Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines review

Tapping into B-movie essentials, the vampires in Troika's latest RPG have all the stereotypical trappings--a penchant for melancholic rock and electronica, black nail polish, and senseless cleavage bursting out from buttoned-down shirts. It's still nichey like the first game, but provides a memorable, if not haunting, experience.

Reality Bites

Set in Los Angeles, the environment is saturated with a sense of dread and foreboding darkness--and resembles nothing like the moving parking lot called the City of Angels. There are as many moving cars as you'd find in Pyongyang (meaning none) and each of the locations looks like a generic city. A vampire who must prove him/herself worthy to--er, live, you are caught between the subterfuge of different clans, who each try to spin their own ambitions as being the most altruistic. The slick script is one of the most well-written in any RPG, forcing the player to read between the lines of poison-laced flattery to survive. Aggravatingly linear in locations to visit, it nevertheless has compelling main and sub quests that are rewarding not only for the skill points you gain, but also for the investigate digging that's required to solve them.

The Diablo-esque click-fighting gets the job done but tends to be tedious, especially when you know there's nothing to be gained, money or experience, in killing most enemies. Guns are woefully weak and unbalanced compared to melee, but stealth adds an interesting Deus Ex dimension to gameplay, giving players options such as shooting security cameras down, or shutting them off through computer terminals.

Source Transfusion

As the first game licensed to use Half-Life 2's Source engine, the graphics fall a bit short, but are still beautiful. And unlike Half-Life 2, physics don't add much to gameplay--throwing boxes together to climb up a wall is about as intuitive as it gets. Voice acting is top notch, but environmental sounds fail to give a 5.1 setup your money's worth.

While having its quirks and love-it-or-hate-it cliched nihilism, it's a game well worth checking out, especially for anyone who sucks up Vampire action movie flicks.