Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

The use of the Source engine gave Troika the ability to use their talents on fleshing out the incredible storyline and remarkable atmosphere.

The game has a great fun feel too it, from little quirks like an arcade filled with Activision classics such as Pitfall, Call of Duty and River Raid, to a school girl outfit wearing nymphomaniac vampire and her power hungry business woman sister who continually fight and bicker; moronic ghouls (vampires grunts), cheating doctors that you can blackmail for some easy cash.

It's easily the best single player PC RPG this year with one of the most engaging atmospheres you will find in any game.

A sampler of many of the greatest game genres all in one, wrapped neatly with an RPG bow on top. [Feb 2005, p.64]

In many ways, Bloodlines' open-ended approach, combat system, and dialogue options make it feel a lot more like a successor to action-RPG classic "Deus Ex" than the recent sequel did.

Some people will surely love this game, but I feel that it'll be a much better time for adventure and RPG types than action fans. [Jan 2005, p.139]

Visually, the game is awe-inspiring.

This Game is a masterpiece. One of the best rpgs with good choices and many ways to finish quests. Everything a rpg needs and with a cool adult dark setting.

На разок побегать-поаутировать можно, но отсутствие вариативности в диалогах и сюжете, конечно, расстраивает.

This game is one of the best and at the same time most frustrating RPGs I have ever played. I am doing a GOG run, with the latest unofficial patch and HD texture mods from Nexus.. Played about 15 hours, out of which 3 are replaying the first part because unofficial patch did not install properly and another 3 just alt-tabbing looking for solutions for glitches and bugs or otherwise reloading after a crash. It is one of the most terrible gaming experiences I had from a technical perspective and the only reason why this game is not a 9-9.5/10 BECAUSE The story is fantastic and the characters are all incredibly memorable (Jeanette and VV top love). The main story is quite mysterious and the side quests, although some a bit fetch-like, are all very intriguing. The setting is incredible, dark and gritty are my favorite. With the HD graphic mod, the locations look excellent. The game really puts the „role” in role playing. In general, you can approach most quests in A LOT of ways depending on your character (usually, fight, stealth or persuasion or a combination of the 3). The Humanity mechanic is very interesting and increases the depth of the role playing element but, again because of the rushed nature of the release, you could have some difficulty with certain quests if you don't follow the exact path the devs had in mind. Because of the bugs and glitches + the rushed way the game was released, later in the game, many quests are more difficult to complete without fighting skills. For example, I had a couple of quests I wanted to do with stealth and it was impossible because some enemies were glitched and did not move from the only location I could pass and there was no way to use the persuasion mechanics. I am looking forward to completing it but it is a constant battle between my appreciation for the story and the constant bugs even with the latest patch. If there is one game that deserves a proper remaster, it is this one.

Backtracking, fetch quests, button-mashy compulsory combat sections, whack-a-mole bosses, bugs galore, sudden Chinese caricatures because Deus Ex I guess, uninteresting character progression, most characters only have one quest or serve one purpose ("I'm the angry redhead! Argh!"), level design is mostly hallways joined at right angles with identical rooms branching off, masquerade and humanity are laughably easy to uphold, "try a Malkavian playthrough!" but the Nosferatu experience is amazingly dull, a million small annoyances like the storm drain entrances to sewers always spawning you at the far end of a tunnel you have to crouch through, and so on. Steve Blum tries both a Romanian AND a Chinese accent and it turns out about as well as you'd expect. People get themselves really lathered up about this game but there is easily as much wrong with it as what it does somewhat well, which is early game dialogue trees and mission freedom. Other than that though, it's extremely generous to act like this is more than an actually bad game. It's mostly just a headache. And that's WITH the patches.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]