Hello, readers. It has been a long time since my last post on Vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines. I have been busy with real life work but I finally managed to return to where we last left Mark Flavian.
Having pacified Chunk, Mark begins his siege on LaCroix's tower.
He is packing heat and ready to take names.
And by that, I mean he uses Obfuscate to move around quietly and not go off guns blazing.
There are plenty of guards around ready to fill him with holes after all even if he is packing armor.
Plus they are packing Colt Anacondas too so it will hurt.
Being invisible makes this ambush a cake-walk to handle with only one guard left to be drained dry.
With everyone taken care off, Mark can proceed to use the elevator to climb up the building rather than the stairs.
This is not Ghostbusters after all.
At least the elevator is still working.
This may be easier than Mark Flavian thought. I mean it goes all the way up.
*Hums elevator music to self.
"The elevator stopped."
"Thanks, Lambert."
Guess this would not be so easy after all. It is the final level after all.
Having a maxed out Obfuscate makes this segment a breeze as long as no one sees you.
Being able to instantly kill anyone via stealth and not needing to worry about being seen does make this segment rather dull though.
For the non-stealth builds, these segments are a drag as you either shoot or hit your way through the enemies throughout while for stealth builds, it is rather slow even with a maxed out Obfuscate.
It does get tiresome to sneak up, initiate a stealth kill and watch the same animations over and over again. It is one of the parts of the game I do not enjoy coming back to (like the LA sewers).
Good thing LaCroix employs human guards so that I can replenish my blood supply after using Obfuscate and Dementation powers.
I guess LaCroix either allows for companies to rent out office space in his gigantic tower or it is one of his subsidiary companies.
More sneaking around to be done. When I first played this game, I was a Toreador with maxed out Celerity.
Bullet dodging was so much fun during that playthrough.
Finally, Mark finds stairs to get off this level.
It leads to a door.
That brings us to a regular hallway.
I am not going to continue the bit of overtly describing the screenshot. As much as I do not wish to repeat myself, these last segments do drag on.
Oh, a food court. Neat.
Is that a copyright friendly version of A&W?
At this point, LaCroix's spec op folks rappel in from the ceiling. These guys are packing the upper tier of weapons and can hurt like hell if their shots land.
Unfortunately for them, their equipment does not come with anything that can detect invisible folks like Mark.
So, they go down like the rank and file goons.
How nice that one of the goons here is a regular guard I can feed on. The spec op guards have armor all over so I do not bother trying to feed on them since it can break Mark's invisibility.
A way to the skylight is now available
I cannot recall if this was a spec ops guard or vampire but Mark uses Vision of Death on them.
Due to the lack of blood, Mark finally begins going through his supply of blood packs.
Drinking blue blood for this siege seems appropriate.
If I recall correctly, this refuse pipe is climbable which is what Mark uses to ascend further into the tower.
It is still a long way up to the penthouse and LaCroix.
The refuse pipe leads us to this part of the tower which is being renovated.
I wonder what this is supposed to be once it is finished.
As expected, LaCroix has spec ops present to guard the place.
Good thing Obfuscate is a tool in Mark's belt.
So, this is rather easy.
The level has guards around so Mark sneaks around using Obfuscate.
To mix things up, Mark uses Vision of Death every so often.
Oh hey, something finally happens.
LaCroix Dominates this guard in order to taunt Mark.
Either he has a white rabbit who is late for a trial or LaCroix planted a bomb on this floor.
Since we engaged in conversation, Mark's Obfuscate is gone and he has to fight.
Killing the possessed guard ensures that the Astrolite stays in the room.
Mark makes sure to finish off any other guard in the room.
The only other item of note on this floor is the elevator.
We can bring it up and down via the buttons.
Ah, Mark can plant the explosives here.
To think that some time ago, we were planting Astrolite in a Sabbat warehouse.
Now here we are getting ready to bomb the living daylights out of LaCroix's headquarters.
Now was it the red wire or the blue wire to arm the explosives?
When the timer begins, we can send the explosives up to deal with any welcoming committees that LaCroix may have left for us.
We do need to get out of the bomb's blast radius though.
Full disclosure, I died here once because I misjudged how far I had to be from the Astrolite.
Once the bomb goes off, we can return to the elevator.
The amazing thing for me is how the elevator is still working somehow.
Looks like LaCroix set up a welcoming party for Mark.
Too bad for him that Mark is such a party pooper.
With that out of the way, Mark can finally ascend the tower again.
Now we are on the more complete floors.
The only new piece of gameplay here is that there are doors to unlock.
Had to use Bloodbuff for this.
Unlocking these doors reveal vampires lying in wait to shoot at Mark. These vampires use the Ventrue PC's character models.
Here is the character model for the playable female Ventrue.
And there goes the playable female Ventrue.
The guns they use are no joke but against a sneaky boy like Mark here, they are all but useless.
The rooms also contain extra ammunition in case you shoot your way up here like Neo from the Matrix.
Which is what this entire building siege is likely based on.
As a character with Obfuscate, this is rather pointless but for gun focused characters, the resupply crates are neat.
Along the way, there are these hackable computers.
I hope Mark has enough hacking skills here.
Mark does. There has got to be a less on-the-nose password to use for this computer.
Since it is definitely for hitting the lights.
I am not sure how much of an effect this would have for stealth since Mark can go invisible.
Thankfully, Mark runs into a human that lets him top off on his dwindling blood supply.
And not a moment too soon.
I use Vision of Death on one goon and stun the other.
But I cannot maneuver Mark into a position that lets me stealth kill this bugger.
Guess that means Mark whips out the Dragon's Breath shotgun.
With that sorted out, Mark heads up.
Oh, this room looks different. I wonder why.
Going through that door reveals the Sheriff.
I kinda miss his huge trench coat. Even if taking it off grants him more mobility, he looks kinda silly to me now.
Guess that bit at the beginning where Mark and the Sheriff noticed each other during the tutorial was some kind of foreshadowing or nod to their eventual conflict.
Aside from LaCroix's route where we stupidly side with him.
This is for my Sire, you jerk!
This is the final boss of the game with no speech options to bypass it so I hope that future players remember to invest in combat skills by now.
He has various magical attacks he can use against you.
He also has a melee weapon as well but since it is not clear here, I will snark on it later.
My gun skills are not the best here and the Dragon's Breath rounds are not doing their job as well as they should be.
Now is the right time to use the Elder Vitae since this is the last time Mark will be fighting anything.
Buddy, Greg called: He wants his Buster Sword back.
Free cookie for anyone who gets this reference.
Dealing enough damage to the Sheriff causes him to transform into a giant bat.
The wiki refers to this as Chiropteran Marauder.
Mark displays some cutscene incompetence by letting himself be scooped up by the Sheriff.
The Sheriff smashes his way out of the building and onto the final battleground.
Since he is flying around, it would be difficult to hit the Sheriff as he can dodge any shots while remaining out of reach from melee attacks.
Luckily, he brought Mark out to a place where his greatest weakness is present.
Direct high beams.
With the Sheriff's bat form stunned by the spotlight, Mark goes in to give him a flame bath.
I wonder how he will take to it.
Turns out, pretty poorly. It takes out a good chunk of it though depending on your luck, it may take one or two rounds of stunning him with a spotlight and hosing him with fire.
One thing that the Sheriff is supposed to do in the regular fight is that he would swoop down to the road below and throw cars at you.
How does this not break the Masquerade is a mystery to me and shows how desperate LaCroix is by letting the Sheriff break the Masquerade like that.
If you were to look near the rubble with the Plus Patch, one could find a peculiar weapon that the Sheriff left behind.
Added into the Plus Patch is the ability to pick up the Sheriff's sword.
I have no clue how this would be useful at this stage unless you are playing a melee character and wanted to kill the Sheriff with his own sword.
Another challenge in this fight are the respawning enemies that come to aid the Sheriff during the fight.
Here is Mark trying out the Sheriff's sword for a laugh.
Oh hey, it actually worked.
If I recall correctly, older versions of the Plus Patch require some time to pass before this sequence ends whereas this version required me to go through this door.
This info could be outdated by the time I upload this final chapter.
Passing through, Mark finally reaches the penthouse.
Strange that the area is an Elysium but I guess Mark wants some final words with LaCroix.
After the stunts pulled by your Sheriff earlier, I am pretty sure the Camarilla would want you staked for the blatant Masquerade violations so you would not even have anything after tonight.
Guess LaCroix thinks he has a way out since Mark supposedly has the key to the sarcophagus with him.
He is putting all his chips into his silly Diablerie plan.
One interesting thing to note here is that at the start of the game, if your character attempted to defy LaCroix, he can simply use Dominate on you to impose his orders and you are powerless to resist him.
Now however, something has changed.
You can tell LaCroix is trying but somehow, Mark is resisting it fully despite being several generations higher than LaCroix.
There are several theories as to why this is happening like the Fledgling's generation being lowered by Caine or that killing the possessed guard with LaCroix still in control meant that he took damage from said killing.
It is rather satisfying that Mark's response to LaCroix's attempts is to simply laugh.
But only because he thinks it's kinda pathetic.
But gee, let's indulge LaCroix with something nice.
What to give...
A massive chest wound it is!
Huh, Mark missed. He went for the throat.
Hope he compensates Sebastian for that missed slash.
Ok, that is one chest wound with the stab but that earlier mistake is still there.
Hopefully Mark got an idea on how to compensate Sebastian.
And there we go.
Sure it is a stab in the back but it connects to the wound in front so I figure Mark provided an extension to the chest wound so that ought to make up for that mistakenly slashed throat.
After what Mark did to Ming Xiao, the Kuei-jin are the least of our concerns.
With low Humanity, the Fledgling would have the option to use the key themselves to open the sarcophagus but Mark is somehow a humane madman.
Plus he likely remembers what Beckett said before. He is one of the only two folks Mark can trust.
What is not depicted here is Mark dropping the key on the floor.
I think I failed to press the screenshot key in time but it is not much to see. You can see this part on Youtube in any situation.
Have fun, LaCroix. See if you can make it to the sarcophagus before you bleed out.
For a Ventrue, he is rather frail.
He must have not put any points into Fortitude which would have saved him from the knife wounds.
LaCroix gloats as Mark simply hands over the key.
After all the warnings we got about that sarcophagus, it would be fitting for LaCroix to be the one who faces the consequences.
Hopefully there is no elder vampire sleeping inside. If there is one, perhaps LaCroix would be its first victim.
(Yes, I know what is inside but I am being coy about it for now)
Good luck trying to find an invisible Mark Flavian.
Good luck with that, LaCroix.
Key in hand, LaCroix looks upon his 'prize'.
Impressive that he managed to drag himself all the way up to a standing position.
I wonder why did the sarcophagus have such an intricate locking mechanism.
If it was for a regular Assyrian king, they must have taken their tomb security rather seriously.
Good luck with that, buddy.
I wonder what is Sebastian LaCroix looking upon.
Three guesses, dear reader and the first two do not count.
And the answer is.... C4!!!
The Ankaran Sarcophagus was nothing more than a huge booby trap for LaCroix.
One that he just sprung.
Courtesy of Smiling Jack.
He played all sides and got everyone in a fuss for a Trojan Horse aimed specifically at Sebastian LaCroix.
I just love how Sebastian just breaks here.
Nothing but mad laughter at knowing how all of his schemes were for naught and how he was going to die here and now.
You could almost feel sorry for him. Almost.
The bastard tried to kill Mark over and over again so this is karma.
And with that, LaCroix is finished.
This is certainly going to be in the news tomorrow.
One does not simply blow up the top of a skyscraper.
I am so glad Mark is wearing that dopey hat and coat.
It fits so well with his strut away from the Venture Tower.
And here are the Anarchs.
Guess who did all the work for you lot.
Nines, I killed a werewolf, a Sabbat leader and their base, an entire compound of Kuei-jin and their leader along with LaCroix's stronghold up there.
I survived a Blood Hunt and the Hollywood sewers (sort of).
This is the sort of thing Mark Flavian can do. On a good day.
Which is why Mark is going off on his own.
Mark decides to embrace the life of a lone wolf, escaping into the night.
To be free of the Jyhad and vampire politics.
It is funny that Mark's only response to the Anarchs is to flip them off.
If I were not doing a Lone Wolf run, I have Mark side with the Anarchs since trying to survive alone in the World of Darkness is virtually impossible especially with a price on your head.
But from an in-character perspective, Mark has done a lot for the various factions that he has encountered.
He is mostly aligned with the Anarchs due to shared values but he was never treated as one of them and regarded as a Camarilla lackey but some of them.
He turned his back on the Camarilla and wiped out the local Kuei-Jin group here.
Even after all that, the Anarchs did not come to his aid when the Blood Hunt came.
Only Jack did and Jack definitely had an ulterior motive.
So, after all Mark has done, all Nines can say is that they want to use Mark more?
Sod off.
So, Mark Flavian disappears into the night. A living legend that will face the challenges of the World of Darkness alone.
Perhaps he visits Heather Poe again sometime long after this or he gets killed by a lucky Camarilla assassin soon after.
All we know is that his story is over.
So, we cut away from Mark's perspective.
And see what Jack has been up to.
Oh, he's sitting with someone.
Huh, I wonder who Messerach is.
So, it turns out that Dr. Johansen was right.
Messerach truly was a regular human being that was mummified and the idea that he lived for 250 years from blood-drinking was hogwash.
I wonder which of the doctor's theories was right.
As who said?
Huh, someone else is here.
Guess Jack set this all up with a co-conspirator.
Hang on, isn't that the Cab Driver?
I do wonder what was the point of all this.
Was it all just to kill LaCroix? To destabilize the Camarilla in the area?
At least, Jack seemed to give a shit about Mark Flavian.
Oh, he's talking about the blood of Caine again.
Farewell, Father...
As we end on this shot of the burning Venture Tower, here is my headcanon on who the Cab Driver is:-
I have heard a niche theory that the Cab Driver is a Malkavian who thinks he is Caine and have read that in one of the Gehenna novels, Caine has been stuck in a cave in Kaymakli under the guise of Kapaneus. Some claim that these points disprove that the Cab Driver is Caine.
I disagree.
My idea is the Cab Driver is either Caine himself being present in LA and hiding his power from all eyes with whatever powerful ability he has or the Cab Driver is someone possessed by the real Caine if Caine is still stuck in that cave in Kaymakli. For the latter theory, seeing as Caine is a master of all Disciplines and can create any on the fly, he would have been able to create a Discipline that would allow him to possess any vampire remotely which in this case, would be the Cab Driver.
Via the Cab Driver, Caine could hatch a scheme with Jack to bring the Ankaran Sarcophagus to LA and cause all this chaos for Kindred society. As for why they would do this, I cannot say for sure.
An additional supporting point in favor of my headcanon is how Mark figuratively shits himself upon talking to the Cab Driver at the end as his madness induced insight causes him to view the Cab Driver as the Dark Father himself. In addition, viewing him through Auspex shows he is a vampire and checking the game files for his audio show that they are named with the prefix "Caine".
At the very least, Troika did intend for the Cab Driver to be Caine.
It is a great classic that sadly falls off towards the end due to development issues that led to a lackluster final segment and various bugs. I still love this game even with all that in mind and thankfully, mods have come to mitigate these issues.
So if you do not mind jank and want a good vampire story that knows how to have fun with itself, I highly recommend Vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines. Just make sure to install the Unofficial Patch first. It comes with the GOG version so that would be the version to buy on PC.
Rest in peace, Troika Games. You are dearly missed.
Thank you for sticking with me for so long, reader. I will do my best to finish the other games I am looking at but I am quite busy with work and life so it may take a while.
P.S: I have no interest in Bloodlines 2 especially after they fired Brian Mitsoda. Sure, Hardsuit Labs probably was not the best choice of developer to make that game but I am not favorable towards the Chinese Room either.
I am open to be proven wrong but I have my doubts.
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