Vampirical Observations (My ‘Summer of Videogames’ continues)

 

The best kind of games bleed temporarily into your real life. 

The original Thief, The Dark Project made me wary of streetlights, summoning an inexplicable urge to shoot off the bulbs with arrows.   

The much-maligned but oft-magnificient Mirror’s Edge converted what was previously a patchwork of urban rooftops into pathways, routes, and opportunities for multiple fractures. Often with an ambient soundtrack playing through your head.

The Phoenix Wright series, whose depiction of the justice system was about as accurate as Cricket 97’s idea of cricket, made me seek out every opportunity to shout Objection! and Hold It! (getting the exclamation marks in was the difficult part) in every conversation. Many friendships were lost in that brief, heady, uncertain time.

Vampire The Masquerade goes a step further. Whatever blood-fuelled frenzy channeled the mystic energies responsible for this title (it was undoubtedly blood-fuelled) had uncertain side effects i’m sure the creators were unaware of. What manner of alchemy, pray, makes one return to this game like a ghoul to her sire in the dead of night, promising yourself, rather uncertainly, that just one more quest would satiate the hunger till the next break of dawn. 

Infact, after a few days, dawn itself begins to lose its allure. Sunrise is too bright, too piercing. And when the real-world doorbell rings in the middle of your sneaky break-in into a kine apartment, you’re half-tempted to turn and hiss, like a kindred channeling her feeding frenzy. 

See what it did, there? Bloodlines bleeds slang into the real world: it bleeds its language, its unique visual grammar. The very rules that govern its twisted, dark characters and places. 

It’s the most effortlessly intelligent game I’ve played: with a script that oozes style and edge, and situations that make the quests in even Fallout 3 look positively childish.

But you can’t get over the sense of tragedy that underscores the title. It’s costly development led its creator, Troika games, to financial ruin. It’s an unfunished, often buggy game that was rushed through the door before the studio shut shop. It could have been the template for all future RPGs, but it wasn’t. 

We’d all have our own personal holodecks by now if that had happened. Instead, we have this:

 

The best kind of games bleed temporarily into your real life. 

The original Thief: The Dark Project made me wary of streetlights for nearly a month, summoning an inexplicable urge to shoot off the bulbs with arrows.   

The much-maligned but oft-magnificient Mirror’s Edge converted what was previously a patchwork of urban rooftops into pathways, routes, and opportunities for multiple fractures. Often with an ambient soundtrack playing through your head.

The Phoenix Wright series, whose depiction of the justice system was about as accurate as Cricket 97’s idea of cricket, made me seek out every opportunity to shout Objection! and Hold It! (getting the exclamation marks in was the difficult part) in every conversation. Many friendships were lost in that brief, heady, uncertain time.

Vampire: The Masquerade (Bloodlines) goes a step further.

Whatever blood-fuelled frenzy channeled the mystic energies responsible for this title (it was undoubtedly blood-fuelled), they had side effects I’m sure  even the creators were unaware of.

What manner of alchemy, pray, makes one return to this game like a ghoul to her sire in the dead of night, promising yourself, rather uncertainly, that just one more quest would satiate the hunger till the next break of dawn. 

Ooh. Pretty.

Ooh. Atmosphere.

Infact, after a few days, dawn itself begins to lose its allure. Sunrise is too bright, too piercing (The game itself is set in a perpetual night. Sunlight, after all, is anathema to the vampires (referred to as the ‘Kindred’, in game)) And when the real-world doorbell rings in the middle of your sneaky break-in into a kine apartment, you’re half-tempted to turn and hiss, like a kindred channeling her feeding frenzy. 

See what it did, there? Bloodlines bleeds its slang into the real world: it bleeds its language, its unique visual grammar. The very rules that govern its twisted, dark characters and places. 

Heather. Definitely among gaming's best-written characters. Of all time.

It’s the most effortlessly intelligent game I’ve played: with a script that oozes style and edge, and situations that make the quests in even Fallout 3 look positively childish. Forgetting the ‘game’ part of it, even taken as a work of fantasy: its worldbuilding is incredible.

In the game, some of the Kindred believe that the Biblical Caine was the original vampire.

It’s a game that populates its world with people who have personalities, and not  just quest dispensers, or plot advancers, or monologue-deliverers. Take Beckett, the vampire archaeologist, pictured above, with whom you can have a freewheeling discussion on the origins of vampirism for no apparent gameplay purpose. Or Prince LaCroix, self-proclaimed monarch of the kindred, whose political machinations hover over the plot just out of reach, his intents always just beyond understanding:

But nothing illustrates the attention to detail in this game more than playing as the Malkavians. The Malkavians are a slightly…unhinged clan of vampires. Choose to play as them, and EVERY dialogue option in the game changes into bizarre, semi-coherent psycho-babble:

'I Shall Undertake Your Dark Tutelage' may possibly be the best conversation line ever.

I can't help but say 'lulz'.

Then there’s the sense of tragedy that underscores the title. Its costly development led its creator, Troika Games, to financial ruin. It’s an unfunished, often buggy game that was rushed through the door before the studio shut shop.

The creepy Nagarajas

If Bloodlines had been the template for all future RPGs,  we’d all have our own personal holodecks by now.

But that didn’t happen. Instead, we have this: