Vampire: Bloodlines Previews, Batch #2

Even more hands-on previews for Activision and Troika’s Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines have hit the web. The first is at IGN PC:

Like all good RPGs, Bloodlines feels like a real world, with pedestrians, police officers, homeless people, streetwalkers and more crawling the boulevards and alleyways. You might catch a guy taking a leak against the side of a building, someone standing and smoking a cigarette–everyone has a routine, and you’ll have side quests of your own that will be keeping you busy. There’s a bail bondsman who needs to locate someone, a blood bank you can break into, club girls you can make cheesy passes at, and murder investigations going on, and this was just Santa Monica. The entire town also has a sewer system you’ll need to navigate to get to certain quest-oriented areas.

The second is at 1Up:

There are multiple ways to accomplish tasks in Bloodlines. You can sneak your way in using invisibility techniques if you bear such powers. Alternatively, you might coerce your way in with some sneaky charisma. Or you could just go in and rip everyone to shreds. Like us! Normally, you aren’t allowed to freely feed on humans and kill with impunity. That whole “Masquerade” stipulation, remember? But in certain ‘free’ areas, you can thrash and feed with full abandon. Feeding allows you to refill your blood meter — the Magic Points of the game — thus allowing you to use your special skills. One of these special skills is Blood Burn, which not only allows you to do extra damage, it ramps up all your other skills. A door that was too difficult to unlock or a password too unwieldy to decipher can be figured out in a snap with that extra bit of burning blood to the brain.

And the third is at Gaming Age:

…the gameplay is a mixture of action, adventure and role-playing. It fills the action genre by being a first and third person game. You can toggle between either view at any given time but it appears melee combat will always be in third person. Combat is in real time just like any other first person shooter that you may have played in the past. It is an adventure game in the sense you are placed in this world where you can interact with people as you progress the storyline. As you meet people, you will be given tasks or missions to accomplish that you are given the choice in doing. Missions will vary from small tasks like recovering an item, to larger tasks such as wiping out a group of people. The RPG elements focus on how you develop your character. The choices you make when interacting with people will have an effect on how people and entire environments react to you and the reputation you’ve developed. You will also earn experience points in which you can build your powers, skills and traits.