Vampires are pretty cool, but you know what is cooler? Vampires in a cyberpunk setting. At least, that is what Microprose thought when they created BloodNet.

The premise is quite simple, you play as Ransom Stark, a private eye living in a futuristic Manhattan. One night's flirting with a cute girl ends up going south as he is bitten by a hundred-years-old vampire cleverly called Abraham Van Helsing. Stark escapes but is doomed to slowly turn into a fully fledged vampire. The objective of the game is simple: destroy Van Helsing and find the ultimate icebreaker to destroy once and for all the vampire “virus”. It's mostly Shadowrun with a touch of World of Darkness.

Being half-vampire, Stark has a humanity and a bloodlust pool. You must drink blood to keep the bloodlust under control, but you lose humanity when biting humans. The story and the dialogues are intriguing and usually well-done. Ransom is a funny character, the supporting cast is extremely colourful and the vampire/cyberpunk concept eventually grows on you.

BloodNet uses a lot of stats: combat, hacking, social but also vampire-related skills. Party members can be enrolled to expand your panel of actions. The controls are point-and-clicks with gigantic environments and very tiny pixelated characters evolving through them. It's not very good-looking and some cutscenes use those god awful old early 3D renders. You can also hack into the cyberspace to access “pits”, private sectors through specific keywords to solve major puzzles or reach sub-quests.

Combat is awful and badly explained. It's a basic turn-based system, but some stats don't make sense and others are useless. For example, initiative never works and damage ratings seem completely random.