Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines: 2 - I want to believe, but...

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This new PCGamer article made me incredibly mad at how illeterate a journalist can be, it's almost like they're bad at their job or something.
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/v...phere-and-not-very-fun-to-play-unfortunately/

"It can feel a bit like Proper Noun Overload, and there is something inherently stuffy about a lot of the bloodsucker politics. But that's punctured nicely by the two playable characters—Phyre, an ancient vampire awoken from over hundred years of slumber, and Fabien, a disembodied 1940s vampire detective who lives in their head (for slightly tangled reasons)."

It started to piss me off around here, I didn't know what Proper Noun Overload was, so I had to search it up, only to find out it's a retard's way of justifying their short term memory loss when they can't remember what a specific thing is called in unniverse, I'm suprised people made this a thing instead of taking it as signs of early on-set dementia.


"Conversations with all these various children of the night are stuffed with different dialogue options, which the game is quick to tell me are affecting their opinions of me."

I think The Chinese Room paid the wrong guy to advertise the game, Children of the Night is an insult I would make to say that characters are whiny and irrational like children, who the fuck writes this and ships it?
 
Frightened Rabbit said:
It's weird that their decision for Fabien was to write off the OK dynamic of, younger vampire that explains and shows the ropes to the older vampire that has come out of the cryochamber and decided that Fabien needed to be presented as older than Phyre.
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The devs said originally Fabien was written as a young vampire that was upset about being diablerized, they didn't explain any further than that, I guess Fabien was immature. Where as in the gameplay demo Fabien reacted to being diablerized with acceptance.

In the gameplay demo Fabien said he lived in Seattle for 100 years. They have a flashback where Fabien is introduced to Lou Graham by his sire in the 1940s. The devs in interviews have said he is a 1940s detective then they would say "or maybe not, he is a Malkavian after all". So I don't know if these flashbacks are suppose to be delusions or maybe they were just saying that as not to give away any details to the story.
 
Frightened Rabbit said:
This new PCGamer article made me incredibly mad at how illeterate a journalist can be, it's almost like they're bad at their job or something.
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/v...phere-and-not-very-fun-to-play-unfortunately/

"It can feel a bit like Proper Noun Overload, and there is something inherently stuffy about a lot of the bloodsucker politics. But that's punctured nicely by the two playable characters—Phyre, an ancient vampire awoken from over hundred years of slumber, and Fabien, a disembodied 1940s vampire detective who lives in their head (for slightly tangled reasons)."

It started to piss me off around here, I didn't know what Proper Noun Overload was, so I had to search it up, only to find out it's a retard's way of justifying their short term memory loss when they can't remember what a specific thing is called in unniverse, I'm suprised people made this a thing instead of taking it as signs of early on-set dementia.


"Conversations with all these various children of the night are stuffed with different dialogue options, which the game is quick to tell me are affecting their opinions of me."

I think The Chinese Room paid the wrong guy to advertise the game, Children of the Night is an insult I would make to say that characters are whiny and irrational like children, who the fuck writes this and ships it?
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Idk these seem like fair criticisms to me.

I've played games with the same issue so I can indeed confirm that purely melee combat with an incredibly narrow FOV that you cannot change indeed sucks ass.

Having only your fists as a weapon for the first eight hours or so sounds shitty

Bosses being able to one or two tap you and not having any ranged options sounds terrible.

Nothing about this seems appealing.
 
Ventrue said:
The Chinese Room devs said the reason for the delay was that it took them two years to make Fabien a playable character rather than just a voice in Phyre's head by giving him his own story. They said it was their way of adding the Malkavian clan into their version of Bloodlines 2.
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Unless Fabian's gameplay ramps the fuck up after the preview, I don't see why it took them two years just to incorperate him when his sections look to be a lite-walking simulator where the biggest mechanical complexity will be 'Cycle through spells (keys) until you click on the one that opens the narrative door'.
Ventrue said:
Because a Malkavian challenging the authority of a stop sign was too traumatic for some people.
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Which is funny since the trailer for the BL1 Decorations includes the stop sign along with a voice line of Fabien doing the stop sign joke.
Ventrue said:
The devs in interviews have said he is a 1940s detective then they would say "or maybe not, he is a Malkavian after all".
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The demo hints that he's a lot older than even he knows with the not!Ghoul telling him that her master refers to him as 'Lord Fabien' and him being completely confused about it.
 
Frightened Rabbit said:
This new PCGamer article made me incredibly mad at how illeterate a journalist can be, it's almost like they're bad at their job or something.
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/v...phere-and-not-very-fun-to-play-unfortunately/

"It can feel a bit like Proper Noun Overload, and there is something inherently stuffy about a lot of the bloodsucker politics. But that's punctured nicely by the two playable characters—Phyre, an ancient vampire awoken from over hundred years of slumber, and Fabien, a disembodied 1940s vampire detective who lives in their head (for slightly tangled reasons)."

It started to piss me off around here, I didn't know what Proper Noun Overload was, so I had to search it up, only to find out it's a retard's way of justifying their short term memory loss when they can't remember what a specific thing is called in unniverse, I'm suprised people made this a thing instead of taking it as signs of early on-set dementia.


"Conversations with all these various children of the night are stuffed with different dialogue options, which the game is quick to tell me are affecting their opinions of me."

I think The Chinese Room paid the wrong guy to advertise the game, Children of the Night is an insult I would make to say that characters are whiny and irrational like children, who the fuck writes this and ships it?
Click to expand...

"Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is richly authentic, intriguingly written, dripping with brooding atmosphere, and… not very fun to play, unfortunately"

So its exactly like the first one?
 
Just watched the IGN gameplay slice. The first npc he tries to stealth doesn't react whatsoever even when he moves directly in front of him, then the npc doesn't react as he moves in back of him for a stealth kill.

The second npc does eventually notice him after a minute or so but immediately gets stuck on some floor geometry and can't path to him.

I'm starting to see why this game doesn't have guns, the poor npcs seem to have a lot of trouble even handling an unarmed opponent.
 
Comparing the original (with the addition of new patches to fix bugs/crashes) with similar games at the time; the combat really isnt that bad. Lots of intense moments and a pretty good range of going from the bottom to what you could do with new guns/weapons/abilities by the end. Sure it wasn’t crazy or anything but neither were comparable games like deus ex
 
Only ever played with the community patch so I can't speak of the base version. Combat is ok, it's a means to an ends, and the other systems are weaker.

The previous poster is right, it didn't matter. The world, characters, plot, interactions, atmosphere, music, were the draw and they kicked ass.

Won't be giving Bloodlines 2 a pass if the combat etc is crap though. It's 2025, there are now countless examples of how to do modern RPG combat systems and the game has been in development for years and years (restarting the process isn't an excuse). That said, the real litmus test is the stuff I mentioned before, and I have even less hope about that considering how linear the game has been rumoured to be and what has been shown so far.

I live in hope though. Maybe it will surprise, maybe. However pre-ordering based on that hope is insanity.
 
I enjoyed the fuck out of Bloodlines but gotta say the combat is pretty bad, like near the end if you arent a gun build youre gonna struggle. Stealth is okay. What sold it to me was the atmosphere and the 2000's references to media and events. Theres a questline that is basically a nod to リング(The Ring) or that one zombie cemetery side quest with george romero if i aint wrong. And the Hotel mission really made me scare when i played it the first time.

Bloodlines 2 is looking to be a weird on rail game with minimal choice and shitty characters. If we get a Jeanette character is gonna be underwhelming and whatever humor they attempt is gonna be sanitized. As i said previously they shouldnt had named this Bloodlines 2. Should have named it VtM:Awakening or something. To anyone who dares to play this, if there is a choice to cause Gehenna please do so and end it all.
 
00R-Gundam said:
but gotta say the combat is pretty bad, like near the end if you arent a gun build youre gonna struggle
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Or you can choose not to be a peasant and play as a Tremere.

00R-Gundam said:
Should have named it VtM:Awakening or something.
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That would have been the sensible choice.

An even more sensible choice would have been keeping tabs on your multi-million dollar investment to ensure the devs were actually doing their jobs, instead of spreging on social media about leftist social issues.

Alas, thanks to Paradox, we will never see another good WoD game ever again, since the source material is also ruined.
 
ddlloo said:
Only ever played with the community patch so I can't speak of the base version. Combat is ok, it's a means to an ends, and the other systems are weaker.

The previous poster is right, it didn't matter. The world, characters, plot, interactions, atmosphere, music, were the draw and they kicked ass.

Won't be giving Bloodlines 2 a pass if the combat etc is crap though. It's 2025, there are now countless examples of how to do modern RPG combat systems and the game has been in development for years and years (restarting the process isn't an excuse). That said, the real litmus test is the stuff I mentioned before, and I have even less hope about that considering how linear the game has been rumoured to be and what has been shown so far.

I live in hope though. Maybe it will surprise, maybe. However pre-ordering based on that hope is insanity.
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The combat in Bloodlines 1 was crap, but at least it made sense. You were punching, hitting and shooting your way into or out of trouble.

This Gravity Gun-style combat Bloodlines 2 seems to be pushing doesn't make sense in-universe (telekinesis is a very specific power for vampires in Masquerade), and it looks goofy as fuck from a gameplay standpoint. You've got this game that's trying to be a gritty, grounded experience in this supernatural dark world, and the combat is 50% people/ things flying around like it's a Havok physics demo reel.
 
Nah, I thought Bloodlines 1's combat was solid, even if charmingly janky. It certainly ain't nothing to write home about, and it's not balanced well, but it had a real crunchy feel to it, felt like the abilities mixed with the gunplay and melee well enough to make builds feel different. Think my favourite combat section was during the blood hunt where you're mainly fighting vampires who have all the same moves as you. If the game cut it out, I'd miss it. Stealth was fucking inconsistent though.
 
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