Part 58: II - Back In Control

Alright, we're back, this time in wiiiiidescreen! Unbeknownst to me, the mod seems to have included some sort of widescreen patch, which ended up squishing the game. So now we're at maximum resolution shrunk down to the same height, but with more width, of course. Let's see how this turns out. Anyway, we have things to be doing, as this update will be going through most of the Santa Monica content in one fell swoop - the quests that don't have any really interesting or major changes, that is.

To start off, we grab three blue blood bags, a normal watch, 100 bucks and some Desoxyn. Apparently, Desoxyn is some type of methamphetamine, particularly used against ADHD and obesity in extreme cases. Fuckin' A. The fuck would that even do for a vampire? I'll have to use that at some point - so far, I've just been treating it like any other vendor trash.



Here's one of those simple, yet far-reaching changes - Blood Buff now raises stats by 3 instead of 2, making lock picking that much easier. After putting the 3 XP we got from the tutorial into Security, we can already open the doors in the apartment.



The room we'll later need to check out for the Southland Slasher/Muddy questline only has a fancy watch. The other one...









Note the more detailed blood textures.

We find some interesting stuff here - some raw human flesh (which would be useful if we were playing Nagaraja or Tzimisce, but as is it's just something we can pawn off for a few bucks), 75 bucks, some morphine (which will immediately come in handy when we go to Mercurio's) and a new melee weapon, the "felling axe". I love the felling axe, simply because its name is infinitely more than a boring fire axe.



On the way out, I take the time to check some item descriptions. Judging by this, I guess it just restores some health?



No, I don't know why the Morphine bottle has a Research requirement. It just has, shut up and live with it. Also, I don't understand how exactly you can fail to read the big letters right there. Makes Victoria here look a little bit stupid. And yes, even though we don't know what Morphine is, we can still give it to Mercurio just fine. Internal consistency? What's that?









Here's some more descriptions. They strangely switch between little quips like in the original game and what could just as well have been copy-pasted off Wikipedia.



You know, we are a bit short on blood...

You're not exactly what I wanted, but choosers can eat beggars.



And then I remembered that bums are literally worthless to Victoria, since the Giovanni flaw, which I must correct as not being "having to drain 50% of the victim's blood meter before seeing any benefit", but "having to drain for X seconds before seeing any benefit", means that it's impossible to get any blood from them. God damn. At least with Ventrue, you could take a chance if you were desperate, but with Giovanni, you're just straight up shit outta luck.

Anyway, we step out and see Mercurio dragging himself into his apartment.



We then use Intimidate on this guy for some quick cash, then force him to give us his fancy watch... only we don't actually get it. Boo.



On our way to Mercurio, we see more of those new blood textures...



...and I'm really not sure what I'm supposed to be seeing here. Did some of his internals spill out or something?



Nothing new with Mercurio, though we can save some time by giving him the Morphine right away. Next stop, the beach house.



Note the shoulder pads on this guy here - that's actually an item we can use after we pilfer it off his dead body. It's one of the "equipment" items that has a benefit and a drawback, meaning that whenever you need to remove the drawback, you need to drop the item, remember where you left it, do whatever you needed to do, then retrieve it again. Shit sucks. This one in particular blows because it's a bonus to Bash and Lethal Soak (something we want in combat) and a malus to Appearance (something we don't want out of combat). Since combat and non-combat normally take turns fairly regularly in this game until the endgame, this leads to a whole bunch of dropping and picking-back-upping.

Also, during this playthrough, I figured out a fourth solution to the Astrolite problem (gatz listed three in update 4 - 1) Killing everybody, 2) Sneaking, cutting the power, then stealing it, and 3) Talking). It's suboptimal, since it means you won't be getting the money, but it's very convenient. You know how it works? It's simple:





Just smash the window, grab the Astrolite, and fucking leg it. Of course, since I want to give Mercurio his money back and get some goodies from inside the house, so...



Potence-fueled axe murder spree engaged! After clearing everything out, the goodies we grabbed are the shoulder pads, an assortment of melee weapons and the .38 pistol, some vendor trash, Mercurio's money and a book that raised Firearms, which is always welcome.



On the way back, I get the thinblood quest going, make a mental note to pick up some blood to sell to that gullible fuck and grab the "holy stake".



Mercurio gets his money back, setting up a future business relationship that's going to be great, I'm sure of it. I however make a bit of a mistake by forgetting to ask him about what a ghoul is. This becomes relevant a bit later. We also get the tip about Trip selling weapons, so let's go check out what his inventory's like.



Note that extra security guard that's there for absolutely no reason. This mod seems to do a lot of that - just add more people to fill space. Not really complaining, it just seems weird.



Trip's arsenal is just as shit as it is in vanilla. The machete might be interesting, but we already have the axe and will have the katana by the end of the update, so it's kind of pointless. I mostly just drop off all the shit I'm not going to be using. One quick detour back home to pick up the werewolf blood quest and we're off to the hospital.



Bitch, move, I've got important vampire shit to be doing and can't deal with your "wait in line" crap right now.



"Stay with me, I can save you!" ...except we can't. Turns out that if you don't learn about ghouling in some way, either through Mercurio or Knox, you can't actually do anything and you have to wait until you learn about ghouling, and only then can you actually do it. It makes sense, but if you're just going through the game after already having gone through it, this could end up tripping you up and making you think your game was suddenly bugged. Guess that's something for the future then. Anyway, we go through the standard claptrap - blackmail the doctor, loot the place for some meds, drop down to the blood bank to pick up three packs to later sell, and then head up to grab the werewolf blood.



In doing so, this jackass gives me a hard time. I talk to him, dominate him to make him open the door to the controlled substances, he turns around, turns around again, tells me this area is off limits, I have to dominate him again to make him give me his keys, he then goes to open the door to the controlled substances...



...and then I get tired of his shit and eat his face off.



For some reason, there is raw human flesh in the medical safe. I don't want to know.



Finally, we grab the werewolf blood, but we're not going to be turning it in, oh no... we have plans for that blood. Next stop, the diner, to pick up some extra cash and advance that que-



...uh, what?



I...
Don't ever speak to me again, do you understand... Go-o-od...



And then he kicks the door and just leaves. Well, judging from a bit of looking around, it seems to be that this was supposed to be a reference to the Kurgan from Highlander. In fact, these dialogue lines seem to be directly ripped from the movie - I've never seen it and don't have any quick reference material to check this suspicion, but the audio for these lines sound like they were taken from a movie. This character has no other lines of dialogue and probably will never show up again. This is what we're working with, folks.



On my way to pick up the quest with Carson and Gimble, I notice this truck here. Was this always here? I can't remember a big tanker truck being here before.



Looks like Kilpatrick also stocked up on security. Man, looks like crime must be up. Anyway, we pick up the quest and move on, pick up the stuff from Rolf Toten's car, then make our way to the hospital again to free Lily.





The football pads make these scenes so much better, and the wide-eyed stare the Giovanni have going all the time is great as well. Nothing else really notable. Next stop, the Asylum. I waited to go there to make sure I had enough Seduction for the best path with the Jeanette/Therese situation. That, and I wanted to get the two blood dolls here, since it seems like a lack of blood is going to be a running theme here.





Jeanette's outfit seems to have changed a bit, but nothing really major, just some color changes as far as I can tell. And then we talk to...



...to...



...Christ, Knox, what happened to you? Man, you look like a right twat now. That look really doesn't suit you. Anyway, we pick up the Asian vampire quest, get Knox to tell us how ghouls work for later and make our way upstairs to trigger the Ocean Hotel quest...



...after getting down on the dance floor, that is.



That, and talking to the bartender because I forgot about that. Looks like alcohol consumption is up too, judging by the second bartender - maybe a direct relation to crime being up?



Do mirrors actually work in this game? I've forgotten. And if they don't, how does the Lasombra flaw work? In fact, how does it work in general? What areas are there that have a lot of mirrors that you'd have to avoid? Are there any that are crucial to completing the game? Are there alternatives for those areas? Hm, I'll have to try and keep an eye out for that - never thought about it before now.



Anyway, the conversation with Therese goes off without a hitch and we go, grab the key to Foxy Boxes...



...ghoul Heather on the way out and make our way to fight the Kuei-jin guy.



This fight is mostly unchanged, though his weapons have changed, which might explain why he kicked my ass pretty hard despite having Defense 5.



This is just the replacement for the first submachinegun - seems better than the vanilla version from what I could tell, but ammo is scarce.



But here's the kicker - we don't get the weaker katana from this guy, we get the proper one, which gives our melee capabilities a pretty nice boost. Sure, our Melee skill still blows chunks, but that can be fixed fairly quickly.



Finally, we get our XP for the Lily quest and sell this guy some crap to make some dosh.



And here's a shot of our character sheet at the end of the update. I've been trying to do a bit of a balanced build in the beginning, and will specialize on combat and disciplines later on, but we'll see how that goes. Next time, we'll look at the quests that had some more substantial changes made to them and maybe get to Downtown, who knows?