Retrospective: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines Comments by Lewis Denby

I enjoyed the game a lot at the time, but I cant help but remember that the combat was utter turd (sorry if this is covered in article, haven't read it all yet), although it was ages ago so maybe my memory is playing tricks on me.

I tried playing through again about 18 months ago. Unfortunately, even with all the patches and whatnot, a bug stopped me from progressing. It wouldn't let me speak to some guy I needed to. Shame, because up until then it was fantastic.

Just got a copy of this on ebay!

Can't wait :D:D:D

It's superb, would love more rpgs to be like this and Planescape Torment.

Nice article. I played this when it came out, and couldn't forgive it it's buggy, unpolished state. I did finish it though. So, question for the article's author, and anyone else who has played it recently, witha all the community fixes:

How extensive are the fixes and corrections- do they make it a markedly superior game, such as, say, playing Oblivion w/ FCOM and a variety of graphic overhauls, unofficial patches, and various other gameplay fixes? With such fixes, Oblivion is a darn near perfect masterpiece, imo.

Finally, some constructive criticism: if you are getting to "resurrect" or revisit an old game, a bit more focus about what has been patched/modded (largely by the community, it seems) since its release is a good idea. After all, we can always go back and re-read the review. Ok, back to my first question, and thanks again.

A great game indeed, well worth playing (multiple times).

I don't agree about the shooting, there are ways to avoid much of the fighting, and what remains can be handled gracefully: there are always things to be done to soften up the enemy, be it stealth, special weapons or weak points. Stealth combat can be right up there with the best of them.

As for the bug, the major annoyance was the memory loss. Save, quit & reload every our or so, and you'll be okay.

I never finished the game (if I recall correctly I quit after 12-15 hours, probably around the time when the experience took a turn South), but the Ocean Hotel was definitely one of the most memorable game levels I've ever played. It was just plain fantastic and terrifically thrilling.
Oh, and I certainly haven't forgotten Therese either :p - a wonderful character.

Was an ok game.

One of the best RPGs I ever played and the best game Troika ever made. By now I've clocked about 3 and a half playthroughs and I still wan't to play it as a gunslinger sometime.

Yes, the last third of the game is a lot worse than what comes before but then the first two thirds are just insanely good in so many aspects, be it atmosphere, writing, quests, voiceacting, characters, you name it.

I bought the game back when it was released, installed it and was instantly glued to the screen, the half played copy of Half-Life 2 lying in the corner gathering dust ;) I heartily recommend this to anyone who even has the slightest affinity with RPG gaming.

Just as an info to all the newcomers to the game: Bloodlines has two nasty technical bugs which were really unimportant at the time of it's release but have come to the light with mounting hardware power:
- If you have 4 GB usable Ram installed the game can't detect the amount of available Ram and will limit the texture quality to the absolute lowest settings. So if your game is looking extremely blurry this might be the cause.
- If you are using a 64bit OS with over 2 GB Ram installed the game will crash at startup.

There are fixes out there for both problems, afaik both are included in wesps community patch.

Also there are two lines of community patches, one of them is wesps version, which allows you to play an "extended" Bloodlines where he has restored some portions of the game previously unaccessible and done a great many changes to the RPG system which I dislike. He also gives the option to install a reduced version, I don't really know if there are any major changes in that version.

The alternative is from Tessera and while I really, really dislike his attitude this patch is the preferred version for first time players of the game imo because it just fixes game bugs and doesn't change the gameplay itself. It's called the "True Patch" and it has apparently been removed from the site of the creator but is still around for download on other sites.
But this patch doesn't include the fixes for the 64bit OS/4 GB Ram issues so you have to download seperate fixes for those if neccesary for your system setup.

The ending was fun, because of the real nature of the friendly taxi driver. ;)

Peppergomez: A nice combo of official and community patches will fix most of the technical problems - bugs, crashes, glitchy animations etc - and tidy up the otherwise stunning script so it looks like Troika actually employed a proofreader.

Another community patch, which people have mentioned, actually attempted to improve the game bit of the game, but many feel it didn't quite work.

Ultimately, Bloodlines' main weakness is in its final levels, not any fixable problems.

A game so riddled with flaws that it shouldn't be any good... but the sheer quality of the writing, voice acting and atmosphere rise it into the upper eschelons of gaming.

It even vies with Deus Ex on my list of best games of all time.

Great game. Some of the best dialogue and voice over acting of its time.

Fan patches are a must, if only to fix the performance issues.

And for a first playthrough, it has to be Malkavian. The most interesting character to play in this game imo, as they clearly put extra effort into supporting the madness of the clan.

P.s. small hint, keep checking your mailbox (email and physical mailbox in your pad). I didn't bother and found a bunch of missed side missions near the end of the game).

I think I need to reinstall this right now, I never did play it through properly the last time due to some of the bugs.

@kangarootoo

I don't think that the Malkavians are a good choice for a first playthrough of Bloodlines. There are some portions of the game where Malks have additional insight and get more info than the other clans which are subtle hints you normally don't pick up on a first session.

I would recommend to play Malks in a second or third playthrough.

@Iceman346

This is true. I guess what I am really saying is that if you are only going to play through the game once (as many will), the Malkavian should be the clan of choice for the reasons you give. Also, I chose Malkavian the first time around so I am probably reminising :)

HOW can you make a retrospective of one of the best RPGs ever without at least mentioning the unofficial patch? This is totally stupid. Really.

Bah..this is the link: http://www.patches-scrolls.de/vampire_bl...

Nameless-001 - I mentioned it in the third paragraph. No link, granted, but it's still there.

yes RIP troyka, destroyed by the big houses. Atari helped too by ruining temple of elemental evil. THANK YOU ATARI!

But who cares, at least they made those games and even though they will eb forgotten in 20-30 years, at least I got to turn a hot chick into a personal slave, whoo!

I played Bloodlines the same way as author of this text :) And now I'm going to play female malkavian too :D

I bought this and elemental evil, but sadly no one else did.

Great game and I might have to dig this out to play as another clan.

IMPORTANT:

To play Bloodlines without encountering any of the bugs, download and install the following patches:

1. vtmb_1_2.exe
2. True_VTMB_Patch_504AT_FINAL.zip
3. quk-hlm-vtmb12.rar

You must install them in this exact order.
There's also a widescreen patch (vtmbrespatcher.exe ), but it didn't work for me.
Enjoy.

Sorry Lewis I only researched the article with the keyword "patch" and didn't find it. Anyway in my opinion this is not enough for someone willing to play for the first time, as after reading your article he will probably go on playing the game with the official patch only and finding it full of bugs, missing content, text errors, etc..

I assure you that the work behind the "unofficial project" renders it NOT an option when coming to a replay or a first play.
I do not suggest the patch mentioned by discopunk: it's old and incomplete.

Bye ;)

@rogermellie

I bought ToEE, too ;) It was the stark opposite of Bloodlines somehow. Severely lacking in the story and writing department but and excellent combat system which is second to none even today. Not really a game for RPG fans, more for Turn Based Strategy players. But I'm always put off a second playthrough because of the shitty questlog which really doesn't work at all.

@Nameless-001

The "True" Patch is older but by no means incomplete. It just fixes most of the bugs the game has without touching unused content or rebalancing anything. For first time players it's the best patch choice imo, so that they can experience the game as Troika designed it.

This game is amazing. The sheer scope and diversity of it spoiled my expectations of games forever. Once patched up with community fixes, it's undeniably up there with Deus Ex and System Shock 2 as an Action RPGs that represents some of the most holistically pleasing narrative-led games ever made. The game may have been the first Source game released, but the characters were modelled well enough that I find them more genuinely emotive than many more modern, photo-real yet wooden game characters, and together with the superb dialogue it made them live like few games ever manage.

By the way, I'd like to speak up in support of the Extended patch version by Wesp - as I understand it the idea is to reinstate all the content that Troika (may they rest in peace) originally intended to include but for whatever reason didn't, while maintaining overall balance. I installed this and played with this, had a thoroughly great time, and I feel this aim was generally reached. The combat, at least in this patched version, is considerably less clunky than in either of the two previously mentioned ActionRPGs. That said, I played last around community patch 4.3 and I believe we're on 6.3 now so it may be a rather different beast.

I liked my first playthrough as a female Tremere best, partly because of the blood shield thing, partly because she was a crack shot with a Magnum, and partly because of the awesome skirt. My melee-focused Brujah was good too - love those sledgehammer stealth kills. Must try out Malkavian next time through...

thanks, lewis. $45 used on amazon, and $19 on steam. will all these community patches work properly with the steam version of the game?

To peppergomez: Yes, the unofficial patches work with the Steam version of the game.

To Iceman346: The so called "true" patch is indeed incomplete with many unfixed bugs left, because originally it was created out of the 3.3 version of the unofficial patch without permission. If you want to stay true to the original game either play with the official 1.2 patch only or with the basic version of the unofficial patch which is up to date on all the bug fixes while not containing any restored content that changes the gameplay or things like weapon tweaking.