Vampire: Bloodlines Preview

GameSpy has put together a three-page preview of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, after receiving a demo of the game from Troika’s Leonard Boyarsky. A snippet to follow:

Boyarsky showed me how this works by running showing me many of the dialogue branches with the Kuei-jin leader. Various conversational gambits will present the player as a suave ladies’ man, an interested academic, or as a brutish lout. There’s no way to kill her in this particular scene, but how you respond can make your trip to Chinatown a leisurely-paced visit that grants you a crash tour of the mythology of the Asian vampires, or sees you as a hunted animal, dodging and weaving in the streets. Eventually, the player will reach one of four different endings, each more or less satisfying depending on the expectations of the individual player.

This was also the first place where Boyarsky talked about the differences between the Bloodlines product and the license it’s based on. After the Kuei-jin conversation, Boyarsky’s Ventrue headed out into the street to find himself a hooker. Hookers float all over the game and act as excellent “Happy-Meals-with-legs” for the young vampire on the go. In order to get a hooker to follow you to a secluded location where your can feed on her, though, you’ll need to convince her. This may be as straightforward as paying her money up front. If the player’s bargaining skill is strong enough, they may be able to haggle them down quite a bit. Charismatic vampires, however, will be able to get themselves a late-night snack without parting with a red cent. Blood magic such as Dominate can help in this regard, as well. Being somewhat familiar with Vampire property, I asked if the team had put into the game responses for certain other powers such as Masque of a Thousand Faces, a blood-fueled spell that allows a vampire to look exactly like almost anyone else.