Publisher: Troika Games
Genre: RPG
Summary: After being turned into a vampire, you must navigate the bloody politics of the Los Angeles World of Darkness.
Gameplay: Vampire: the Masquerade was the first tabletop roleplaying game I ever played, and this game brought back lots of fond memories. Character creation is similar enough that I was (again) able to dig up old character sheets and adapt them to create game characters.
Abilities are split between traits (innate abilities like strength or intelligence), feats (learned skills like firearms or sneaking), and disciplines (magical vampire powers, which vary depending upon which type of vampire you choose to be.) Experience can go towards increasing anything, but costs vary depending upon the ability and how much it's increasing.
The game often does a good job at offering various paths to complete a quest, but there's usually combat involved somewhere. Combat itself is somewhat awkward, as it's difficult to switch quickly between all the melee, ranged, and magical abilities. There are only ten hotkeys, and those have to accommodate healing items as well.
Sometimes combat can be avoided via sneaking (and you can instakill when unnoticed behind someone, something I wish I'd learned before nearly the end of my first playthrough.) Hacking and lockpicking may be needed too. There are also sometimes persuasion options.
As a vampire, you of course will occasionally need to drink blood. It's another bar like health and is especially used up by disciplines. There are a variety of ways to get blood, again adding options.
Style: This game is atmospheric as all get out. Through excellent music and design, the settings can ooze creepiness or despair. The late night streets of L.A. are sleazy and depressing, while skyscrapers loom above in gothic splendor. People dance in clubs while mysterious whispers murmur through the sewers.
Story: The story suffers somewhat from the false urgency of the main quest distracting from the sidequests. At one point, the chain of favors for the main quest was so long I lost track of who I was supposed to be finding to help who do what. And one particular quest--the sewers--was spectacularly long and underwhelming. Then the end is a lot of dungeons and lots of things to kill.
Still, the game does excel at offering options and adventures in a dark and interesting world. You can be a heroic vampire rescuing strangers and only killing when attacked, or an evil seducer who drains without a care. You can wander off to discover all sorts of supernatural hijinks. You can solve quests subtly or just murder everybody.
Truly, choices abound, unless you'd like to romance a guy. I can think of exactly one opportunity to sleep with a guy, and it wasn't exactly a flirting situation. And it's not like there weren't possibilities! Why does every other woman hit on my character, but I can't hit on LaCroix or Nines or Reyes?
For that matter, why can I pick up girls in bars but not guys? There are literally guys there, and I can't talk to them! It really speaks to a spectacular failure of imagination on somebody's part. It's pretty clear it never occurred to the developers that someone interested in romancing men would ever play the game.
Conclusion: It wasn't intentional at first, but when I realized I was only playing the game at night, I continued to do so, it was so fitting. Despite over-reliance on combat (especially towards the end) and its failure to account for male romance, Vampire the Masquerade--Bloodlines offers an impressive amount of roleplaying options in both gameplay and characterization and takes place in an interesting and different setting.