"Fine, obscure gems." Part of a periodical series: Great Games You Never Played.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is one of the greatest RPGs ever, sharing many of the same gameplay elements that made the original Fallout games great. This should come as no surprise, considering that a good portion of VTMB's development team were the key designers behind the first two Fallouts. Developed by Troika Games in 2004 using Valve's Source engine, Vampire Bloodlines is a classic role-playing game with a unique gothic-horror setting.
Bloodlines begins just as you're embraced and join the ranks of the blood-sucking undead. As a new vampire, you learn the rules of the Masquerade -- a self-regulating system vampires follow in order to survive unnoticed in the mortal world -- and quickly become the new errand boy for the head of the Masquerade, Prince LaCroix. As LaCroix sends you on a mission to recover the sarcophagus of an ancient vampire lord, you become the focal point in a faction war to seize (or maintain) control of the Masquerade while preventing the vampire Armageddon.
As an RPG, it shines with a heaping serving of available side-quests and countless ways to customize your character. Choosing which vampire clan to be during character creation is one of the biggest choices you'll make, as each one has its own unique playstyle. Lots of quests have different ways to complete them, depending on your skills and how you want to role-play your character, and most of the decisions you make have some kind of tangible consequences. The dialogue is well-written and well-acted, and the atmosphere is just so rich and immersing.
Bloodlines is such a good game that people still talk about it on messages boards, eight years after its release. Fans love it so much that the community has pieced together an unofficial patch that's made it up to a whopping version 7.9. Bloodlines was Troika's last game, as they sadly went out business following production issues and poor sales. So if you've never played VTMB, then you owe it to yourself (and to Troika) to play this instant classic.