Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 75% Off on Steam

[IlllI]

If you can't get past this, I feel sorry for you, since you'll never be able to play Deus Ex, HL2, Homeworld, Baldur's Gate II, or Heroes of Might and Magic 3.

actually i did play a lot of those. back when they came out. nowadays, those just dont cut it anymore. hell, i felt the same about original starcraft. good back then, but was horrible now. for me not as immersive as games are these days. sorry if my opinion and personal experience makes you think i am a troll. i didnt know you felt so strongly about an 7yr old video game lol

 

[Markbnj]

Wow, really? I've played through this game 3 times, completing every side mission each time and never once had an issue with load times. I don't remember a single place where it loads walking down the street - it's usually when you enter a building and even then it's not that bad.

The world is split into a lot of cells, and there are also cut-scenes that trigger. Not sure if the poster was referring to both. One example of crossing cell boundaries is the first mission to the beach in Santa Monica where you climb up the stairs on the cliff to get to the house where the astrolite is located. When you reach the top of the stairs it loads the house in a new cell. The game grabs you into cut-scenes in a number of places. I don't mind since it's a story driven game, and not really a sandbox.

 

[DominionSeraph]

It's not like it just loads when you go into a house or change areas like Oblivion or Fallout would (even though it does load in those situations); it loads in some of the most random places. Walking down an alley? Load screen. Going up some stairs? Load screen. Walking down the street? Load screen.

I can only think of one load like that -- that between Santa Monica Main and the Pier. Going through the wall to the graveyard in Hollywood is close, but you have to crouch to get through so there's a play break before the load screen. Dropping down into the Nosferatu tunnel gets you a load, but you should expect that. Everything else I can think of is a standard going-through-door load or cutscene.
And the loads are pretty quick if you've defragmented your hard drive and have any decent amount of RAM (I only have 2GB and it's fine.)

^^ oh yeah, the first combat mission also cuts to a load to give you the screen of information on combat areas.

 

[ImpulsE69]

actually i did play a lot of those. back when they came out. nowadays, those just dont cut it anymore. hell, i felt the same about original starcraft. good back then, but was horrible now. for me not as immersive as games are these days. sorry if my opinion and personal experience makes you think i am a troll. i didnt know you felt so strongly about an 7yr old video game lol

You know....it's not that a differing opinion is the issue and yes, I was mistaken for my earlier comment, but I guess I just think it gets old that in nearly every single game thread there's a "OMG MY EYES GRFX SUCK" comment of some sort. To me, if that's all you have to say about something, why post? We already know the graphics are dated on this game, we don't need it pointed out. I could understand it if it was things like it's so buggy, or the play mechanics are just too "whatever", but this obsession with graphics in games by people just gets old.

I guess it's just my opinion.

As for load times, I'm still in Santa Monica, but really the only load times I've noticed are the doors and various different sections of town. I think for as much as your traveling through them maybe it seems like a lot since we are used to background loading these days.

 

[thebomb]

Anyone have a link to a patch that will let me play at 1680x1050? I am currently using the True Patch mod.

nvm: res patcher included in mod

 

[Barfo]

Always heard of the game, and at $5, might as well try it. It'll just be another one of the 100 or so games I bought and will never play. :awe:

We should start a club :awe:

 

[mattpegher]

wish someone would come out with a sequel, or some mods that really add new content. Might have to reinstall and try these mods. I still think this one would make a killer MMO. Much like The Secret World ( www.thesecretworld.com ) if they ever finish it.

 

[mingsoup]

As long as we are on the topic of Bloodlines. If anyone has any recommendations for games similar to Bloodlines I'm ALL ears. Bloodlines is easily in my top 5 games of all time. Deus Ex being right up there too. I feel that the dark mature atmosphere in this game is by far one of the best I've experienced. Console or PC, doesn't matter. Buy this game people. Its incredible.

Nobody?

 

[Dankk]

Nobody?

*shrug* No idea. If you hadn't mentioned it already, I would've said Deus Ex, since people often compare both Deus Ex and VTM. But other than that, I don't know. Sorry.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

Deus Ex is by far the most similar game. How old are you willing to go? System Shock 2 has some similarities, though it's more shooter and less rpg.

 

[L337Llama]

I loved this game. I got during a steam Halloween sale a few years ago. It's tons of fun, but you can definitely see the where the developers rushed stuff. Earlier missions were more objective/social based, and the end missions started becoming tedious with a lot of combat. Plus the bugs.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

Talky at the beginning, shooty at the end isn't rushed design. Formulaic maybe, but not rushed.

 

[Markbnj]

I loved this game. I got during a steam Halloween sale a few years ago. It's tons of fun, but you can definitely see the where the developers rushed stuff. Earlier missions were more objective/social based, and the end missions started becoming tedious with a lot of combat. Plus the bugs.

The fan mods fix all or most of the bugs. I'm playing through the Warrens mission and haven't really run into a single error so far.

 

[qliveur]

My first time through the warrens I thought it was never going to end.

i hated this game when it was new, i sure as heck wouldn't play it even if it was free now.
However, the first Vampire was awesome, its a shame they completely altered it into this, with an even worse storyline

Redemption was better? Srsly? You're definitely in the minority.

I've played as every class, and, though not appropriate for a first or even second playthrough, Malkavian is definitely the most fun.


And Tessera's "True Patch" started out as a straight-up ripoff of Wesp's work.

 

[OCNewbie]

And Tessera's "True Patch" started out as a straight-up ripoff of Wesp's work.

He (I always thought Tessera was a chick, based on the name) claims that if that were true at one point, it's not true at all now. It's nuts how bitter those 2 seem to feel about one another. It's too bad they couldn't have worked together. It seems Tessera is very passionate about preserving the game to be as close to how Troika intended for it to be (unaltered, just bug fixes), whereas even the basic Wesp designed "unofficial patch" has quite a few alterations that weren't bug fixes, but things he personally didn't like, or wanted to tweak for non-critical reasons.

 

[Markbnj]

My first time through the warrens I thought it was never going to end.

Redemption was better? Srsly? You're definitely in the minority.

I've played as every class, and, though not appropriate for a first or even second playthrough, Malkavian is definitely the most fun.


And Tessera's "True Patch" started out as a straight-up ripoff of Wesp's work.

I loved the Warrens, but yeah it was very long. I especially liked breaking through into the haunts of the Nosferatu. Very cool design for that section.

It seems Tessera is very passionate about preserving the game to be as close to how Troika intended for it to be (unaltered, just bug fixes), whereas even the basic Wesp designed "unofficial patch" has quite a few alterations that weren't bug fixes, but things he personally didn't like, or wanted to tweak for non-critical reasons.

That's the main reason I am playing the true patch. I wanted to experience it without a lot of gameplay alterations.

Also, I said above that I hadn't encountered any errors. That's a little generous. I haven't encountered any crashes, but there are a few minor play issues that pop up from time to time.

 

[PingSpike]

What's a good class for a first playthrough?

Malkavian is really fun with its own unique dialog trees and the ability to resolve many situations without combat, but because they possess a clumsy type of clairvoyance they probably aren't well suited to the first play through unless you want things spoiled.

Nosferatu is also probably a poor choice for the first play through because they are to hideous to pass for human which will make the game more difficult. I never did play one though.

The world is split into a lot of cells, and there are also cut-scenes that trigger. Not sure if the poster was referring to both. One example of crossing cell boundaries is the first mission to the beach in Santa Monica where you climb up the stairs on the cliff to get to the house where the astrolite is located. When you reach the top of the stairs it loads the house in a new cell. The game grabs you into cut-scenes in a number of places. I don't mind since it's a story driven game, and not really a sandbox.

Yeah, I didn't mind this to much...I actually found it more annoying in HL2. Anyway, this game came out around the time cool things had started to happen with dynamic loading. It could be argued it is a bit dated in that respect but it is based on a early build of the HL2 engine.

 

[PingSpike]

I loved this game. I got during a steam Halloween sale a few years ago. It's tons of fun, but you can definitely see the where the developers rushed stuff. Earlier missions were more objective/social based, and the end missions started becoming tedious with a lot of combat. Plus the bugs.

This is the most frustrating part of the game and I've seen a lot of other games do the same thing. Many games claim that you can survive with social skills, stealth, etc to avoid combat...but very few of them carry the concept all the way through to the end. This one also ends with climatic boss battles you'll be ill suited for if you built a stealth/social character.

Its also true of this game (as well as many others) that the earlier missions seem to have had a lot more time and polish put into them. There's a murder investigation side that I think involves the half bloods in Santa Monica that involved piecing together and following a number of leads that just isn't replicated elsewhere in the game IMO.

 

[PingSpike]

Hang out in the shadows next to Club Cathedral in downtown for a cheap laugh.

 

[mingsoup]

A steam Halloween sale? RAD. I love Halloween. Couldn't be a better way to celebrate than buy and play Bloodlines.

 

[Mandres]

Still one of the most seductively atmospheric games I've ever played. People still talk about it for good reason. It's worth checking out for anyone who is into computer gaming.

 

[gorcorps]

This is the most frustrating part of the game and I've seen a lot of other games do the same thing. Many games claim that you can survive with social skills, stealth, etc to avoid combat...but very few of them carry the concept all the way through to the end. This one also ends with climatic boss battles you'll be ill suited for if you built a stealth/social character.

Agreed. The first couple Splinter Cells did pretty well at letting you get through the game without killing if you were good (they may have had one or two missions where killing was required, I can't remember).

The one that really sticks out to me is SWAT4. It was a team based tactical shooter similar to classic Rainbow Six games, and you were allowed to outfit your team quite carefully before each mission. You were supposed to complete the missions with as little lethality as necessary, and were graded based on that. I found it quite impressive and nothing has really matched it since. There were so many tools that you could use to take down a criminal. Anything from just yelling "freeze" to tasering them may be effective depending on the situation, how many buddies you've already taken out, and how cowardly they are.

 

[L337Llama]

I got a quick question. When I did my play through, a ton of the voices sounded like they were echoing. I think LaCroix had it the worst. Is that intentional, or was it a bug? It didn't seem to cause crashing, it was just kind of strange to me.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I got a quick question. When I did my play through, a ton of the voices sounded like they were echoing. I think LaCroix had it the worst. Is that intentional, or was it a bug? It didn't seem to cause crashing, it was just kind of strange to me.

Someone here or at Ars said disabling audio hardware acceleration fixed that, not sure if they meant in-game settings or Windows audio settings.

 

[Bateluer]

Malkavian is really fun with its own unique dialog trees and the ability to resolve many situations without combat, but because they possess a clumsy type of clairvoyance they probably aren't well suited to the first play through unless you want things spoiled.

I had the most fun as a Malkavian, but it was my second or third play through. Its definitely not suited for a first timer.

Does the Steam version or the unofficial patches fix that nasty bug with 4GB+ of RAM on 64 bit OSs?