V: tM(r) - Bloodlines(tm)2.00 - The Titular Adventure

Does nobody even remember what titles used to sound like? Was it "PG-13 Adventures of Huckleberry (approved by the Food and Drug Administration) Finn (no Irishmen were harmed in the making of this novel) a Twained trademark of the Markorporation, published in Calaveras County? (Clip our coupon for 15% off frog legs!)" No. No it was not. Fuck your trademarks. Official title and byline only. Do the likes of Paradox / White Wolf not realize they're actually hurting their brand by insisting on such forceful insertions?

 

Anyway, the last time I talked about Bloodlines 2 was back in... oh, wow... October '19. So long ago that Trump was still in office. I know the project's previous crew got fired but found myself uninterested in the details, as their early bragging revolved around social justice warring and thus inspired no confidence in the first place. I've deliberately avoided reviews, hype or teasers and I'm doing exactly as I promised and diving into it fully blind on release day, give or take a couple of weeks to let them patch the more heinous bugs. However, I did also make another promise back then. How did it go again? Ahh, yeesssss:

"If it's great I'm in on the ground floor, but let's face it, even if it does turn out to be crap then ninety bucks is a small price to pay for the colossal amount of bitching I'm going to want to do on the topic, and if they manage to fuck this one up I'm quite prepared to output an entire new canine subspecies' worth of bitch."

 

So hang onto yer The butts Chinese Room, because I already dislike your title screen. The previous two V:tM titles did well enough with a minimalist approach, relying on the music to carry the mood: vaguely religious chanting for Redemption's '90s goth romance approach, and a thrumming, threatening undertow for the original Bloodlines' more visceral approach. Here the music is background noise. Okay. A cityscape would indicate you're trying harder, but slapping a red filter on it is just not trying much at all. Maybe they'll salvage it by making the opening screen change somehow in accordance with your in-game path.

 

The opening cinematic confirms we'll be making a big deal of Seattle itself as a setting. Los Angeles offered a ready theme by Hollywood's glitz and sleaze and shattered dreams. Seattle... kinda lacks that same universally recognizable character conflict. Depending on how hard you lean into it I'm not sure how many Starbucks and Cobain references I can stomach. But okay, okay, we're in the city. In a warehouse/basement? Oh... no character creation, we're doing this in medias refuse? 'S coo', I can dig it. Or dig myself out of it. Die, perfectly innocent worker bees!

 

Ugh, no saving. Checkpoint system. Has this ever in the history of games not been a gratuitous timesink? Not that I'm fond of mashing F5 every few seconds, but I'm even less fond of mindlessly repeating the same sequence of fifty moves fifty times until the last move is successful. Or backtracking because I'm not sure if the save caught all my exploration and interaction.

 

Aaand I'm playing a premade biography, which I rarely like. And he's a fuckin' bishonen too. Stake me now.

 

Plus I've already got a telepathic intruder in my head. You're just dead-set on hitting all my favorite gimmicks, aren't you?

 

Fail a couple of times in the tutorial. Weird mix of heavier physics implementation but less interactive decor than other modern titles. Okay, I'll admit I loved Fabien's amused delivery of "Some of the old guard don't like the idea of the glitterati." No, Fait Bien, no we do not.

 

Finally! Picking a clan. Let's see. Wait, what? Brujah was predictable enough, seems the baseline for new players. Then fuckin' Toreador and Ventrue made it into the options but not my first choice of Gangrel? No Nosferatu?* Was it too much to ask for Tzimicztsche? Instead they give me an Assamite option? No thanks. So it's between Tremere and... oooh... Lasombra. Morbid dark-obsessed ghouls? Okay, okay, maybe I can live with this. (Figuratively speaking.) "Arms of Ahriman" yeah, yeah, this is sounding better and better. Ew, they've got mind control powers though. Guess I can just eat around those like the tadpoles in BG3. No kissing on the mouth!

(I've got no qualms against causing uncontrollable panic, at least.)

So my first power is a "don't look at me" and my second is a "stay away"? They've kinda got my number on that account, don't they? I do like the look of my haven.

See, Cyberpunk? This^ is a modern lair worthy of an ancient beast. Bit of decrepitude, bit of decay, cozy chaos, pervasive intellectual endeavor and melancholy. Bonus points for vascular-looking ducts. And it comes with a housepet!

 

The family portrait, the stop sign, the Bet of Night, the first music track shallowly remixing the nerve-jangling dualist Hollywood track... do you think me so pathetic an old fanboy that you'll win me over by showering call-backs on me? Do you think I'm so easily taken in by nostalgia?!

 

Well... maybe. A little bit.

*Sigh*

Alright, alright. There's stuff I like and stuff I don't like. So far the former outweighs the latter. It just doesn't seem particularly ambitious or inspired. Guess I'll keep playing. Next time: I should probably figure out the deal with these blood flavors or whatever.

 

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* Guessin' Malks, Gangs an' Nossies were deliberately held back as future DLC fodder at $30 each. This is published by Paradox after all.