The GWJ CRPG Club - Game 8: Vampire: TM-B (In Progress)

I have a big post written that I need to polish up and post.

SillyRabbit wrote:

I decided to reboot my character and start over. Stuck with Malkavian,, but moved points around and went with the long and little foot backstory. Just said adieu to the lady by the sea and moved on to downtown.

I have a question that's been bugging me about Ocean House:

Spoiler:

Wasn't there a part where you saw the husband with the axe? Or am I thinking of some other scene? I remembered it being very scary, but I never saw it this playthrough.

yeah i think he pops up if you go to the far left of the ground floor which is otherwise a dead end. When you turn around he's standing there for a second before clumsily blinking out of existence.

I’ve been struggling to think about picking this up let alone play it. Vampires aren’t really my thing so I think I’ll pass this time. Try something new instead I think!

According to isthereanydeal VtMB has been on sale at ~75% off the last several Halloween/October sales. This year it wasn't (only 50%). And it just so happens the VtMB2 is coming out next year. Coincidence?

My not-so-spoilery and spoilery thoughts:

NOT-SO-SPOILERY (safe for everyone except people that don't want to see anything at all from the game):

Spoiler:

Gardner Men-Chew

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My character was Gardner Men-Chew, a Toreador and a sexy, sexy man. Sadly I was unable to give him the mustache of his namesake. I prioritized persuasion as well as defensive skills, though by the end, I found myself shoving a bunch of points into firearms to help with the final stretch.

Hey There, Good Lookin'

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I used the unofficial patch with the content restoration, but I did not use any texture or shader mods. Just playing the game in 1440p was impressive enough. At no point did I find the visuals unsatisfactory. I didn't experience much in the way of crashing or other significant problems, either. Compared to Arcanum, it was a smooth experience. The unofficial patch implements a 92 FPS cap, which I found to be decent enough as a 144hz+ monitor owner. I did not try unlocking the cap, as that apparently can introduce problems.

Location, Location, Location

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I love games set in real-world locations. I love games set in the western US especially. I love games set in coastal California most of all. So Bloodlines had my heart the moment I stepped foot onto the streets of Santa Monica. Granted, the Los Angeles depicted in the game isn't exactly the most accurate Los Angeles, but it game me enough flashes that I was willing to suspend my disbelief and accept it as LA.

One of the disappointments of the game setting is how disconnected the various locations feel from each other. You get the distinct feeling that they were designed separately, and there is a lack of connective tissue to tie them together. The segregated weather patterns really drive this home. One thing that would have made the whole world feel more cohesive would be global, shifting weather patterns, such that when it's raining when you get into the cab, it's still raining when you get back out. With the lack of an open world, some touches like this would have made the locations feel related. To misquote Fievel, it did not feel like we were sleeping underneath the same big sky.

Face/Off

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Bloodlines was a reminder of how good the facial animation technology of the first Source engine could be, especially in 2004 terms.

Consider the Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, which came out about a year and a half later:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/TlNn8X1.jpg)

There is no face in Oblivion that could really be considered expressive, and certainly not attractive. Bloodlines was full of faces that could be described with both of those adjectives.

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Asylum

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The music takes me right back to college, with the early 2000s goth-metal of artists like Lacuna Coil and Tiamat. Having a poster of the Lacuna Coil album "Comalies" appear in your haven is... not something I would have expected to see in a video game. Bands like that were gateways for me in getting into heavy music during college.

Along with the goth-metal was the booming trip-hop and synthpop. The instrumental version of Massive Attack's "Angel" that serves as the game's menu music never failed to get me in the headspace for Bloodlines' world.

Sneak level 100?

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Stealth may be the most janky mechanic in the game. I went heavy with stealth in my build, and as I got deeper into the game and enemies became harder to stealth, the cracks in the mechanic became increasingly exaggerated. At some point, enemies became things that I could easily sneak by if I maintained a few yards of space between me and the enemy, but I could no longer sneak up on them for a silent takedown, no matter how slowly or quietly I tried to approach. They would "hear" me, and turn and pursue my sound, despite being visually blind to me. It would lead to a lot of situations like the screenshots above, where an enemy essentially has me pinned in, but cannot see me. And without the dark shadows of a stealth game like Splinter Cell, it just looked ridiculous.

Big Tiddy Goth Girlfriend

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The game puts you in a deliciously dark and sexually charged atmosphere. And, unsurprisingly, that sometimes finds the game wading into some problematic territory.

Portraying dark sexual fantasy seems to inevitably bump up against misogyny, which probably tells us something about the nature of those fantasies. Bloodlines has varying degrees of success in terms of how it navigates these waters.

In the world of Bloodlines, men are apparently strictly straight, while women are overwhelmingly bisexual. This does not seem to be the case in the source material, so this choice can be laid entirely in the laps of the game's developers.

The character modeling of the female characters goes in a couple of different directions. Obviously, given the game's tone, most of the female characters are highly sexually charged. When it comes to their physical portrayal, the major female characters are largely given somewhat plausible bodies, as in they at least resemble Hollywood actress body proportions more so than impossible, overly-exaggerated video game body types. The ancillary female characters however, such as club girls and ladies of the night, often looked more like stock assets that an artist then went ham on with the body proportion sliders.

More on this topic in the spoilery section.

That's Racist

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While the nature of the source material understandably has the game walking through gray areas in sex and gender, the portrayal of Asian characters seems unnecessarily flawed. Everyone in Chinatown is a one-dimensional character, usually taking on one racial stereotype or another. The Asian population's place in the game story can be summed up as "YELLOW PANIC". I'll leave it at that for the sake of being the non-spoilery section.

Find Your Own Way

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I absolutely loved the lack of waypoint markers, GPS-style maps, and other such lead-you-by-the-nose navigation mechanics. I love games that require you to navigate your own way around, and put enough cues in the world to facilitate that navigation.

This is one of the things that worries me about Bloodlines 2. It looks like they're intent on ruining this aspect of the game. The pre-alpha gameplay shows a floating compass, waypoints, floating "this is what you're supposed to do next" text, all of that garbage:

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I hate that image. A big part of Bloodlines' "immersiveness" is the lack of all of that. I don't want Vampire: The Masquerade - Skyrim.

Spookers

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OCEAN HOUSE. SPOOKERS.

So. Much. Fun.

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With the exception of the very end (see spoiler section), I never got tired of this game. I enjoyed every minute of being in the world, exploring locations, solving quests with dialogue, stealth, and other non-combative means.

All I could think of while playing is, "I want this in a bigger world". The size and scope of the locations were obviously limited by the technology of the day. I don't necessarily want it to go fully open world, but I would have seriously loved larger areas with more nooks and crannies to explore.

As it is, the game has some of my favorite locations since the Von Braun.

SPOILERY (for game completers only):

Spoiler:

The game's story really boils down to a gang war, a battle for turf between rival factions. That the setting chosen was Los Angeles seems... less than accidental.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/sr3Uw0f.jpg)

Continuing on the topic of misogyny, the game's portrayal of your ghoul Heather as a devoted servant, and her unquestioned adherence to the player character's whim, is particularly icky. "I don't like your appearance, change it" as an unprompted dialogue option is... something. The ghoul concept seems like one of the elements of the source material most prone to problematic things, and Bloodlines seems to have hit the problematic target right in the bullseye, despite only briefly exploring the idea.

About 4 Hours Too Long

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The werewolf segment at the Griffith Observatory is the absolute worst, most garbage segment of the entire game. The game would be improved by simply replacing that gameplay segment with a cutscene where the player character makes his escape. Being chased by the werewolf? No fun. Trying to crouch through the hole in the fence and having the werewolf's swipe attack pull you backwards? Super, extreme no fun. Enemies that can't be defeated except through some special sequence is very annoying gameplay. Adding insult to injury is that the seemingly doomed Nines later shows up with the head of the werewolf that had appeared to have taken him down. Oh, so he can fight and kill these bastards? Getting through this segment was an obnoxious exercise in quicksave save-scumming. Ugh.

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The assault on Ming Xiao's Golden Temple is the second worst segment of the game. It's tedious and uninteresting. Fighting about 100 of the same guy in a yellow gi got old in a hurry. The layout is big rectangle rooms arranged in a big rectangle layout, very much a "my first game level" kind of design, complete with the endlessly repeated wall textures. Absolutely nothing interesting happens here until the boss fight, and even that isn't all that interesting either.

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The assault on LaCroix's tower is much less painful than the Golden Temple. At least for me, partly because suddenly my stealth ability was useful again. Both the normal and the riot gear guards could be snuck up on and stealth killed, unlike all the enemies at the Temple. The scenery was also much less rectangles-with-repeating-brown-textures, although I was disappointed that all of those computers were off, none of them offering any last minute flavor text or hidden discoveries to find.

Great, great stuff. Agree across the board, and you expressed better than I could that awkward balance between some of the "edgier" elements in the game that are endlessly interesting and the bits that get super problematic and uncomfortable.

Finally bought this and started a character. I've semi-intentionally avoided reading anything metagame (which I usually do for CRPGs, at least in terms of character build) and went for a *gasp* roleplaying choice.

If they let me customize the look, my guy would look like this
IMAGE(https://kpbs.media.clients.ellingtoncms.com/img/croppedphotos/2015/02/19/Taika_Waititi_WHAT_WE_DO_IN_THE_SHADOWS_Photo_Credit_Unison_Films_t800.jpg)
but as it is, he's just a basic Toreador.

Yay, someone else is playing!

This thread has been too quiet.

I just finished! I had a blast playing this game again. I went melee heavy this time around and got through most of the combat zones just bashing people and things with my sledge hammer or slicing them up with my broad sword. Obfuscate is OP! I did put some points in firearms there toward the end. I still absolutely love this game - *Legion* expressed a lot of my feelings in his excellent write-up. Especially the part about loving games set in real world locations. I had a neat moment where some friends traveling posted pics from Santa Monica pier on FB and I thought - hey, I was just there!

I went a different path this time limiting my lock-picking abilities and going all in for persuasion and obfuscation. I still had plenty of xp to spend on firearms to make me lethal from a distance when it was important at the end.

This game has so much to offer! I really hope more people are giving it a chance. I'm sure this won't be my last playthrough. I'm not sure I'll ever go full Nosferatu though. It just seems like you would miss half the game. Any Nosferatu fans out there?

Been tweaking and trying to get the game up and running on my work laptop... and today I managed to get it started. I think I may be participating - slowly but surely - with my thoughts on the game this far removed from its launch, for whatever they're worth.

I'll be following along, but unlikely to participate with a playthrough. I'm still way behind with the previous club choice, Baldur's Gate. I aim to see that through before our deadline. It's crazy, as Vampire has been on my radar for years.

I'm at a stalemate with PC as a platform. I've a desktop setup in our spare room. Yet, with my work hours and sleeping pattern, in relation to my wife's, it's not feasible to be spend my time there anymore. I may need either a new laptop, or a compact living room computer (that connects to a 50" television), or accept that it is almost strictly consoles for the foreseeable future. I'm thus over the moon with Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, Neverwinter Nights, and Icewind Dale, being released on console. Vampire?

SillyRabbit wrote:

*Legion* expressed a lot of my feelings in his excellent write-up

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Finished the tutorial and the first little mission (fetch the explosives). So far, I don't especially love or hate the game. I find the setting mildly interesting. The controls feel bad: like my character is always walking on ice.

Update: I've finished Santa Monica (including a lot of what I assume are sidequests) and some random quests Downtown. Currently I'm on the "investigate the Malkavian mansion" story quest. My impressions are pretty much unchanged: I'm liking the story and setting, as well as the dialogue options and choices&consequences. I'm disliking most of the actual gameplay.

Nice work, Math! I'm curious to see how I experience this. Sounds like we've got a range of likes/dislikes.

I am so far behind in my homework.

Working my way through Chinatown now.

Spoiler:

Jesus H Christ the sewer level at the end of Hollywood!! The difficulty curve became a cliff real quick.
I've no idea how one is supposed to do that legitimately. I basically just ran through and abused the terrible AI. Had to use noclip at one point (were you have to fill the reservoirs and swim up) because it seemed to be bugging out and never filling.

I'm getting kinda tired of the constantly moving goalposts in the quests.

Ran through the old hotel quest earlier today (still very much in Santa Monica) and had forgotten how spooky it is. I had to take short breaks while telling myself it was just a game. A nice diversion from what the game has been up to the current point. I'm about to see a certain someone in a certain "oil drum", so I should be moving on soon.

I've given up and gone full-on cheater: god-mode via console. I must have either built a really bad character, not done enough sidequests, or badly misunderstood how combat works. In any case, I've found it flat-out impossible to progress past any required combat: the enemies just wipe the floor with me almost instantly while I plink away at them.

Spoiler:

Specifically this started with the Kuejin (sp?) twins in the Giovanni mansion and has continued through the Monastery to the fight with the Hunter boss.

I'm pretty much sprinting toward the finish line at this point. Stick a fork in me, cause I'm done.

Spoiler:

Kept godmode on the entire time and just ruhed through all the combat. Took the "no allies" choice and decided to open the sarcophagus myself. Rather enjoyed that ending, actually. Made me laugh.

Math wrote:

I've given up and gone full-on cheater: god-mode via console. I must have either built a really bad character, not done enough sidequests, or badly misunderstood how combat works. In any case, I've found it flat-out impossible to progress past any required combat: the enemies just wipe the floor with me almost instantly while I plink away at them.

Spoiler:

Specifically this started with the Kuejin (sp?) twins in the Giovanni mansion and has continued through the Monastery to the fight with the Hunter boss.

I'm pretty much sprinting toward the finish line at this point. Stick a fork in me, cause I'm done.

Spoiler:

Kept godmode on the entire time and just ruhed through all the combat. Took the "no allies" choice and decided to open the sarcophagus myself. Rather enjoyed that ending, actually. Made me laugh.

Nice work, Math! Four in a row now! You're on fire!

Still slowly plodding along with this one. Still don’t like it much, but I haven’t completely given up yet. Made it to “downtown” and exploring the various locations.

People might be interested to see that this game was run at AGDQ this year:

Still still plodding along intermittently. Combat was getting dull and difficult so I cheated a little bit. Ok maybe a lot. That and turning off clipping to get through that turnstile thing in that bar in Downtown.
I couldn’t just stab everyone in the museum though so I pulled out the stealth moves. That part was quite fun.

Saw the credits roll on this in January by continuing my ancient save. Took me a good while to relearn how everything worked (and I still only rarely succeeded in feeding on sewer rats as Nosferatu).

For anybody who played it on release and played it again now, do you feel that the number of bugs may have actually gone UP in spite of all the patches? I remember a very smooth experience back at release, but there were numerous weird things now, such as the inability to feed on rats most of the time and:

Spoiler:

a 250 story tall werewolf towering over the city! Only saw this once though.
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/dPYPzCH.jpg)
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/x6uYyVh.jpg)
He doesn't look quite as huge in the images, but he was standing on the observatory hill which I'm guesstimating is about 5 miles away from this spot!

I also apparently bugged out Andrei. I entered his chamber door stealthed, and he never went into his speech and just stood there as I sniped him over and over until he was dead. Had to redo that one legitimately.

As for what I did in the final 10 (!) hours:

Spoiler:

I didn't jump straight into the werewolf fight because I didn't feel ready for that...and because I didn't have a save there. I remembered the Society of Leopold being pretty fun and had a save for it, so did that to get my bearings. It didn't go nearly as smoothly as I remembered, but I did relearn lots of things. Moving on to Hell at Hallowbrook, I took out Andrei (see above), explored some and mopped up 2 sidequests. The observatory wasn't difficult because this time I knew what to do (crushed him!).

I was now in uncharted territory for me. I sided with the Anarchs and ran into the battle that finally caused me to cheat. Ming Xiao was simply not even remotely doable with my build up to then (and my own ability). I had to give myself lots of free stat points to push up damage soaking, damage dealing, and boosting powers a few levels. Even after all that it took me a few tries and was still very close when I did succeed. Using rifles was pointless as they did barely perceptible damage even with my powers boosting them, and even at a distance it was impossible to avoid most damage.

So that was very unsatisfying, but I'm glad to have finally seen the end.

I then created a Tremere and got a few missions in, but haven't gone back in 3 weeks yet.

I'm definitely looking forward to what the sequel brings to the table!

Final comment: after all of this time, the intro music is still badass.

^Whoops! I missed this. Got you now, and have leveled you up! Congratulations!

Math wrote:

I've given up and gone full-on cheater: god-mode via console. I must have either built a really bad character, not done enough sidequests, or badly misunderstood how combat works. In any case, I've found it flat-out impossible to progress past any required combat: the enemies just wipe the floor with me almost instantly while I plink away at them.

Me too. Except it started earlier... just not getting the combat at all, so I’m cheating furiously. Being an invincible vampire mowing down dozens of vampire hunters is hilarious though. Almost at the end...

And... done. Some of those final areas really tested my patience. What happened to all the choices and dialogue and everything else?
Just run through the monastery and kill everything. Then run through the hotel and kill everything. Then run through the streets and...

Finally beat it again. The Nosferatu Warrens are worse than I recalled... had to resort to noclip just to get through it because those damn propellers and pumps can go die in a ditch - and those involved in this design should have really bad diarrhea for days.

I almost wish this was remade with modern tools and framework...

Oh, and for the record, I went full Anarch and the ending was, errrr, something.

10 days to go, 10 days to go! Anyone still thinking of finishing?

I actually *might* give this a go. I should have more time coming up after this week and might try to plow through it Legion style next weekend.

Last call...!