Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (2004)

One of my all time fave games of all time.

GLORY TO THE DEB OF NIGHT! I WILL BE YOUR MALKAVIAN FEDAYEEN!!!

(havent played this for a bit, but this is one of the games that has cast a long shadow on my tastes in games, books and stories. I will need to do a replay at some point soon so I can write an actual review).

Embarrassing admission.

Vampires still scare me.

Not as much as serial killers or Mexican cartels, as those are in fact, very real. Letsquicklymoveonbeforeithinkaboutem.

Even the word 'vampire' holds a spook. The letters angled and pointed, ready to bite and make me lose sleep where the only solution is playing NHL Hitz till the sun comes up.

Its no surprise then, that Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines has always been a blind spot, as dark as a bloodless night. The sight of it instills a confused unease. It's a combination of the scariest thing and the best thing, a mid 2000's rpg.

Even the cover art spelled a dichotomy at the time. The-worst-thing-ever combined with Oops I did It Again. A boyish teenage enticement, but on quick inspection, wholeheartedly scary to avoid installing a kink entirely - of which I'm thankful.

The title has sat in my GOG wishlist for years, hovering at my window. It is now 50% off, again, begging me to invite it inside.

But I can't.

I'm a grown adult.

I’m a cheapskate, so I bought an old retail copy of this – the German ‘Green Pepper’ DVD release. I had similar problems installing it on a modern version of Windows (11 in my case) to this Steam user and this Planet Vampire user. Eventually, I managed to do it by copying the contents of the DVD to my SSD and editing one of the DLLs with HxD, following Iain Patterson’s instructions. (Iain’s executable patch didn’t work for me – I got an error message.)

I’ve installed the Basic version of the latest Unofficial Patch (v11.3) and now think I’m ready to go. I’ve never played an immersive sim before, so this should be interesting!

very good game in the style of more a new vegas type of fallout game, it's pretty enjoyable and the writing is excellent

my only complaints is that I got a nosferatu on my first playthrough which made everybody afraid of me (rightfully so but doesn't make it hurt any less) which was fun in its own right but couldn't use the persuade option because they're so ugly lol

navigating in the sewers feels extremely dated but adds a pretty solid element that you're revolting and if you're into that in an rpg it's a good experience, but it feels pretty dated, definitely feels like a game from 2004 and belongs on the ps2, not in a bad way by any means

this game has aged pretty well, but it's a little tedious at times, overall a solid 4/5, if that sequel ever comes out it's def gonna be something special

It took me 3 tries before I finally get hooked to this game. I tried it for the first time years ago and I couldn't even get past Santa Monica section, probably because I picked Nosferatu since I wanted a stealth character. Then a few years later, I tried again but this didn't get far either as I hated the dialogue options as a Malkavian. Only yesterday I found out that both Nosferatu and Malkavian are meant for seasoned players or second playthrough. So I reinstalled it and started as Toreador and suddenly the game just clicked.

The world is packed with interesting characters to talk to and all the little details in the game really helped immerse the player. This game did not need a waypoint like so many other modern rpgs (although a map screen/item would be nice) because all these little details is more than enough to tell the player where to go and what to do. The game has a fuck ton of bugs and glitches even with the unofficial patch installed but luckily I haven't encountered any crashes yet.

CHOOSING RACES:

1. Brujah: Passionate idealists and rebels, fighting for rights, seeking Utopia. In fight with Camarilla. + Great combat skills, - Prone to frenzy.

2. Gangrel: Loners that dwell in the outskirts of society. They rather choose company of animals. + Shapeshifting, - Hard time with socialisation.

3. Malkavians: They are lunatics in vampiric world, all of them have some form of insanity and can hear voices of the 'insight'. Other clans fear them. + Dementation, - Often misinterpretation in dialogues.

4. Nosferatu: They are phisically twisted and deformed so they spend their time underground. They have become masters of shadows and are very powerfull. + Getting more blood from rats, - Harder to hide from humans.

5. Toreador: Artists and visionares of the vampiric world. They are very connected to the mortal world and they highly respect Camarilla. + Double humanity gain, - Double humanity loss

6. Tremere: Mages of the vampiric world, involved in magical rituals and diablerie. They are least trusted by the Camarilla. + Knowledge of Thaumaturgy, - Can't gain physical attributes.

7. Ventrue: They are upper echelons of the society and seen as leaders of Camarilla. They are very powerful when it comes to gathering the immortals. + They gain special treatment in Kindred society, - They can only feed on high blood humans.

(My chosen race: Malkavian)