Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

Reviewed by Lewis Denby (July 18, 2008)

The Vampire RPG mythology is applied flawlessly here, the politically charged 'vampire subculture' backdrop providing for one of the most fabulously realised videogame narratives we've had the pleasure of experiencing in years. It starts with a murder, as many good stories do, and it leads on a spectacular voyage of mystery, dark secrets, an enormous and seductively gritty underworld and a struggle for supremacy between a group of equally corrupt and equally power-hungry fiends. This is the first, and perhaps most interesting, way in which Bloodlines stands out from the crowd of interactive fiction. On the surface, it's a game about vampires. But it doesn't take long to realise that, really, this is a game about life, about people, and about the ways in which we behave based on our beliefs, our morals, our experiences and our social standings.

Reviewed by Sho (October 30, 2010)

It's seemingly impossible to so much as turn over a rock in Bloodlines without encountering more pasty-faced neck biters that you can shake a sharpened stake at, but there's otherwise very little about this game that sucks. These aren't the sorts of vampires who constantly whine about their lost humanity or take annoying teenage princesses to the prom, either; we're talking about hard-drinking and even harder-dying undead anarchists packing UZIs who'd just as soon rip your head off and use it to shoot hoops in the dirty, haunted streets of downtown Los Angeles, except that kind of thing always gets the elders' velvety cloaks in a bunch. Keeping up appearances in front of the cattle and all that; they have nuclear missiles instead of holy water and boomerangs these days.

Reviewed by mclazyj (August 27, 2006)

When I loaded up Vampires: Bloodlines, I felt that I was going to be disappointed. Troika Games was on the verge of folding, reviews talked about the bugginess of the game, and I was afraid it was going to be a Diablo type affair like the first Vampire: Redemption. I have to say that I was wrong on all aspects and was pleseantly surprised by all that this game does right.