Shortly ago I was struggling with my sense of saving money and losing the fight against justifications to drop a couple of car payments on a new camera. A online friend with whom I was discussing it deftly changed the subject (this is the first I’ve thought about the camera since… hmm… NO, damn) to video games. In time, the game that came up was Bloodlines.

Bloodlines was an FPS-RPG based on vampires living in the Los Angeles area in the modern day. It was a good game. Buggy as hell, unfortunately, but a good game. It also saddens the hell out of me. Within a few months of its release, the development studio who brought it to us was dissolved. RIP, Troika.

I would like to make clear that by ‘saddens’, I really mean that the thought of it and the lack of a sequel has nearly moved me to tears on occassion. The sheer awesomeness of the game and the storytelling, for one, is like very few other games out there. Two, the atmosphere: there are games out there that can capture the mood they’re after pretty easily, but few can switch back and forth like this can, and few can scare the hell out of you without making something jump out and try to kill you.

It had bugs, of course. There’s a story behind that which covers a little common gaming politics and the like, so I won’t get into it here, but it was forced to be released before it was finished. Fans, including some former Troika employees, worked on it a great deal even after the studio was dissolved, releasing a lot of unofficial patches.

Anyway. There probably won’t be a sequel, and that’s an incredible shame. It was a great game. It’s about five years old now I think, and shows its age, but it’s still so, so good. There are very few other games out there that have ever been like it.

Now, about that camera….