There’s nothing quite like a snowstorm to keep someone sequestered for a weekend. It ended up being the perfect time to sit down and complete Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2. I have been playing this game for a few months now. When I play video games, I like to take my time. I don’t want to rush the story; instead, I like to complete a few story missions, then switch gears and focus on the side quests. I spent time feeding on the citizens of Seattle, which allowed me to unlock perks from the other vampire clans. There are many opinions about Bloodlines 2. Some say the game isn’t bad, while others claim it’s horrible. I enjoyed playing Bloodlines 2, although I can’t help but feel disappointed with certain parts of the game.

Spoilers for Bloodlines 2 Below

Bloodlines 2 opens with Phyre, who awakens from Torpor. As Phyre comes to their senses, they hear a voice in their head belonging to Fabien, a Malkavian Detective who’s a Kindred local to Seattle. Phyre questions him, and Fabien struggles to recover his memories. As the two investigate further, they realize Fabien was killed by Phyre after he opened the box Phyre was resting in. If that wasn’t enough, Phyre sees a strange mark on their hand. Phyre feels weaker than they should, and they believe this mark is responsible. Fabien encourages Phyre to seek out the Camarilla for permission to wander Seattle and to figure out how to remove the mark.

I have so many thoughts about this game, so I’m going to list all the things I liked and disliked, then break them down point by point. Starting with the things I liked about Bloodlines 2:

• The Story
• Characters & Contacts within The Camarilla
• Environment
• Customization

Playing Bloodlines 2, the story was engaging. I am fortunate that none of the game was spoiled for me, so I went into it not knowing what to expect. I was curious as to who the Rebar Killer was both in the 1920s and the present day. I liked how Fabien’s story interwove with Phyre. Fabien’s missions were more story-based with no combat, while Phyre was often taking on several enemies at once. I think it was a nice breather to play as Fabien. For any Vampire: The Masquerade (VTM) game, whether it’s Bloodlines 2 or the tabletop game, the Camarilla contacts are the backbone of the story, whether you like them or not. I liked interacting with the local Primogen. Safia was my favorite contact. If there were any flirtatious dialogue options for Safia, I always picked them. She was the one I was trying to romance, which is ironic because of how the story unfolds later. Tolly grew on me, too.

The environment of Bloodlines 2 is arguably the strongest part of the game. VTM is a darker game, and Bloodlines 2 captured this perfectly. Every alleyway feels darker than it should; the neon lights of the city are brighter in a gothic way. It felt like I was playing a VTM video game. I like how Bloodlines 2 allows players to choose the clan powers they want. In the VTM tabletop game, you can learn powers outside your clan from a clan contact who has that ability. This is how Bloodlines 2 is set up, too. While I committed to playing Ventrue, I could still pick abilities from other clans.

Now onto the things that I didn’t like about the game, or things that I felt could be improved in a future update.

• Keeping Bloodlines 2 as the title of the game. One option could have been: Vampire: The Masquerade Seattle by Night.
• Where are Gangrel, Nosferatu, and Malkavian playable clans??????
• Creating my own character, vs. playing as pre-made characters
• No custom waypoints
• Autosaving is only for story missions, not side quests.
• Open-Ended Story

Let’s start with what I think is the most obvious: the name of the game. Bloodlines 2 references that this was supposed to be a sequel to Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, a VTM game released in the 2000s. This game is a cult classic and is brought up in VTM fan spaces. I think it was a mistake to call this game a sequel when it feels different than the first game. I genuinely believe that if this game were named something else, it would have decreased the negative press surrounding the game. Something as simple as Vampire: The Masquerade Seattle by Night would have been perfect, or Seattle by Night would have sufficed.

While Bloodlines 2 unlocked a few clans from a paywall before release, the game is still missing clans. I have used this analogy before, but it’s as if Baldur’s Gate 3 came out missing some of the classes like Barbarian, Wizard, or Rogue. Fans would be pissed, rightfully so. In Bloodlines 2, I’m specifically citing that Gangrel, Nosferatu, and Malkavian are missing as playable clan options. Gangrel is a core clan, so why weren’t they included? There was exactly one Gangrel contact, but they were barely in the game, and they were murdered. Cool. For Nosferatu, you might be thinking, “How would this game incorporate a Nosferatu playable clan when they are often deformed? Wouldn’t this break the masquerade?” Excuse me, but Tolly is in the game and gets around perfectly fine. There is no excuse for not being able to play as a Nosferatu. While Fabien is a Malkavian, I don’t think that counts. It would have been interesting to see Phyre and Fabien play off each other had Malkavian been included in the game. It’s a missed opportunity to leave out some of the clans that people love to play.

Grouping a few of the more minor criticisms I had, starting with being able to create a character. Since Bloodlines 2 is based on a TTRPG, I’d expect that I could create my own character instead of playing as pre-generated characters. This didn’t bother me as much, but I’d like to see a true VTM game where I create my character from scratch. Another minor annoyance is that you can’t set a custom waypoint. This would have been helpful while completing the side quests. Speaking of side quests, the autosave feature of the game doesn’t save progress on side quests. This is silly. In one instance, my game froze, and I lost progress on the items I collected. If this could be included in a future game update, it would make the game better.

The final item on my dislike list is the open-ended story. I know I said I like the story, and overall, I do. However, I disliked how the Rebar Killer plot line was open to interpretation. In the game, Fabien investigates a serial killer who takes out several Camarilla contacts (including Rosalind, the other Prince). Fabien finds out that Lou and her ghoul, JJ Campbell, were responsible. In the present day, the killings are repeated, and Fabien is sent to look into it. When Fabien realizes Lou and Campbell’s involvement, his memories are wiped, and as such, this part of the story is unresolved. Was Fabien behind the killings because his subconscious wanted him to remember? Was it Safia using the killings as a distraction for her plan? It feels like a bit of a letdown considering this was a major part of the story, and yet we don’t find out what happens.

Speaking of Safia, I’m so bummed that she ended up being the one responsible. She was my favorite. If it were an option, I would have gladly been under Safia’s mark to take out Lou Graham. Lou Graham sucked, and karma needed to come back for her. If there were a DLC created focusing on Safia’s story and how she got involved with the Sabbat, I’d play it.

This review is going to end, I promise, but I want to talk about the ending of Bloodlines 2. Bloodlines 2 has five, potentially six, endings depending on the choices made. I won’t spoil all the endings, only the one I unlocked. In my ending, Katsumi takes over, and Lou Graham is hinted at being thrown from a balcony to her death. Phyre remains as the Sheriff and works with Katsumi directly. Seattle becomes an Anarch city. Good riddance. The Camarilla was corrupt and needed to be dethroned. While I wish Lou’s death was something that Phyre could witness, it was still satisfying. I read the other endings, and I felt this ending was the one I wanted.

Is Bloodlines 2 a bad game? I don’t think so. I’m glad I got to play it, rather than if the game had been permanently shelved. I would have loved it if Bloodlines 2 were an excellent game; it could have led to people wanting to learn and play the tabletop game. The reception around Bloodlines 2 wasn’t enough to generate interest, and it’s a shame. I’m disappointed because I think this game could have been so much better than it was.

I wanted to share something I have been enjoying recently, and I hope you will enjoy it too. I was browsing through the VTM Reddit (Vampire: The Masquerade), and someone had shared their guide for running a Vampire: The Masquerade game in New Orleans. This guide was created by The-Katawampus, and it’s free to view. I downloaded it and started reading it. It’s fascinating! It’s 194 pages, and according to the Reddit post, it was intended to build upon the lore from an RPG book published by White Wolf in 1994.

I have never been to New Orleans myself, so I can’t say how accurate it is to the region. It seems well researched, though. The guide includes information about New Orleans, Baton Rouge, LA, and Biloxi, MS. It features various locations, regional history, specific NPCs, and more. I’m only twenty-seven pages in as of typing this out, so I still have more than 100 pages to read before I’m done. The fact that this is free to access is incredible, because there’s no doubt that I would pay for guidebooks for Vampire: The Masquerade in different states or countries.

If you’re interested in checking this out, I have linked both the original Reddit post and the link to the Google doc.

I decided to buy Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2. I was on the fence about the game, but once they rolled back the paywall for clans, I wanted to buy it to form my own opinions. While watching gameplay online, the game didn’t seem bad. The biggest catch about buying a game on release is whether it’s going to be buggy. I have played a few hours so far, and I haven’t had any issues with the game freezing or being glitchy. I haven’t finished the story yet, but once I do, I will write a full review. I wanted to share a few first impressions of the game.

I mentioned the atmosphere of the game, but I am enjoying Seattle as the setting. As I walk around with Phyre, it feels like this is what Seattle would be like if it were the backdrop of a World of Darkness game. Speaking of Phyre, she has grown on me as a character. When it was first announced that the main character’s name was Phyre, I thought it was a little ridiculous. I actually prefer Phyre’s Elder name of “The Nomad”. In between playing as Phyre, another character in this story is Fabien, the vampire who talks to Phyre in her head. Fabien was embraced in the 1920s and was investigating a serial killer. I’m curious to see how the story is going to play out and how Phyre and Fabien’s story relates to each other.

One portion of the game that I feel has a learning curve is combat. In my first playthrough, I decided to play as a Ventrue. Ventrue isn’t necessarily known as being a combative clan, but since I’m playing a Ventrue in my Vampire game every other Friday, it felt fitting to play as a Ventrue in Bloodlines 2. When I first started playing, I was dying a lot. As an elder vampire, I felt I could handle a few Anarch ghouls. I couldn’t have been more wrong. One thing that has helped me with combat is dodging attacks. This sounds silly because this should be obvious, but I wasn’t doing that as much. On a successful dodge, Phyre will do a counterattack with a kick. Another thing that helped me is to approach combat encounters as stealthily as possible. There was one mission where Phyre had to rescue some kidnapped ghouls. Once I took them out silently, I took on the bigger ghoul alone, and that made combat a lot easier. For reference, I’m playing on Normal difficulty. The final thing I would add that helped me in combat was using vampiric abilities. One of my favorites as a Ventrue is Terminal Decree. Terminal Decree allows you to command a mortal to kill themselves. Although if you use this on bigger enemies that carry machine guns, they get confused and drop their weapons and forget to pick them up again. This was clutch. I read this tip online, and it worked like a charm. Combat can be difficult, but once I have learned what works, it’s been easier to play through the story.

There are other minor things that I haven’t been loving about the game, but I think I will save that for my review. When I think about my thoughts on the game thus far, I feel Bloodlines 2 was worth the money. The disappointment comes in for me is that this game could have been so much more than what we got. This is something I will touch on more in a later post.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that there would be a new update to Animal Crossing! On top of that, this update isn’t exclusive to the Switch 2, so those who haven’t upgraded yet will still be included. While the update includes better graphics, I’m personally excited for the batch crafting feature. Normally, in Animal Crossing, you can only craft one thing at a time, but this update will allow gamers to craft multiple tools or items at once.

I don’t have anything else to say except that I’m excited! The update is set to release in January of next year.

I was having a conversation with my husband last week, and he mentioned how several retailers are pulling Xbox from their stores. This was news to me, and when I asked him why, he said it was because Xboxs aren’t selling like they used to. After a brief search, Microsoft denied that retailers were pulling Xbox consoles from shelves, but Costco apparently has. I may be out of touch with console gaming in general, but I find it shocking that Xbox isn’t selling well. Will Xbox remain competitive as a console? Or will Xbox become a thing of the past?

Xbox will always have a special place in my heart as my first console was the Xbox 360. I received it as a Christmas present in 2007, and I wouldn’t be the gamer that I am today without Halo 3, Gears of War, and Bioshock. Back in the day, Xbox had exclusive games, meaning games that could only be played on the Xbox. Halo is the most obvious, and I believe Bioshock was an Xbox exclusive at first. Exclusive games help sell consoles. There’s a reason why PlayStation has sold consoles since they have Uncharted, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, and Last of Us. Last of Us technically isn’t a PlayStation exclusive, since it can be played on PC, but it can’t be played on Xbox, so I consider it an exclusive game in that way. If there aren’t any games that are specifically tied to Xbox, why would gamers buy an Xbox when they can play that game on PlayStation, amongst the other exclusive games?

The other thing Xbox had going for it was Xbox Game Pass. Xbox Game Pass is a subscription that allows gamers to download games from the game library. I used Xbox Game Pass quite a bit myself. Xbox Game Pass recently increased the price from $19.99 to $29.99 a month. You might say to yourself, It’s only a $10 price increase, who cares? However, it’s a 50% price increase, which feels like a lot even if the dollar amount isn’t. Gamers were cancelling their subscriptions as a result. Listen, I’m more than happy to pay for subscriptions or services that I feel are worth the money. If something undergoes a price increase without anything to justify it, consumers have every right to cancel. I believe PlayStation might have its own version of Game Pass, but I have never used it, so I can’t speak to it. As someone who has barely played Xbox, I will be cancelling my Game Pass subscription, but not because of the price increase.

I’m wondering what will happen from here? Will Xbox cease to exist? Or come back with new rebranding? It would be the end of an era, that’s for sure.

I started Nancy Drew: Warnings at Waverly Academy several years ago. I never finished it and ended up uninstalling it because so much time had passed since I last played. When I finished Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy, I decided to install and revisit this game. Nancy Drew: Warnings at Waverly Academy is one of my favorite Nancy Drew games I have played.

Nancy is sent undercover to the Waverly Academy for Girls, as some of the girls have been receiving threatening notes from “The Black Cat”. One of the students was hospitalized after someone had slipped something she was allergic to in her food. Her family is threatening to sue the school, so they need Nancy to figure out what’s going on. Who is threatening the students and why?

One of the reasons I liked this game was the number of suspects. At the core of all Nancy Drew games is a mystery. In some games, there are only two or three suspects, so it’s not at all mysterious when one of them is revealed to be responsible. In this game, there are several students that Nancy meets who all seem to have a motive for being The Black Cat. It kept the game intriguing for me because I wanted to find out who was actually behind it all.

Out of all the Nancy Drew games I played, I find Warnings at Waverly Academy to be one of the most straightforward games. There are times when, if you don’t talk to this NPC at this time, you can’t advance in the story. Instead, Nancy has her side quests, and each side quest would unlock the next thing Nancy needs to complete. There was never a time when I felt lost as to what I had to do next, and I have felt that in other Nancy Drew games. I’d add this to a list of Nancy Drew games that would be best for beginners.

I can’t talk about this game without talking about the mini-games. It’s Nancy’s turn at the snack counter, where she makes snacks for the other residents. One of the students wants Nancy to play a game of Air Hockey with her, along with darts. The games were a nice change of pace from the tougher puzzles of the other Nancy Drew games. There’s a memory game on a computer in the library where I ended up getting the high score on. This unlocked an achievement for me at the end of the game.

Speaking of, I like how the newer Nancy Drew games have achievements on Steam. It makes me more likely to replay this game in the future to collect them all. In my first play-through, I unlocked three out of fifteen, so there’s much more that I need to do to complete them all. It’s a nice touch and adds more replayability for me that the older Nancy Drew games don’t have.

Nancy Drew: Warnings at Waverly Academy is a favorite of mine. This would be a game I’d recommend anyone new to the Nancy Drew games to play first. As far as what’s next, I have two games left on my Steam backlog. Once I finish those, I will buy more Nancy Drew games so I can hopefully get closer to saying I have played them all.

The last time I played a Nancy Drew game was last March. It’s been a minute! Last Saturday, I had no plans, which is pretty rare for me. It was the perfect time to get cuddled up under a heated blanket and play a Nancy Drew game. I had two to choose from, so I picked Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy since it seemed like a spookier game. I liked this game a lot! While the mystery itself was a little campy and slightly ridiculous, I found I had fun playing it, which is what matters.

Spoilers for Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy below

Nancy is the maid of honor for one of her good friends. She flies to Ireland and drives to the castle where her friend is getting married. On her way, she sees what looks like a ghost floating on the road. This scares Nancy, and she crashes her car. When she walks to the castle, her friend tells her that her fiancé has gone missing! Nancy decides to investigate, especially because she wants to get to the bottom of what she saw earlier.

This Nancy Drew game had a notebook where you checked off completed tasks. This is so useful. Sometimes these games can be complex, especially when there are puzzles and things to complete, so being able to sort what’s left is needed. In this game, I liked being able to explore the castle grounds. In some Nancy Drew games, Nancy is isolated in one spot. I prefer the Nancy Drew games where I can explore an area. I think it’s more fun and challenging, since there’s more to do.

In this game, I didn’t find a mini-game that I disliked. My favorites were making the drinks in the Irish pub, playing the drums in the Irish pub, and the ring sorting game. I also liked the horse puzzle, which involved sliding the pieces into their corresponding places. I laugh at the playing the drums mini-game because it reminded me of Guitar Hero, or a better analogy would be Rock Band. There would be notes that would glide across the screen, and you would have to hit them at the appropriate time.

I know I just said that there wasn’t a mini-game I disliked, but we have to talk about the Chemicals game. In the latter half of the game, Nancy discovers an underground bunker, and to escape, she needs to set off a rocket. To do so, she needs the rocket key, which is hidden in a chemical fume hood. To get the key, chemicals need to be moved into their appropriate places. What makes this mini-game frustrating is how sensitive it is. If you so much as flick the chemical with the pliers, it causes an explosion that kills Nancy. I wish I could look up the actual stats because I think I killed Nancy at least twenty times. If I’m honest, it’s probably closer to thirty. Once I understood how to play, I was able to move through it quickly. It’s not that I disliked this; I think if there were more instructions on how to play the game, I could have figured it out faster. I’d be curious if this game were to be remastered; that’s one of the first things I’d recommend adding.

The last thing I’ll add is the campy story. It’s revealed that the person haunting the mansion is not a fictional person or a projection. It’s an actual woman who has secretly lived on the property. If that’s the case, how is she flying around? She uses a jetpack. You read that right, this older woman is wearing a jet pack and flying around the property. I can’t help but laugh. There wasn’t really a mystery to solve; the groom ended up finding a secret underground bunker through a passage in the castle and got trapped down there, but no one was really up to anything nefarious. The mystery was unsatisfying, but you know what, it was kind of entertaining, so I’ll give this game that.

Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy was entertaining and one of the more enjoyable Nancy Drew games I have played. The next Nancy Drew game I plan to play is Nancy Drew: Warnings at Waverly Academy. After that, I’ll have to buy a few more Nancy Drew games to keep me busy. I think I’m over halfway through playing through them all, but I have a few more to go.