$20 Game of the Week: Vampire: the Masquerade – Bloodlines

Forget about Twilight and all these other vampire films that make the creatures of the night look like goth-emo jerks. White-Wolf pen-and-paper role playing game, Vampire: The Masquerade has been doing the modern-day vampire bit for years, better than anyone else. Bloodlines is the second PC game based on the series (the first was Redemption, although Bloodlines isn’t a direct sequel). Despite the bugs and glitches that were present when the game was first released, the pen-and-paper RPG mechanics translate well to PC, and the game offers a number of options to play through it. Besides Half Life 2, this was the one of the first games to make use of Valve’s Source Engine, so the graphics were pretty good for their time.

There isn’t any teen romance wussiness here. You play as a newly sired vampire who is about to be executed when you are spared by the vampire prince, who apparently needs you for a higher purpose. You are thrust head first into the world of vampires, and get involved with the politics and power struggles between the clans and sects. You choose your character’s gender, and you have the option of joining one of several vampire clans, each having their own strengths, weaknesses, and abilities. Throughout the game, you earn points to upgrade your skills. As a vampire, you are required to uphold the masquerade, which is a set of rules that govern the vampire community, keep them from being noticed by humans, and retain what little remains of their humanity. Killing innocent humans, using forbidden magic, and using vampiric abilities in from of humans are violations of the masquerade. If you violate the masquerade too many times, the game ends. Depending on who you choose to side with at the game’s end, you’ll receive a new ending. The abilities and clans adds some replay value to the game, as you can go through the game again as a member of a different clan, and find other ways to approach missions.

Bloodlines’ development had was rushed by publisher Activision, and developer Troika was shut down shortly after the game’s release (which was on the same day as Half-Life 2). Thus, there was little time for testing, and the released product had several bugs and glitches. Even so, it was received well by fans, and they continue to make patches, mods, and add-ons to this day. If you can’t find in stores, you can download it off of steam. RPG fans will want to give this a shot, as it’s basically Deus Ex with vampires.