Vampire: The Masquerade is a role-playing game (RPG) created by Mark Rein-Hagen and released in 1991 by White Wolf Publishing as the first of several Storyteller. Overview Jeanette. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is an Action RPG/first person shooter hybrid developed by now-defunct Troika Games and published by Activision. First-person roleplaying game, based on White Wolf's popular Vampire: The Masquerade pen-and-paper RPG. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines combines intense first. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (Game)Overview. Jeanette. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is an Action RPG/first person shooter hybrid developed by now- defunct Troika Games and published by Activision. It was released exclusively for the PC. Bloodlines is based on White Wolf's pen- and- paper role playing game Vampire: The Masquerade set in a universe known as the World of Darkness. Similar in depth and atmosphere to Deus Ex and with a dialogue system similar to later Bioware RPGs, Bloodlines has been described by many as "Deus Ex with vampires." Although Bloodlines divided critics at the time of release, it retains a popular cult following. Though initially suffering from many bugs and balance issues, most problems have since been resolved through a series of fan- made patches. Licensing and Delays. Bloodlines was one of the first games to use Valve's Source engine. One condition of this early licensing, however, was that Bloodlines could not be released prior to Half Life 2. Due to Half Life 2's numerous delays, Bloodlines sat completed for close to a year. By the time the game was released, White Wolf had replaced the edition of the Vampire: The Masquerade pen- and- paper game on which it was based with Vampire: The Requiem (in which White Wolf had merged The Masquerade and Dark Ages), the original now obsolete. Since The Requiem, all White Wolf pen- and- paper games require the same "World of Darkness" base book. Plot. The story of Vampire Bloodlines begins with your "embracing" as a vampire one night. Apparently there are rules for these things, and polite vampire society does not approve. You and the one who sired you are taken prisoner on Prince Lacroix's orders and sentenced to death by public execution. About: Before your fall, you led a crusade against evil. Now you've become one of the undead creatures you once battled - a Vampire. Inhabiting the World of Darkness. Vampire: the Masquerade. Welcome to this Vampire: the Masquerade WWW site. Please read the FAQ. Miscellaneous data. Search this archive; What's New in the Archive? Before your sentence is carried out however, Anarch vampire Nines Rodriguez intervenes and Lacroix decides to spare your life, for now. Outside you are met by Smiling Jack who offers to show you the ropes and explain what this whole vampire thing is about. About This Game Vampire®: The Masquerade-Bloodlines™ delivers a new type of RPG experience-one that blends all the core elements of a traditional RPG with the. Tired of playing the same old game? Browse, search and play the latest mods created by Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines at Mod DB. Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines is a 2004 action role-playing video game developed by Troika Games and released by Activision for Microsoft Windows. Vampire: The Masquerade is the first World of Darkness game and the first Storyteller System game published by White Wolf. A major departure from the more power and. A description of tropes appearing in Vampire: The Masquerade. A Storytelling Game of Personal Horror. The tabletop roleplaying game that started the Old …. You can ignore him if you want and go straight to your new home. Either way you will meet again.. From this point on you are the Prince's errand boy (or girl). You're sent to Santa Monica to blow up a warehouse belonging to a rival faction of vampires, the Sabbat. The ghoul Mercurio gives you instructions and equipment, but before you get anywhere with your mission you become deeply embroiled in local politics. A feud between the baroness of Santa Monica, Therese Voerman, and Bertram Tung, the one vampire who can get you to the warehouse, threatens to jeopardize the entire mission. You do a few favours for Therese and her sister, Jeanette, but it soon becomes clear there's is something strange about the twins. Sisters fighting. Eventually you learn Therese and Jeanette are one and the same person and with their 'conflict' resolved you are finally able to meet the Nosferatu, Tung, and take care of the warehouse. Your mission completed you return to Downtown LA where the Prince is surprised to see you still alive. Unfazed, he sends you off on further missions. It is at this point that the "Ankaran Sarcophagus" enters into the story. An ancient relic unearthed in Turkey, it is carried to The States on the Elizabeth Dane, but the crew have mysteriously disappeared and the Prince wants you to find out what happened. The Prince is troubled. There are rumours that the sarcophagus contains an ancient vampire, an Anti- deluvian. Some think it will bring on the Apocalypse (Gehenna) while others see it as a potential source of power. In the meantime, you make the acquaintance of your saviour, Nines, and his band of Anarchs. No shortage of politics here either. There is little love lost between them and the Prince, who represents the Camarilla, the self- appointed governing body of vampires. There are others though even within the Camarilla, like regent Strauss, who are less than thrilled with the Prince's leadership.. Grout Mansion. After you return from The Dane you are sent to look for Dr Alistair Grout, an important Malkavian vampire who seems to have disappeared. You find him murdered in his bed. Nines Rodriguez, whom you see leaving the scene, is blamed for the murder and goes in hiding. By this point the sarcophagus has been taken to the Natural History Museum. The Prince is keen to get his hands on it, so you are sent to retrieve it. Unfortunately you are too late as the sarcophagus has been stolen. Lacroix is furious and sends you to Hollywood to see the Nosferatu and find out who else knew about the sarcophagus.. Nosferatu are nowhere to be found. Something is keeping them hidden in their sewers. Ming Xiao. With the help of Isaac, the local Anarch baron, you find out a Tzmisce vampire has been hunting them down with hideous deformed creatures. Once these abominations have been neatly dispatched, you meet Gary Golden, leader of the Nosferatu who offers to trade you the information you want in return for your help. You must go to Chinatown and find a missing Nosferatu by the name of Barabus. Upon arrival you are welcomed by Ming Xiao, the mysterious high- priestess of the Kuei- Jin. She gives you permission to conduct your search, but offers little assistance beyond that. You eventually find the Nosferatu a prisoner in a testing facility designed to research vampires. You break out and Gary informs you that the sarcophagus is held at the mansion of the Giovanni, an old Italian vampire family. Once there, you are confronted by Kuei- Jin warriors who claim an alliance with Prince Lacroix, which the Prince later denies. You return with the sarcophagus, but the one man who knows how to open it, the archeologist Johansen, has been kidnapped by the witch- hunter Society of Leopold to be used as bait for Lacroix. Trouble at Griffith Park. You go to his rescue and find out the sarcophagus requires a key, but in your absence the Prince's headquarters is attacked by the Sabbat. You're sent to their hideout, Hallowbrook Hotel, to retaliate. Back on the streets, you run into Ming Xiao who reveals it was she who killed Grout, using her shape- shifting ability to appear as Nines. Despite this she expresses a hope that when again you meet "it will be as friends". When Lacroix learns of this he asks you to seek out Nines and negotiate a truce to join forces against the Kuei- Jin. Nines has been hiding out in Griffith Park. You find him, but someone follows you there and starts a fire which draws the attention of the local werewolves. Nines is caught by one of the beasts and you barely make it out yourself. Unseen.. Fearing you may be becoming too powerful, the Prince turns and calls a "Blood Hunt" on you. Your old friend Jack takes you to your apartment in Santa Monica and from there you have to make your way through packs of bloodthirsty vampires to a taxi that will take you "where you feel most safe". Nines, it turns out, is still alive. You can side with him, with the Kuei- Jin, the Camarilla (Strauss), the Prince, or even decide to be your own boss. Depending on which side you choose, you first go to fetch the key to the sarcophagus in Chinatown, then return to finish off the Prince, OR fight only one of the two. The fate of the sarcophagus and the city is in your hands.. Gameplay. Appropriately Gothic. The player assumes the role of a newly sired vampire, whose abilities, vampire clan, character history, and gender are determined by the player at the beginning of the game by either choosing yourself or completing a questionnaire. Gameplay consists of exploring the environment, conversing with characters, and engaging in combat. Many of the characters encountered during the game provide quests that must be completed in order to advance the story, though many of the quests are optional. Combat consists of using firearms and melee weapons to engage humans, vampires, and other supernatural creatures. A first person perspective is used during firearm based combat, while a third person perspective is utilized for melee combat. Sewers of Santa Monica. Depending on how the player defines their character, they will have access to several vampiric abilities. The use of these abilities is governed by the amount of blood a player has in reserve. Every time one of the abilities is used, a certain amount of blood is consumed. When a player's blood reserves are depleted, they may no longer use their vampiric abilities. In order to replenish blood reserves, the player must seek out unsuspecting humans on which to prey (or unsuspecting rats if that's their thing). One of the interesting concepts employed in Bloodlines is the Masquerade system. Vampires prize secrecy because they recognize that their lives are much easier if humans do not believe that they exist. For the sake of this secrecy, the Masquerade system discourages socially unacceptable vampire behavior. For example, the player is punished for engaging in activity like feeding in the middle of a busy street or conspicuously displaying feats of superhuman strength or speed. Conversely, the player is rewarded for engaging in activities the help preserve "the Masquerade."The seedy side of LA. Bloodlines has considerable replayability due to the many choices the player is given as they progress through the game. Rich dialogue options give the player control over how their character interacts with others, and many of the dialogue choices help determine the direction of the game's story. The game's quest can often be completed in multiple ways. For example, when tasked with retrieving an item, the player might obtain the item by talking someone into giving it to them, stealthily stealing it, or resorting to violence. Clan selection (described below) can also have a profound effect on the game experience. Clans. Clans in Bloodlines function in similarly to classes in other RPGs. They determine the strengths and weakness of the character, as well as their disciplines, a form of vampire powers. The game plays very differently depending on which class you pick. The clans are: Clans. Clan Information. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines on Steam. Tl: dr Awesome game with (in my eyes) no downside, high replayability, nice characters and a dark story/atmosphere. If you are not sure if you want it, wait for a sale. If you have no problem with older games in your library and love RPG’s, get it instantly and stop reading. Now to the main part of the Review.. So I was thinking that I need a new RPG to play. It should have a nice story, good gameplay and some open choices for the player. After a long time searching I found Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. I waited for a long time, before grabbing it on sale and what can I say.. I love it. First things first as you may read in other reviews, this game has many bugs. Luckily there is a nice Community that fixes them and brings patches for the game. Before you play it make sure you download the latest patch found here: http: //www. Now let’s start with The Review itself, why do I love this game so much? First, it is inspired by the Vampire: The Masquerade Pen and Paper, and the universe of it, a universe that is deep and complex, and instantly took a place in my heart, where Vampires live along mortal people with rules they have to keep, called the Masquerade. In that world, there are 7 playable and some more (Npc only) Clans that all play in a different way and even have a small impact on your story. The Clans are called: Brujah, Gangrel, Malkavian, Nosferatu, Toreador, Tremere and Ventrue. At the beginning you pick 1 of these, decide if you are female or male (sadly no more customization) and then you allocate your "standard skill points" in your character sheet, whilst every clan has his own abilities and different bonuses on some of the attributes. Then the Story starts. After a pretty, long but well- made intro sequence you can control your character. The controls feel a bit strange at first and you may have to enable mouse look in the options to get a free camera, everything else should feel similar to rpg players/source users. The graphic is also well designed and fits the dark theme of this game perfectly well, as does the synchronization. What I liked was the fighting style. You have different melee and ranged weapons that reach from a Tire Iron and a magnum to a katana and a flamethrower. While you fight in 3rd person with your melee weapons, you switch to 1st person while using your ranged firearms. Also nice : most of your attributes increase more than 1 ability, example: 1 point of dexterity will get you +1 lockpicking and +1 sneaking skill, strength will get you +1 unarmed and +1 melee and so on, so there are many different ways to design and actually play your character, which leads to the next point. The Story has to my knowledge 5 endings, that trigger with your final choice and your positioning to the factions (called sects), which are the Camarilla (the "standard" vampire community) the Anarchs (fighters against the Camarilla) and the Kuei- Jin (eastern vampires that are slightly different). And while you don't actively decide your standing, your actions that you make in the story "speak" for you. And finally The Difficulty... I love it. The Disciplines between the clans are well balanced and with the right combination of Disciplines and weapons, even the hardest bosses turn to ash in seconds (recommandation: Flamethrower)So what can I say.. I guess the fact I recommended the game and my playtime + this review are showing it is worth playing, but again get the unofficial patch and if you are unsure get it on sale. Now excuse me while I enjoy my 2nd playthrough.
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September 2016
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