[Review] Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2

[Inkriql]

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is a 2004 role-playing video game set in the White Wolf World of Darkness; It was developed by Troika Games and published by Activision for Microsoft Windows. Based on the role-playing game of White Wolf Vampire: the masquerade, Bloodlines follows a newly created vampire who tries to uncover the truth after a recently discovered relic announcing the end of all vampires. Bloodlines allows the player to assign his character to one of several vampire clans — each with unique powers, customize his combat and dialogue skills, and progress through the game with violent and peaceful methods.

The game is presented from first and third person perspectives. It offers an open world structure, allowing the player to complete side missions away from the primary plot by freely moving between the available locations: Santa Monica, Hollywood, downtown Los Angeles and Chinatown. The development of Bloodlines began in 2001 and lasted three years. The process was turbulent; the 32-member team struggled to finish the game and published it in an unfinished state on November 16, 2004.

Bloodlines sold less than eight thousand copies during its initial release, which was considered poor performance. He divided the critics at the time; although they praised the script of the game, the dubbing, the scale of elections and the influence in the world of the game criticized its technical defects. It was the last production of Troika Games before its bankruptcy in early 2005, when it was unable to secure additional projects. The game has a cult following as an example of playability and rarely played narrative. Until 2014, Bloodlines has been developed for three years by its fans, who have provided corrections and restored lost and deleted content.

Playability

Bloodlines is an RPG presented optionally from the perspective of first or third person. Before the game starts, players create a male or female vampire character by selecting a vampire clan and configuring the aspects available in three areas — Attributes, Skills and Disciplines (vampiric powers) —or answering questions, which create a character for the player . The player can select one of seven vampire clans: the mighty Brujah, the decadent Toreador, the insane Malkavian, the aristocratic Ventrue, the monstrously deformed Nosferatu, those armed with magic of the Tremere blood, or the Gangrel animals.

The player builds his character by spending the points acquired to increase his grades in all three areas. The points spent on Attributes and Skills are combined to determine the success or effectiveness of the player in performing tasks such as using firearms, fighting, and forcing locks; for example, determine how accurate or how far the player can shoot, or if he can hack a computer. The Attributes represent the physical (strength, dexterity and endurance), sociability (charisma, mani[CENSORED]tion and appearance), and mentality (perception, intelligence and ingenuity). Skills are talents (such as fighting and dodging), masters (such as firearms and melee) and knowledge (such as computer science and research). The player is initially assigned points to spend in all three areas, with the amount he can spend determined by the clan; For example, Brujah can spend most points on physical attributes and masters. During character creation, each improvement costs one point. The cost of improvement increases as the game progresses. Each skill can be raised from zero to five, and it is impossible to accumulate enough experience to complete all the properties (allowing the player to specialize or balance his character). Experience points are obtained by completing searches, finding items or unlocking secret paths, rather than killing enemies, and are used to increase or unlock character characteristics.

The player's clan affects his abilities and powers. Although the attractive Toreador receive benefits for seduction and persuasion, opening additional dialogue options, they are physically weak; Nosferatu are forced to travel in the shadows or through sewers to avoid alerting humans, but receive benefits for intelligence and computer skills with which to access more information. The Malkavians have particular dialogue options, reflecting their inherent dementia. Raising some properties provides additional dialog options; attractive and charismatic characters seduce to get their way, aggressive characters threaten and others persuade their targets to cooperate.

Firearm combat is in the first person, with the character points assigned to the firearm mastery determining the accuracy of the shot and how long it takes to target an opponent. Melee combat is in the third person, with access to weapons such as katanas and mallets for melee combat, or guns, crossbows and flamethrowers for firearms combat. If a player sneaks up on an opponent, he can perform an instant death; Weapons provide animations of unique instantaneous deaths. The player can block attacks manually or automatically, leaving the character inactive. You can use stealth in missions to outwit guards and security cameras, forcing locks and hacking computers to locate alternative routes.

Each clan has specific Disciplines, which can be used in combat and to create approaches to searches. Although some powers are shared by several clans, no two clans have the same three Disciplines. The more physical vampires can improve themselves to be quick and lethal killers or summon allied spirits to attack their enemies; others can mentally dominate their targets to force them to cooperate or become invisible to hide from detection, and others can boil the blood of their opponents from afar. Some Disciplines, such as Auspex (which stimulates perception, discarded items and auras of other characters through obstacles) and Blood Power (which temporarily increases strength, dexterity, resistance and forced locks) are common to all Vampires Several skills can be active at the same time. Blood is a common currency in Bloodlines, used to activate Disciplines and abilities. It is exhausted with each use, and can be replenished by drinking from rats, visiting blood banks or drinking from humans by attacking or seducing them. The player can also feed on enemies during a fight. Drinking innocents for a long time can kill them, costing points of humanity.

Players are penalized for using certain vampire skills in front of their witnesses; exposing its existence loses masquerade points. Violating the masquerade five times involves the wrath of vampire hunters and losing the game, but additional masquerade points can be acquired with searches and other actions. The player also has humanity points, representing the humanity of the vampire. Some actions cost humanity points; a low humanity score alters the available dialogue options to become more aggressive, and raises the chances of entering a state of frenzy and embarking on a murderous spree, when the vampire's blood is low. This frenzy can also be triggered by a large amount of damage. Like the masquerade points, losing all the humanity points ends the game, with the vampire transforming into a mindless beast. Some areas, known as Elysium, prevent the use of Disciplines or weapons.

Players can recruit a female ghoul, Heather, a customizable maid who gives them blood, gifts and money.