Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

[SLU Aequitas]

I finished it recently...

With one of the unofficial patches, bugs weren't an issue for the most part. Playing as a Tremere, I found the very beginning to be a bit difficult (due to my skill choices), mid-game to be a breeze and the end-game battles were just right.

I felt this game was similar to Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy in that the beginning and middle were excellent and then somewhere towards the end, it seemed like the developers just gave up and rushed it toward a sloppy (horrendous in Indigo Prophecy's case) end.

Same. Absolutely loved Indigo Prophecy, and you could tell they rushed that last third of the game. Completely different pacing and tone from the first two thirds

I'm pretty sure Troika was rushed for the ending due to development time, too bad.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Patches: both the Wesp and Tessmage patches will work, both include the last official patch and fixes for things like 64-bit Windows and >4 GB RAM. Wesp is a bit more popular but either will work.

Wesp has 2 install choices - Basic and Plus. Basic is just bug fixes, to play the game as designed by Troika. Plus has a bunch of changes to gameplay that Wesp felt like adding, it's more of a mod for playthroughs 2+. Bloodlines does not have levelling or other design flaws needing fixing, so the Plus version is not recommended for your first game.

With both patches (and Basic vs. Plus for Wesp) you need to start a new game. Don't use an existing save after installing or changing patches.

TL;DR - Wesp but choose Basic not Plus.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Camarilla Edition is fun. Uses WESP fixes and does a lot of skill rebalancing and makes the game more challenging (you have to feed constantly).

 

[OCNewbie]

From everything I've read, even the basic WESP patch alters things that were in the original game. He changes the placement of certain NPC's, and makes certain guns available sooner, stuff like that.

The person behind the Tessmage patch especially, and I suppose WESP too, seem to HATE each other. If you go to the Tessmage forums, "Tess" is relentless with his? hate for WESP. Tess does seem truly passionate about the game though, and totally committed to presenting a totally original, unaltered experience, the way Troika intended.

 

[Murdoc]

I'm using the Wesp 7.6b basic patch. No major issues so far. At least nothing show stopping. It looks like 7.8 is out now. There's a sticky on the Steam forums as to how to get this game working with Windows 7 64 bit.

I don't know about the allegations of the Wesp patch altering the game from the original. I'm just enjoying the game and it's running fine, so in this case, ignorance is bliss. Someday I might try a run with Tess's patch just to see if I notice a difference.

 

[BladeVenom]

For a second play through, pick a Malkavian.

 

[sanzen07]

For a second play through, pick a Malkavian.

Agreed, playing as a Malky is awesome

 

[PrayForDeath]

Agreed, playing as a Malky is awesome

Is that the race with the crazy dialogue font? I tried playing it once, but couldn't handle reading all that text.

 

[BFG10K]

I love this game; I've finished it six times. :thumbsup:

 

[Mem]

I love this game; I've finished it six times. :thumbsup:

I've played it three times so yep a very good game....I'm surprised there was never a sequel to it.