Finished Vampire

Well, I finally did it, I finished Vampire: Bloodlines.  With the fan-made patch, it wasn’t too bad.  Does it maintain its place of dishonor in the Hall of Shame?  The answer is yes.

As I went into the endgame, the plot began to have more and more holes in it.  Anyone who plans to play this game may want to look away, as I’m sure there are spoilers ahead.

There were plotholes from the very beginning, most of them minor.  I wonder WHY I was chosen to be a vampire, what my original purpose was.  They never explain WHO you are, or why, if your mortal self was from LA, why they’d keep you in LA with the risk of being recognized by people you knew in life.  But, I suppose these are plot holes that can be ignored for the sake of just getting you into the game.

Then you meet this vampire, who APPARENTLY is the leader of the bad guys, who for SOME reason, releases a video where a bunch of monsters he created murder a young girl.  THEN he sends the monsters out to kill any that have seen it.  Its never explained why he did it, because even among his little group, they like to keep themselves secret.

Then near the end your ghoul (servant) is kidnapped and murdered by the bad guys.  One would think this was to draw you out, except they didn’t leave a note or message or anything.  So as you’re raiding their hideout, you just stumble in on them killing her.

Also, for some reason, there are people with gouged-out eyes standing around this hideout.  They just stand there… not doing anything.  So I punched one, and he runs around fearfully for a little while, then walks calmly back to his post.  No sense… whatsoever.

So you choose your path and basically go on a killing spree in one or more of the game’s main faction’s headquarters (admittedly, this was pretty fun).  And I start fighting vampires with the same character model as me.  Not a plot hole… just bad, bad programming.

So, the game is over, and you are standing there with the key to the Ankaren Sarcophagus, this relic you’ve been chasing after pretty much the whole game.  You can choose to open it, or leave and let this other guy (the leader of the Vampires who’s been bossing you around the whole game) open it, this thing that supposedly contains a being that will bring about the end of all things.

When its opened, there’s a stockpile of C4 and a note written by Jack (who’s been something of your mentor throughout the game) that says ‘BOOM!’  I got a good laugh out of this (even if I DID choose to open it and blew myself up), and even more so when it cuts to Jack sitting in the hills watching the explosion laughing at the whole thing.  Sitting next to the mummy of a Mesopotamian King, which was all the skeptics said was in the sarcophagus.

It was funny, until I got to thinking.  The sarcophagus had only been opened once before, on the cargo ship carrying it to LA.  And mysteriously, the entire crew vanished, leaving only the bloodstained walls and floors of the ship behind.  The player assumes that the casket was opened from the inside (as indicated by the markings), and the demon inside slaughtered everyone.

But now… Jack went aboard the ship and killed everyone?  I understand his desire to blow up the Vampire leader, but why would Jack, a fairly good-hearted (if crude) vampire slaughter a ship full of people to do it?

All in all, the plot was decent, but it could have been much better with some character development and some patches on those plot holes.

Well, I’m done ranting for now.

Zel-kun out.