Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines review

The second game to be based on White Wolf's pen-and-paper role playing property, Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines is a first- and third-person action RPG crafted around Valve's cutting edge Source engine.

The original game in the series was criticized in some quarters for having too much of a bias toward action, so with the development baton on the property having been passed to Troika, many fans were hoping that the second outing would be more representative of the game's tabletop muse.

For those unfamiliar with the title, Bloodlines is set in the World of Darkness, a foreboding take on contemporary Earth in which vampires effectively pull the strings of society, to the complete ignorance of their human prey. In this realm, there are seven vying undead factions all with self serving interests. But above them all is the Camarilla, a ruling body that carries out its governing role with ruthless efficiency, thinking nothing of destroying its kindred if they fail to abide by its laws.

Cutting your teeth

In the beginning, you have to choose which type of vampire you wish to play as, and this can be done by one of two ways. Firstly, you can opt to answer a number of hypothetical questions - such as how you would act in a confrontational situation - and the avatar that is subsequently generated is tailored to your responses.

Or, for the more exacting and hardcore player, you can proceed directly to a stats sheet and tweak the key character aspects of Abilities, Attributes and Disciplines. Depending on your choices during this process, you'll end up with a character that may be skilled in melee combat, one that's suited to diplomacy and social interaction, or a skulking, surreptitious creature that prefers to make its way in the world by sticking to the shadows.

As an initiate vampire, your entry into the World of Darkness is a less than auspicious one. Your sire, having illicitly created you in the eyes of the Camarilla, is killed off, and you are cast into the decadence of nocturnal Los Angeles to find your own way. Thankfully, however, one of your clan sees fit to take you under his veined wing for a short while, during which period you get to learn the rudiments of combat, interaction with the world, and the importance of adhering to the Masquerade, a sort of code of conduct for the undead.

Breaking the law

The implementation of the Masquerade has a very real effect on how you go about playing the game, as there is a 'five strikes and you're out' tenet that must be abided by, otherwise the game ends rather abruptly.

In practice, this means that you have to reign in your more beastly tendencies, such as the spilling of innocents' blood, and you should only indulge your baser desires when you are sure there are no human onlookers. Additionally, acts of a supernatural nature that are performed in public quickly bring you to the attention of law enforcement, or worse, vampire hunters, whose bullets can cut you down quicker than an Amphetamine-fuelled Samurai.

Thankfully, you needn't rely on intuition to decide when its permissible to let loose with your preternatural abilities, as each of the game's locales are designated as being combat, Masquerade or Elysium zones - and you can ascertain which type you are currently in by looking at the appropriate icon onscreen. In combat zones, you are free to do as you please without fear of retribution from the Camarilla, whereas Masquerade zones demand that you behave in a more civil manner, as do those of the Elysium.

Fight or flight

While gunplay forms a part of the combat in Bloodlines - and there are quite a few different types of firearm you can get to grips with, the game encourages you to rely on melee and unarmed methods.

During hand-to-hand fighting, the view automatically switches to a third person perspective, and crosshairs appear onscreen to facilitate aiming of your lunges, uppercuts and kicks. In practice, melee combat is - and you'll excuse the pun - something of a hit and miss affair. Opponents tend to move around a lot, in addition to which, attempting to pull off combination moves makes the whole process a little more convoluted than it perhaps ought to be.

The ability to inflict damage with guns, knives, baseball bats and tire irons is supplemented by a mastery of supernatural disciplines, which can be used to buff your character - giving a time based enhancement to physical characteristics, or to distract or harm enemies. Usage of disciplines drains a resource known as your blood pool, which you must then replenish by feeding on humans, or if they are in short supply, a few rats will suffice just as well.

The visuals benefit from the Source engine's youthful good looks, yet they are arguably not quite on a par with those of that other game that uses the same technology. Regardless, you'll probably be impressed by the expressive facial animations and competent lip synching.

Possibly due to time constraints, Troika hasn't gone to anywhere near the same lengths as Valve as regards exploiting the potential of the physics engine, and there are far fewer incidental objects to interact with. These comparisons may seem moot, but if you come to Bloodlines off the back of playing Half Life 2, you'll no doubt be making them yourself, and you'll find the former game a little lacking in these respects.

Fangs for the memories

The audio is arguably one of the game's highpoints, particularly as concerns the quality of the spoken parts. Lines uttered by vampiric characters seem to have a modulation effect applied to give them a menacing timbre, while environmental effects such as reverberation are also in evidence.

The dialogue is no slouch either, delivered by an array of colorfully vocalized characters that will leave you with some memorable quips, but be warned, it does encompass a fair amount of expletives and the occasional adult theme.

Musically, the soundtrack is a collection of Industrial / Goth tracks, with the signature tune composed and performed by Ministry’s Al Jourgensen, so whether you find this aspect of the audio appealing will obviously depend on your own individual taste.

Like Troika's last role-playing title, The Temple of Elemental Evil, the release version of Bloodlines unfortunately ships with a few bugs included, one of which is show stopping unless you execute a console fix or download one of the unofficial patches that have sprung up, but thankfully, the developer itself is at work on a patch to address many of the issues that have been highlighted on players' forums.

While it's perhaps not a game that will have role-playing purists rattling their 12-sided die in delight, Bloodlines delivers a solid, if occasionally rough around the edges, experience worthy of its genre. Those with an interest in White Wolf's property may find that it remains truer to its inspiration than the first game, and as an example of the action RPG sub genre it's definitely one of the finer titles to emerge in recent years.