Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines/Awesome

The Player Character / The Fledgling

• The entire game is one for the player character. Basically, the hero is either a single night old or just a few months depending on how you measure time in the game (it's subjective). Yet, simultaneously, they manage to completely upend the Los Angeles political structure and transform the city across whatever lines they choose to do so.
  • The first crowning moment of awesome is undoubtedly the PC single handedly assaulting a Sabbat warehouse and proceeding to blow it up. The fact it was obviously a suicide mission Lacroix intended to use to dispose of the PC only makes their next encounter all the sweeter.
    • On the contrary, it could also be argued that the confrontation between Gimble and the PC is its own moment of awesome. A human serial killer encounters the ultimate predator.
  • The player character slaughtering their way through Chinatown when they finally put down Ming Xiao once and for all. The fact that you finally get payback for the way she's treated her this entire game is extremely enjoyable.
  • The player character on his Matrix-esque assault through LaCroix's forces up until the final confrontation when you kill his Sheriff is just one long moment of awesome. It's one of the few games I've seen imitate a player's typical reckless but awesome in-game planning.
• A subtle one occurs when the PC finally confronts La Croix for the last time and he tries to Dominate you into doing his bidding. Up until this point, the PCs have been helpless but to do as the Prince commands. Having killed their way through half of Los Angeles' supernaturals, the PC just shrugs off La Croix's final command. This leads to La Croix's Villainous Breakdown.
  • Various theories abound to why the PC is able to do so. This include the PC's Generation going down, them raising their willpower off-screen, and other more esoteric explanations. My favorite theory is La Croix fails simply because he's scared shitless and can't concentrate on mind-controlling the PC.
• All of the endings are awesome in their own way except the La Croix and Kuei-jin endings. However, the Independent deserves special mention. Having been used as a pawn by everyone in Kindred society, the player character simply flips off' the Anarchs when they try and recruit him.
  • Let's be real honest here. That's the REAL ending of this game.
  • The flipping off part is a bit too much personally. Sure, the PC is tired of being jerked around but the Anarchs, particularly Nines, are the reason he/she wasn't killed along his/her sire in the first place. Simply saying nothing and just walking away would have been just as cool. And alienating yourself with the one group that doesn't want kill you after all that isn't very smart either.
  • I can't argue against your own preferences, but I highly doubt Nines cared for you at the beginning. It's mostly about not letting the Camarilla have its way with the situation, even if he believes you shouldn't die, his focus is LaCroix. After the Camarilla recruits you, he tries to pull you into the Anarachs, and I'd wager that letting the Sabbat kill you early on would have given LaCroix some ammunition ("If you are for the people, why aren't you protecting them?"). You are an asset to him. Heck, his final line in the independent ending is "We could use somebody like you!", in an almost desperate tone of voice. And who wouldn't want a Kindred so powerful and talented that they ripped through many Californian Kindred, Sabbat and the Sheriff, who is implied to be the one reason LaCroix didn't get a beat down sooner while being arguably the youngest Kindred in the city.
• During the werewolf chase scene, the player can lure the werewolf onto the observatory and kill it by crushing it to death with the doors. After the Lupine had been hyped up as pretty much invincible, it is really satisfying to do (and you can get extra experience from doing so as well).

Jack

• The entire game is one long Xanatos Roulette by the last person you'd expect. Jack is behind a multiple stage plot to overthrow the Prince. Setting up a fake sarcophagus with C4, Jack manipulated both the Kueijin and La Croix factions into wiping each other out. It's so impressive that Cain himself decides to help him out. Pretty amazing for a guy who looks like a drugged out Hell's Angel.
  • The fact he has a front row seat to watching the show with the Ankaran sarcophagus' resident only helps the awesome.
• When the player is attacked by the Sabbat during the tutorial, Jack shows that There Is No Kill Like Overkill by killing off the two Sabbat vampires. How does he get rid of the first one? He slashes the vampire's neck, stabs him in the back, and breaks the vampire's spine over his knees, right before activating his Potence discipline and sending the second Sabbat flying.

Nines Rodriguez

• Gets two in the game. The first one is when he rescues your PC after they are ambushed by the Sabbat and beaten up. Nines manages to intimidate three Sabbat not by his sheer badassery but by pointing out he has a grenade in his pocket. When one of them calls him on it, he one-shots him over his shoulder. The second Crowning Moment of Awesome is when he apparently rips a Lupine's head clean off.
  • He keeps the Lupine's head on his bed.

The Taxi Driver

• The revelation of his true identity as Caine, The Father of All Vampires. It says a lot about the character that this is the profession he's chosen.
  • If you're a Malkavian character, there's a good chance that upon realising this your character flips out and is reduced to screams and whimpers of "Oh god oh god oh god oh god!". Caine lets you get it out of your system before continuing.

Troika Entertainment

• The development team gets a big crowning moment of awesome for creating the game. Not just because it's one of the best role-playing games of all time but the fact that it also manages to make atmospheric the 2nd Edition world of Vampire: The Masquerade. By that point, the sheer amount of silliness had seriously watered down the horror vibe of the game. However, everything was included in the game and didn't remotely detract from the horror.
  • For example Kindred of the East in all their other dimensional glory, a member of the Nagaraja sect from Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand, and even a ****ing wereshark!
  • After the company got shut down, a number of developers stayed on to make the official patch. Just because they didn't want the game to have all the many glitches it had on launch. Talk about Doing It for the Art.

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