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Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2


ktchong

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So I must say that game does not look that great. Animations are quite meh and textures looks pretty dated. I don't really care that much as I expect other aspects to be what make a good game of vampire but still, seems little bit underwhelming.

I'm the enemy, 'cause I like to think, I like to read. I'm into freedom of speech, and freedom of choice. I'm the kinda guy that likes to sit in a greasy spoon and wonder, "Gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecue ribs with the side-order of gravy fries?" I want high cholesterol! I wanna eat bacon, and butter, and buckets of cheese, okay?! I wanna smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinnati in the non-smoking section! I wanna run naked through the street, with green Jell-O all over my body, reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I suddenly may feel the need to, okay, pal? I've SEEN the future. Do you know what it is? It's a 47-year-old virgin sitting around in his beige pajamas, drinking a banana-broccoli shake, singing "I'm an Oscar Meyer Wiene"

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1 hour ago, Oner said:

While I would be happier having all the disciplines, they gave an explanation for it in one of the preview videos and it doesn't bother me that much either way.

Yeah, but while they rationalized it away, my brain kept going "optimization for controllers". Presence + Dominate for Ventrue could be somewhat redundant mechanically -- even if they were needed for leading from the front as they were known to do. But taking Presence away for Brujah for instance is kinda crippling and I fear it may severely restrict the Clan's playstyle.

Guess we'll have to wait and see, but I honestly can't think of a single game that benefited from having its design constrained by the need to play with a controller.

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- When he is best, he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast.

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I felt they made it to make clans more distinct. To ensure no two clans can be played the same way. A Brujha with Celerity and Presence could be indistinguishable from a Toreador. 

I don't like losing a discipline. I want to be fast, strong AND dashing.

Unobtrusively informing you about my new ebook (which you should feel free to read and shower with praise).

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1 hour ago, Oner said:

While I would be happier having all the disciplines, they gave an explanation for it in one of the preview videos and it doesn't bother me that much either way.

I hope the characters will have more color on them though, everyone's been dressed in all grey so far.

Could be a reflection of dreary Seattle which is why Socal will always be preferred by me, or more likely that the game has a darker tone than the original, which I'm not crazy about unless it's met with some of the charm/comedy/character/color at some stage.

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2 hours ago, Chilloutman said:

So I must say that game does not look that great. Animations are quite meh and textures looks pretty dated. I don't really care that much as I expect other aspects to be what make a good game of vampire but still, seems little bit underwhelming.

I saw it mentioned on Reddit, that this was probably because animations aren't finished. They avoid showing faces talking at the player, and use camera cuts to make all the vampires seem sort of sneaky and hard to catch sight of. It's a good catch that I think is right.

This game still has 8-9 months of development left, with even more content coming after launch.

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The mainstream won't agree, but for a weird reason I connect character faces and animations with such type of games. Deus Ex, the original Bloodlines, etc. all looked pretty much like this.

Is a plus in my book. 😆

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I dunno, Deus Ex got decent animations IIRC, but I agree old Bloodlines were wonky as well

I'm the enemy, 'cause I like to think, I like to read. I'm into freedom of speech, and freedom of choice. I'm the kinda guy that likes to sit in a greasy spoon and wonder, "Gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecue ribs with the side-order of gravy fries?" I want high cholesterol! I wanna eat bacon, and butter, and buckets of cheese, okay?! I wanna smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinnati in the non-smoking section! I wanna run naked through the street, with green Jell-O all over my body, reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I suddenly may feel the need to, okay, pal? I've SEEN the future. Do you know what it is? It's a 47-year-old virgin sitting around in his beige pajamas, drinking a banana-broccoli shake, singing "I'm an Oscar Meyer Wiene"

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5 hours ago, injurai said:

I saw it mentioned on Reddit, that this was probably because animations aren't finished. They avoid showing faces talking at the player, and use camera cuts to make all the vampires seem sort of sneaky and hard to catch sight of. It's a good catch that I think is right.

This game still has 8-9 months of development left, with even more content coming after launch.

Thought that was a given. It's the first footage from a smallish team, of course it's not a final product. It even says pre alpha build...

That said, the Source engine is still one of the best examples of facial animation to this day, so I doubt that level can be reached. But I'm satisfied with the overall look - not sure what there is to complain of texture wise? It looks exactly how it should in that regard, imo.

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While I'd expect the animations and enemy variations to improve a lot by launch. My god is the controller play awful. Maybe it's just this type of game, but the person playing is extremely incompetent at it.

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I have to say, club music is really disappointing compared to old game :(

Edited by Chilloutman
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I'm the enemy, 'cause I like to think, I like to read. I'm into freedom of speech, and freedom of choice. I'm the kinda guy that likes to sit in a greasy spoon and wonder, "Gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecue ribs with the side-order of gravy fries?" I want high cholesterol! I wanna eat bacon, and butter, and buckets of cheese, okay?! I wanna smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinnati in the non-smoking section! I wanna run naked through the street, with green Jell-O all over my body, reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I suddenly may feel the need to, okay, pal? I've SEEN the future. Do you know what it is? It's a 47-year-old virgin sitting around in his beige pajamas, drinking a banana-broccoli shake, singing "I'm an Oscar Meyer Wiene"

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On 6/12/2019 at 5:45 PM, injurai said:

While I'd expect the animations and enemy variations to improve a lot by launch. My god is the controller play awful. Maybe it's just this type of game, but the person playing is extremely incompetent at it.

On the positive side, you can be fairly confident that this is honest to goodness genuine gameplay and not a cutscene with someone pretending to "play" it, because no one would make a cutscene with gameplay that incompetent. :banana:

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  • 3 months later...

Being a VtM game, combat really isn't the main thing I'm looking for. I want well written interesting characters and good stories. That being said, the combat shouldn't be a unappealing either. I doesn't need to be buttery smooth, but this does look pretty jenky. The transitions between 1st and 3rd person also look weird. Especially  that flip during combat. That really breaks the flow and immersion. I hope they can work some more on this stuff. If they nail the rest though, it'll still be a good game.
The shotgun feels solid though.

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I think original game was dark and serious?

I'm the enemy, 'cause I like to think, I like to read. I'm into freedom of speech, and freedom of choice. I'm the kinda guy that likes to sit in a greasy spoon and wonder, "Gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecue ribs with the side-order of gravy fries?" I want high cholesterol! I wanna eat bacon, and butter, and buckets of cheese, okay?! I wanna smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinnati in the non-smoking section! I wanna run naked through the street, with green Jell-O all over my body, reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I suddenly may feel the need to, okay, pal? I've SEEN the future. Do you know what it is? It's a 47-year-old virgin sitting around in his beige pajamas, drinking a banana-broccoli shake, singing "I'm an Oscar Meyer Wiene"

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Did VTMB go out of it's way to be a cheesy, or was that a side effect of the fidelity of games back then. Doom, RE, and others are hardly horror now. GTA3 is hardly shocking compared to what came later, and GTA6 is deliberately being over the top. I'd imagine we'll still have comedy and charm, but I think the original was still trying to capture a real lived in world for role-playing sake. The bar has changed for what needs done for that. OG Deus Ex is practically a comedy / campy action flick of a game in hindsight.

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Personal horror is a central thematic element of VtM. Andrei's comments in his mansion are the most direct in-game references to this, but not the only ones. That doesn't necessarily exclude the odd pop culture reference or instances of dark humor, but I wouldn't go as far as calling Bloodlines "caricaturized".

Of course it was exceedingly easy to go through the game as a 10-humanity saint, but that was more a design shortcoming than a result of the game's tone. So I'm hoping they double down on the "you're a monster" thing this time around, because that's what sets the VtM setting apart. Otherwise it's just your average urban power fantasy with a side order of over the top "machiavellian" politics.

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- When he is best, he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast.

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