correct, spelling, gender, what have you. It always confuses me how the QA department doesn't catch these things. They are so minor and yet so obvious. It can't be that hard to go into a text file and change a dialog option to remove spelling mistakes, logic mistakes, etc. **end rant**

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Well, I just now encountered my first extremely obvious dialogue bug. I had just finished the museum and instead of going right to the prince, I went to have a chat with my fave NPC in the game, Smiling Jack to update him on what's been going down. In my responses to him was a choice to tell him how the prince reacted when I reported the museum incident to him. Hehe.