Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

vampire politics. it's really refreshing to have something other than the evil monster of dracula and the defanged sex beast of twilight...and it's good, very good, but it just didn't quite fulfill my expectations. the politics weren't particularly fleshed out, and the illusion of choice - you can refuse to tattle on mercurio, because he's just a merchant for the rest of the game, but nines? he's important to the story, so there's no option. characterization, on the other hand, was a highlight.

There's a lot of cool world building and the way they employ different classes is pretty clever. The writing also provides a lot amusement, especially out of context. But the core narrative is bland shit which is somewhat salvaged by its writing but I couldn't help but feel a lot of it was just tepid in terms of execution. The actual gameplay itself is insufferably bad, flat level design and really grating setpieces like the part with the werewolf.

Take this with a grain of salt because I didn't get very far in this, so I couldn't fully indulge in all the systems and the story... but I also tried to play this game 3 times and just couldn't advance past the first few hours. I'm not even sure why, I should love this. So my 45 is a weird one.

There's lots and lots of cool stuff if you can see past some pretty heavy flaws. Won't probably ever forget my first playthrough of the haunted house! And the giant bat encounter, but for very different reasons...still, if you're into the whole vampire thing, this is THE game.

Sometimes buggy and certainly showing its age, but Bloodlines still has the occasional new wrinkles for us. There's a reason behind the legend that any time you bring it up, someone reinstalls.

Another one of these 3D games with good storytelling but lousy combat (see also: Alpha Protocol, New Vegas, KOTOR2). I can praise the vastness of its ambition and acknowledge its unique setting in comparison to the standard RPG fare, but I have to add that it's also a frustrating and unfinished game that has far too many mandatory combat encounters.

This inspired "Twilight".

Broken, unbalanced, and it gets worse and worse the farther you get... but it is so ambitious and offers such radically different playthroughs that it remains compelling. Needed a bigger team, more money, and more time to be fully realized.

An amazing story tacked onto a janky-as-hell game that I will never play again. Common story with Obsidian, sadly.

One of those masterpieces tarnished by problems in development, but so good that it's completely worth fixing the game with fan patches and pretending the sewers don't exist.