Vampire: The Masquerade-Bloodlines 2 Review

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 Review

Despite being ubiquitous in popular culture, vampires have been the subject of few truly good video games. 2004s Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines wasn't a great game. In some ways it wasn't even very good. But thanks to its mature approach to the topic and excellent writing, it has become a classic of the genre. Since then, fans have been waiting for the sequel. It's hard to imagine any game matching such frustrated energy, and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 It's probably not quite the game fans were hoping for. But this does not put an end to their ever-patient hearts.

Gateway to the northwest

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 starts with a solid premise. You play as an older vampire known as Nomad, who awakens in modern-day Seattle from a century-old stupor. Now that you bear the name Fire, your mind also appears to be inhabited by the consciousness of a vampire detective named Fabien. This sets off the dual quests of Fire trying to discover their presence in Seattle and Fabien trying to figure out why he is intertwined with Fire. And how to break their uncomfortable connection.

There's another neat little hook. Apparently, Fabien is also caught up in the spirit of noir. He tells everything and talks like he's a descendant of Raymond Chandler. The music is moody noir-jazz. Hardboiled detective stories are another somewhat forgotten gaming genre, so the narrative is doubly interesting.

There are some real highs and some real downs to world building. A relatively small portion of downtown Seattle is covered in winter snow, and the lighting and atmosphere are excellent. The contrast between the lush, vintage Camarilla penthouses and the shabby bars and apartments is effective. However, NPCs wandering the streets are unfortunate immersion breakers. Their character models and bits of dialogue are repeated in an unrealistic manner, and the quality of visual fidelity is greatly reduced compared to the main cast.

Yes my prince

While the scenery NPCs are disappointing, most of the main characters are quite well developed, both in terms of design and especially in terms of performances. The writing is often very good, much better than many recent RPGs. I really enjoyed meeting them and learning about their stories and places in the Seattle vampire community.

In fact, the story, characters, and writing are good enough that I wondered if they would be better used in a different style of game. Something like TellTale's classic serialized adventure, so well represented in the excellent Dispatch, would have gotten around Bloodlines 2's biggest shortcomings. Because, unfortunately, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has some problems.

The first and most obvious problem with Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is the mission design. He rarely rises above boring fetch and/or kill quests. There are really only three types of side quests, literally repeated with slightly modified objectives. The player spends most of the time on foot, moving around the map to talk to NPCs, with little content in between.

Bloodbaths

The second problem area is the implementation of the RPG mechanics, which are interesting but not deep enough. Fire has a set of unlockable abilities tied to his faction, which are often fun to use and add variety to combat, especially the game's challenging boss battles. But Fyre starts the game as a very powerful vampire, so the important feeling of a significant increase in skill never manifests itself.

On the other hand, the combat looks and sounds pretty good and can be delightfully messy and visceral. Fire almost exclusively uses melee and magical attacks, and needs to feed to charge them. The lore-based mechanics of a vampire living in modern-day Seattle, feeding without breaking the Masquerade, negotiating the complex political and social relationships of vampire society are well done.

The combat is generally fun, but there are definite difficulty spikes. Bosses can be annoying. Vampire: The Masquerade-Bloodlines 2 is not a game where you can just grind to level up.

Before the task

Technically, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 came out in relatively good shape, and I did experience a few major crashes or performance issues. It worked well on the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X. It's actually a great game for a handheld device.

For fans of the first game, the wait for Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has been long and frustrating, and the new game will likely launch with unrealistic expectations. Far from being a complete disaster, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is fun but flawed. A great script, solid storytelling, and quality acting are definitely top marks. Boring quests and undeveloped RPG elements rob the game of fun and replayability. Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 may not be what fans of the game were hoping for, but its setting, lore, and noir atmosphere make it worth a look for fans of all things vampires.

***PC code provided by publisher for review***