Wow, this game is great. I meant to play it a while ago but I never got around to it. For those of you interested in getting it you can subscribe to IGN for a year (priced at $19.99) and get the game for free with it, or buy it off Steam for the same price but with no IGN subscription.
Basically, for fans of Deus Ex this game has a ton of similarities. I'd say I'm maybe 25% of the way through the game right now and while it isn't quite as good as the original Deus Ex, it is MUCH better than the sequel to Deus Ex (Invisible War). This is definitely a fantastic game.
You choose to be a male or female out of a number of different vampire clans. Depending on what clan you choose they have inherent benefits and drawbacks. I just picked the one that looked and sounded coolest. You have a ton of different skills that are raised via experience points (just like Deus Ex) though the stats are actually more complicated, similar to System Shock 2 where you have a lot more to choose from. You get experience points for doing the main quests as well as the many side quests. It has huge dialog trees just like Deus Ex where your decisions affect what you're doing in the game. It is built on Valve's Source engine (Half-Life 2) so it looks and runs pretty well. You definitely have a lot of choices like Deus Ex, multiple paths to take, a ton of optional content, you can be stealth, direct, etc. I'm generally not too into vampires but if you are this game is even better since there is tons of storyline and shit revolving around the vampires. Your abilities (which depend on what kind of vampire you are) use blood every time you cast one so you need to feed off of people (but don't get caught). I invested in the seduction skill so you can go to night clubs and feed in public if you seduce them, which makes people think you're just making out or something so you get away with it.
The game is really bad ass. There doesn't seem to be much ammo for the guns so melee (at this point) seems much more viable since it does just as much damage and doesn't take ammo. Deus Ex had pretty vanilla melee, you didn't really do much. It's a little bit different in this game, you can perform stealth kills, and when you are in a regular battle you just kind of mash on the button to do combos and it's almost like a hack and slash game. It's a little better than what Deus Ex had for melee but not by a lot. You can play in first or third person. I play in first person except when fighting with melee, in which you are required to be in the third person, I would prefer it that way anyway though.
The guns (the few times I've used them) work similar to Deus Ex. Your accuracy is pretty bad until you raise your firearms skill, so I haven't used it much yet due to limited ammo. For the price you really can't beat this game, if you're a fan of Deus Ex definitely pick this up, it's low priced, fun, and I love all the great dialog options. Honestly at times it feels like you are playing Deus Ex, this game has a ton of similarities and even looks like it sometimes. This game is a real treat and I'm savoring every moment.
Oh, and it has a scary ass level in it...I nearly shit my pants, but what's new? Also, be sure and get one of the two patches available. The developers went out of business before they could patch it up completely properly so fans have made a massive patch for this game, you can find them both on the Wikipedia page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire:_The_Masquerade_-_Bloodlines
There is one patch that just fixes everything returning it to the way the developers intended, while the other is a massive patch that includes removed content the developers left on the disk (voice overs, quests, etc.). So one patch is the regular game working flawlessly, while the other is almost like a "Director's Cut". I'm going to save the "Director's Cut" for my second play through.
(# 0) on 12/05/2007 00:20
(# 1) on 12/05/2007 00:24
(# 2) on 12/05/2007 00:25
(# 3) on 12/05/2007 00:35
(# 4) on 12/05/2007 00:37
(# 5) on 12/05/2007 01:21
(# 6) on 12/05/2007 01:24
(# 7) on 12/05/2007 02:31
(# 8) on 12/05/2007 03:42
Speaking of the scary level, was it the hotel (which is pretty scary the first time around) or the Way of Kings (which is scary every fricking time for me....
(# 9) on 12/05/2007 04:05
(# 10) on 12/05/2007 04:28
What I couldn't live with were the story and combat system. The narrative seemed to go nowhere to me, partly due to the Fable effect of implied freedom (siding with the Camarilla or the rebels, multitude of sidequests,etc) with no real outcome on the game as a whole - although, this may be a gripe with recent Western-RPGs in general, of which I'm generally not a fan.
As far as the combat goes, I don't understand how you can compare it to Deus Ex. One has standard FPS controls, albeit with the ability to improve the steadiness of your aim and damage amount through skills, contrasted against an RPG configuration of level up your stats as much as possible and then just point and click with little to no control during the actual fight. Again, this is a problem I have with this genre of game (KOTOR, Fable, etc) rather than this specific title but nonetheless I'm sure a lot of FRS fans who enjoyed Deus Ex for its marvellous mix of gameplays might be a little underwhelmed after reading this recommendation.
(# 11) on 12/05/2007 04:39
(# 12) on 12/05/2007 08:12
As for gun play it works just like Deus Ex where you must stand still to steady your aim so I'm not sure what you meant by point and click with no control during a fight.
And for the record I'm comparing the game play, not the settings, though this world doesn't really feel that different than the sci-fi world of Deus Ex. And for the record I HATE sci-fi, Deus Ex and System Shock 2 are some of the few exceptions I have.
I can't comment on the story as I'm not far enough but I don't really see your problems with the combat system.
(# 13) on 12/05/2007 08:57
(# 14) on 12/05/2007 09:40
brad drac: I haven't really encountered any glitches with the complete patches. And I did say that Deus Ex had better game play but they are both still very similar in my opinion. I haven't used many guns (due to low ammo) but it appeared very similar.
(# 15) on 12/05/2007 12:26
As far as the story goes, my point about Fable was more that it promises freedom without delivering. Personally, I much prefer a linear game as they seem more polished and refined. I can understand simulation or god games where there is no story as such and so the infinite direction of play makes sense but open-ended, story-driven play seems futile to me as what story there is will be spread too thinly. I would rather be fed a riveting, concise narrative than have to make one up myself not to mention the frustration of being shown alleged freedom only to explore and find your path barred at all but a select few roads.
Sorry to rant away from your main point.
(# 16) on 12/05/2007 13:04
Sure I like games with a "concise" narrative as you say but I also like games such as this that let you make your own decisions. Sure you still go along a main path, but it also makes you feel like you're making decisions, and to a certain extent you are. You can make a variety of choices that affect the game, though they are on a smaller scale rather than in the grand scheme of the story generally but I enjoy making the little decisions that affect how I'll tackle my next objective.
(# 17) on 12/08/2007 21:58
(# 18) on 12/08/2007 22:25
(# 19) on 12/09/2007 07:33
By the way, Deus Ex is a F*CKING GREAT game
(# 20) on 12/09/2007 08:05
(# 21) on 12/09/2007 19:15
And I think it had better graphics than Half-Life, though Half-Life had nice graphics too.
(# 22) on 12/27/2007 18:19
Granted, even Deus Ex has it's problems, and I'm finally starting to get annoyed with it's quirks. V:TM might replace DE as my weekly play-through shooter.