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Awesome game for a first-time gamer.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: March 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I am not typically a gamer, but this game grabbed me and wouldn't let me go! The graphics are gorgeous, the play is intriguing, and the story is captivating! Anyone who is interested in storylines with vampires and other creatures of the underground will find this game lives up to their expectations. I have tried to get into many games before and was into a Final Fantasy game for awhile, but nothing could keep my attention long enough to actually finish the game. This one did it for me. Highly recommended.

Wait for a Patch!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 12
Date: November 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

While this game is getting good reviews and promises to be great, it is hard to know because it seems to have been released too early. You cannot skip opening cut scenes, and the audio sync for these is extremely bad. According to the boards many others are having problems as well. With a newer computer designed for movies and games, this crashes before I ever get to game play. You will get a lot of inane suggestions like diagnose your DirectX or defragment your hard drive but the fact remains that this game is premature. If you get it good luck, there are others who can get it to work. It should be awesome, if you are one of the lucky few. I think there is a patch in the works. Save your money till then, or even wait a while till the price goes down. It should not take too long with this. But once the kinks are out this should be one of the best games.

Looks to be a great game.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 27
Date: October 04, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Just to add, this game also was built using the new Half Life 2 engine. The visuals should be great.

A very mixed bag

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: January 20, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is a bizarre mixture of great and terrible gamemaking that could have been a great game.

Graphics: An odd mixture of low poly counts, cartoonish character design, and beautiful Source engine textures and effects. You can see the Source engine in this game, but don't expect it to look quite as good as Half-Life 2.

Story: A good, deep storyline, with secrets planted everywhere imaginable in the game world. My only complaint here is that the writing and characters are sometimes cheesy to the point of laughter. Also, not recommended for people who are easily driven crazy by goth trends and scenesters.

Gameplay: A great balance of stealth, subterfuge, diplomacy and combat where no particular tactic is overpowered. The only limiting factor in how you play the game is there are lots of incentives for making friends and contacts, so you can't be a purely selfish and threatening character and you sometimes have to cooperate with dorky NPCs. Still, the balance and diversity of the gameplay is probably the high point of the game. The combat, which is done in a tactical style where your aim and damage are effected by your skills, is nothing special, but it works.

Physics: I've seen a few neat tricks employed, but some of the Havok physics implementation is just sad. Certain objects are pretty laid back and don't really mind floating off in a random direction when bumped. Others are more affectionate and like sticking to my characters' foot. Again, the Source engine is evident, but don't expect it to work flawlessly like it did in Half-Life 2.

I would be inclined to give this a 4, especially in light of the fact that the game lets you run around beating people to death with a severed arm. Unfortunately, there are massive technical problems out of the box. Half the time I played it pre-patched, radical memory leaks crashed my computer when I quit. I haven't played a game that messed with my computer this much in at least 2 years.

If you're not a big fan of the Vampire: the Masquerade pen-and-paper roleplaying game, you will still probably have some fun with this, but there are better games out.

Great, but glitchy

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: August 21, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The gameplay was great. I even played through it several times in a row on my first playthrough. The game itself is glitchy though. Your best bet is to save before moving between areas though, as it occasionally crashed during the loading screen. If you run the patches, many things are fixed, but a few new bugs crop up in the player made patches (the original company is gone, so that's the best that you can get), but if you've got the harddrive space, keep a downgraded copy around and just move save files around when you find that you're stuck on game breaking glitches (the fish demon contact comes to mind).

You'll get lost in this game for hours

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 7
Date: March 05, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is awesome ! There are a few bugs in it , but the graphics are stunning ; and the story is amazing. You'll be addicted too ;) Just like me .

"Clunky" is the best description, compromises gameplay

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 7
Date: April 20, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Being a fan of the earlier Vampire Redemption, and just having finished Half Life 2, which uses the same game engine, I was expecting an amazing experience. I did read about a couple of bugs though, so was willing to cut this game some slack and just wanted to enjoy the Vampire experience again. However, the game is really clunky, by which I mean less than smooth. The first clue to a lower quality product was in the opening cinematic when there is a scene of 3 vampires walking away from an execution, and their bodies don't move up and down - they just sort of float away. If this were a vampire trait fine, but it appears to be the programmers taking a shortcut. . . Also, the game needs to load new levels very frequently. Go into a building or down a staircase, etc. and you can expect a new level load. Two or three loads per level would be ok, but 6 or 7 to get from one side of town to the other is too much. The environment is also much less interactive than in Halflife 2. When you go beat up some drug dealers, you can't break any of the lab. Hitting the table where they are making the drugs just brings a smashing sound, the table is intact, and the drugs on the table stay undisturbed. Likewise, don't count on any windowbreaking, as the window will just show damage but not actually break if you hit it. Finally, the voice acting is not great, but is less of an issue. The subject matter and character stats, experience, etc. are good, but the design issues drag down the enjoyability of the game. All in all a good bargain game, but not one to buy at full retail price.

Hopefully in the future White Wolf Publishing can find someone better than Activision to carry on the Vampire legacy.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 11
Date: December 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

For those of you who don't know much about the "Vampire" series of games you will need a quick lesson on what all this is about. I've been a fan of this series of games since the first game, Redemption, came out a few years back. These games have been based on the original Pen and Paper games by White Wolf Publishing which have quite an underground following but are otherwise nearly unheard of. The good news behind this is that although these games follow totally original story lines they still have a huge cache of material and back story to work with right off the bat.

So it should come as no major suprise that Bloodlines has an excellent story and plot to follow as you travarse the world of darkenss as a newly created vampire. Those of you who didn't play the previous game in the series will have quite a bit of catching up to do but the game has an excellent tutorial to teach you not only the basic game play but also nearly everything you need to know about the rules, drawbacks and bonouses of being a vampire in modern-day Los Angeles. Those of you who did play Redemption will already have a pretty good idea whats going on from the get go and may even be a bit put off by the assumption of everyone around you that you don't know whats going on. Still, either way you choose to go, nobody can deny theres an incredibly deep and involved plot here which is quite a blast of fresh air for the gaming industry at a time when most people are too busy talking about Madden while they play the new GTA game.

Some of the hardcore fans of this series may be dissapointed to learn this game is more of a FPS than an RPG when compared to its older brother, Redemption. In Bloodlines you spend as much time creeping through air ducts and hacking computers as you do choping up bad guys and drinking blood. I for one like this new twist on a classic concept and the stealth features more accuraterly reflect the way modern day vampires don't just walk down the street tiping over city buses and shooting fireballs at everything in sight. The game play is alot like many of the other FPS/RPG hybrids we have seen recently like "Dues Ex: Invisible War" and I would even say that Bloodlines has done a far superior job than any other game of this type I've played so far(although that my not be saying much considering DX:IW was so awful it wasn't even funny).

But with all that said this game is FAR from perferct. The music and sound are great but what happened to the graphics? The biggest hype arount this game was based on the fact it would the the first game besides Counter Strike(bleh) to use the infamous "Source" game engine of Half Life 2. Some of the impressive features from Half Life 2 are here but for the most part Bloodlines pales in comparison(no pun intended). The most major problem of all is the bugs. And I'm not just talking little glitches here, people. These are major game ending bugs(oh and lets not forget theres plently of little glitches on top of that too). One bug I ran into late in the game was a barred door that was supposed to open merely by pushing the bar out of the way. Many people on the internet besides me have reported that this door simply does not open. Activisions fix for this is to load an autosave and come back. This approach never worked for me and I finally had to use a walk through walls cheat to finish the game. There are plenty of other bugs big and small that Activision seems to have no plans what-so-ever to fix and all of this is in the version 1.2 patch that supposedly fixes all the bugs!

And then theres plenty of other little complaints with this game besides the bugs. Like the "Auto" Save feature. I'll take back everything bad I have to say about this feature if they rename it to "THE TOTALLY RANDOM SAVE FEATURE" in place of its current title of "auto" save. Why? Because totally random is what it is. Sometimes it saves and sometimes it doesn't. No pattern and no options. It just saves some of the time and not some other times. How useless is that?

Now all of these issues wouldn't be so unusual in the current mindset many publishers have of "release now and patch later" that often results in unfinished games being dumped on the public. But the thing that adds insult to injury here is that Activision and Troika had months to work on these problems after the game was finished. Huh? See, because this was the first game to use the source engine the jerks over at Valve didn't want it to go on the market before their own game, Half Life 2. So once Actvision and Troika declared Bloodlines officially "finished" they still had to sit on their hands for months before they could actually release the game. So why wasn't this time used to fix all these bugs and other problems? If they had all these months to work with this game should have been perferct! But its not! What happened, Activision?

The good news is that I've heard that Troika Games is going out of bussiness even though this is only their third game and I have to say after playing Bloodlines they totally deserve whatever they get. Hopefully in the future White Wolf Publishing can find someone better than Activision to carry on the Vampire legacy.

As close as a Video Game can come to its Table Top origin

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: December 26, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Ok so I got it and started it and put about 3 hours into it so far,
20 minutes of which was just installing the basterd (it takes almost
3GB).

My impressions so far?!?! I am impressed!

I love first person shooter type games and that's what this is but
there is also the option of switching to 3rd person (like in the
first VTM game) which I like to do for hand to hand combat and for
jumping and climbing and stuff like that which is harder in first
person.

Sure once again Activison has pumped out a game in a hurry (likely
to beat the new CoC game, but they had no fear if that was the case.
CoC's release has been pushed ahead for 2 years now and once again
it pushed ahead til next year). I'm sure before long there will be
fixes and patches availible online like they did for the first game.
Most of the game is great but some of the begining video seems
choppy and the voices out of sinc. This I think is more likely to
bad editing than computer compatablitiy issues as most the rest of
the video in the game plays fine and I have a kick ass system. There
are also some glaring typos in some of the text, (using 'you'
instead of 'your') but nothing major All-Your-Base-like, just the
kind of stuff you might find in a hurriedly written email or
something like that. And there are some continuity-type errors (like
how did that Volkswagon van get outside the beach house, look around
when you play, there is no way unless a helicopter dropped it off).
I however, being a conisoure of crappy B-movies, tend to pick up on
this sort thing more so that others, and it doesn't really effect
game play so what the hell.

How does it fare up against the first game? In the first game
Redemption, the story was pretty fixed and linare..in this one you
get free reign, just like in the Grand Theft Auto games. You can go
anywhere (if you can pick the locks etc). Hell, I spent half an hour
in a club dancing and checking out chicks (some mighty fine graphics
I must say). Yes the graphics and game-play are quite different.
Rather than the mouse control like the first game, you get the more
traditional keyboard/mouse controls like MOHAA and HALFLIFE. And the
things you can do, check email (and get penis enlargement spam, how
real is that), read posters and discarded newspapers, beat on anyone
you like, pick up whores...anything....

And also unlike the first game you don't play a fixed character. You
get to generate a character much in the same way that you do for the
table top version of the game. You can pick the specifics, or there
is an optional questionaire that you can go through which will
generate a character based on your answers. I ended up with a
Gangrel my first go and since he is close to what I would have
generated if I made a Gangrel, I went with it. The rules seem to be
based more so on the newer version of the tabletop RPG, rather than
the 1st edition rules which I know and love, but you don't need to
be familiar at all with the rules to play the game.

So how's the actual gameplay? Pretty fricken sweet if you ask me.
The story is cool so far. It introduces the aspects of being a
vampire fairly well as well as giving instruction as to how to play
(ie how to jump, fight, what keys do what, etc). It is perfect for
someone unfamiliar with either VTM or shooter type video games, yet
not so boring to those as myself who've seen it all before a hundred
times.

What most impressed me about this game was the NPCs and the
interaction with them. The characters are colorful and well acted, I
love that Jack (the Smiley Basterd). You are limited to picking
usually one to four different responses in your interactions, but
they are a diverse group of choices, usually including one serious
answer, one hostile answer, and usally (as if intended just for me)
a wise crack. If you have certain disciplines like Dominate, or
skills like Intimidate, you may get additional responses using those.
Although you seem to be pretty much free roming as a character,
there are 'missions' and plenty of sub-plots which you can partake
in and gain XP points to improve your character.

So far, I've been Embraced, had my Sire killed for it, been given a
chance by the Prince, met Jack the Anarch who filled me in on much,
fought some Sabbat and gang bangers, set up a Haven in Santa Monica,
raided a beach house for some explosives, walked in on a crime scene
investigation and accidentally discharged my pistol in front of a
dozen cops (which lead to much fleeing and hiding), danced and hit
on chicks at a club called the Asylum and met it's twin owners (and
how come you never actually see them together) and now as a favour
to one (to get a favour back) I'm in a haunted hotel a-la 'The
Shining' trying to do my best impression as a ghostbuster...

I think I'm going to be spending a fair amount of my precious free
time playing this one.....

Went to sleep at 2:30 AM last night - the night called to me

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: January 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Vampie is a beautiful, but flawed, game. It is sad because I believe with 6 months of bug fixing and polishing, it would be one of the great games in history.

The Good:

1. The graphics are generally quite nice, though not at half-Life 2's level.
2. The voice acting is way above average for a computer game.
3. The variety of quests, and the way they evolve are usually very interesting. Playing from a first person point of view even makes typical retrieve and return quests more interesting than in an isometric view game.
4. The plot is engaging, with believable characters throughout.
5. I actually really enjoy combat.
6. Technically, the game runs well for me, at least compared to the horror stories I have heard. Loading times are very reasonable, shorter than Half-Life 2 area loading times. Many of the bugs are fixed by an unofficial patch - I did not install the official patch because the unofficial one fixes far more bugs, so I have not come across any quests that can't be completed, broken dialogue strings, etc.
7. Executing a perfect bite on a poor mortal human is very fun.
8. The variety of ways to play the game is reminiscent of that glorious experience Deus Ex.

The bad:
1. The sound effects have issues. The sound effect for your feet hitting the ground while moving is the same when walking or running. This is very weird when walking.
2. Outside areas can be choppy performance-wise, but I have not had anywhere near the slowdowns that other people have talked about.
3. The cutscenes often spoil the immersion, as people will float instead of walk. Sometimes sound does not match the image. This is the lack of polish I talked about above.
4. Sometimes opening a door is a struggle. You have to be close but not too close. On some doors, I had to open and instantly run away otherwise it would bang against my body and clsoe again. Very frustrating. Also, doors will close on their own very quickly, which spoils immersion. Part of the fun of sneaking is taking care of those issues yourself - magically closing doors is not cool.
5. One character model per clan - big fat no-no for an RPG.

Overall, the game is much better than I was led to believe. It could have been a real work of art, which is a shame. Troika needs to learn how to get more time from development studios to make their games. The real blockbusters always have that extra level of care and polish to separate them from the pack - Half-Life 2, anything by Blizzard, Halo.

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