I had to take a good, long shower after feeding the bomb to Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines late last week, and here’s why:

VtM is an RPG based on White Wolf Press’ extremely popular d20 game of the same name. And by extremely popular, I mean it’s a prerequisite for anyone who wears black lipstick and lives in a dank basement with all of their black-lipstick-wearing friends. The people I knew who played the d20 version of the game wore black trenchcoats to school everyday, watched “The Crow” religiously, and scorned all thoughts of happiness and joy. You might say it’s a little goth inspired.

This is one CRAZY ho.

In the game, you play a “recently embraced” vampire caught up in the vastly complex machinations of the various vampire factions. As the game progresses, you unravel a complex tale of betrayal and manipulation centering around a mysterious sarcophagus believed to hold the remains of the original vampire himself, Caine. Along the way, you can choose to ally yourself with a handful of various conflicting forces by accepting or declining various missions, thus encouraging replay by actively aligning missions as either/or choices. Gameplay is a mixture of 1st and 3rd person perspectives and features maybe 15-20 hours of play in one go-round. The graphics are hum-drum, the combat requires a lot of button mashing, and the game is FULL of programming glitches, but what really sets this one apart is the dirty-dirty.

This being a vampire game, I was expecting a mix of sex and violence - both of which are a hallmark of that particular legend. However, I was a little unsettled by how close the two were tied together. I’ve done my share of GTA-time, killing gangbangers and soliciting prostitutes, but I’ve never had the unique experience of going to a goth club, seducing a co-ed, and then drinking her dry because my health bar was low. Nor have I ever had a slave who’d whore herself out and bring home a John so I could drink him dry. Both of which, as you may have guessed, you can do in this game. This game has a ‘Mature’ rating and deserves every iota of it: the violence didn’t bother me and the sex didn’t bother me, but making the two intrinsically linked did bother me. It made me feel funny. And not in a good way, like when you climb the rope in gym class.

Pimp suit not required, but encouraged.

There are some redeeming features to this game; the dialog options are extensive and the character interactions are some of the best I’ve seen. These are perhaps the best features of the game and that’s important: digging for information via conversation is where you’ll spend most of your time. The story is intriguing and lots of side missions keep things fresh, but I’m going to have to give this game the “no replay” tag. I went through it once, but I don’t feel any need to go again even though it’s designed to be played from different angles; it’s no surprise I picked this off the used bin. If you’re an RPG whore like I am and you aren’t prone to mysogyny it’s an experience to have, but if RPG’s aren’t your passion you should save your money for other things.

Sometimes I get an itching, burning sensation. Mostly burning.