New games to play?

[Rhydderch Hael]

Hmmm...well, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines just came out a short while ago ...[right][snapback]63621[/snapback][/right]

When I first played the game, the choppy animation and a crash-on-feeding bug was troublesome— then I learned that somewhere along the line my virtual memory settings were placed on Manual, and my swap file was only half what I needed to play the game. Fixing the virtual memory smoothed out things considerably, but I still have that crash bug (which I suspect is a driver issue, the trouble being all my attempts to actually update my drivers have inexplicably failed).

Right now the game's been patched to 1.2 to fix some gameplay issues, and I started anew. Right now I'm stringing along a male Tremere and a female Malkavian— both shootists. I'll probably mix it up with a Gangrel strong in physical melee work, and finally a Nosferatu with emphasis on stealth before I finally get bored with playing the same story again.

The trick is, while each game runs through the same storyline and quests, your clan aspect does alter just how each situation can be dealt with. You will be able to talk your way out of some potential bloodbaths if that's the best sort of tactic accorded to your clan. Then again, certain clans will be able to master certain fights better than most.

The game is aware of certain synergies in quest completion as well. For example, there is an early-game mission whose true nature does not exactly tally with what you've been told. Executing the mission is pretty straightforward, but you'll have the power to reveal the hidden motivations behind that quest. And the payoff to that can turn out to be an important revelation (that is, if you're a Tremere and rather uninitiated with the full backstory of your clan).

To uncover the truth, you have to have a keen sense of inspection or perception in order to detect the lie, and then have a strong enough skill in persuasion to ply the truth out of the other person. This nuance was something I did not see the first time I played through the quest, because I didn't know that increasing certain feats (like Inspection or Haggle) brought up new dialog options that alter the course of the conversation.


Clan is everything. Playing the game contrary to the nature of the vampire clan you choose at the start can detract from the experience. It is a role-playing game, after all. A Nosferatu can't think like a Toreador and get through the game in any good time. A Ventrue isn't going to go anywhere fast with the Prince if he thinks like a Gangrel or Brujah; and a Tremere is up the creek if he ignores the demands of his clan (to a true Tremere, the needs of the clan come first before any political sect, and excommunication would hurt in this case).