Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines Review

Bloodlines seems to be making its way to a lot of hard drives recently, with HonestGamers being the latest website to conjure up a retrospective review of Troika’s final RPG. Here’s the conclusion that goes with their score of 9/10:

Unfortunately much like the vacation plans of Count Dracula, this game doesn’t end particularly well; the last few chapters degenerate into a marathon of rather boring dungeons rife with combat but little of the captivating nonlinearity which had defined the journey up to that point. You can almost pinpoint the exact moment in which Activision started prodding it through the door, a sad resolution to an experience that’s so captivating for so long but the fact that this game is still well worth playing (repeatedly) should be pretty obvious by the utterly devoted fanbase it still enjoys. An unofficial but incredibly polished series of patches have been released in the many years since Troika’s demise, restoring a truly impressive amount of cut content and dialogue in addition to rebalancing the gun damage, fixing numerous bugs, and all around making the World of Darkness a more awesome place in which to “live.” No self-respecting vampire would ever sparkle, but their grisly adventures in Bloodlines certainly do; it’s one well-aged vintage you may find yourself becoming addicted to.

It’s a shame that (much-deserved) scores like these weren’t being tossed around back when the game was released.  With more initial sales, Troika might still be making great games to this day.