Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines/Shout-Out
Examples of Shout-Outs in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines include:
- There are references in the game to a number of classic and not-so classic vampire movies including Nosferatu, The Lost Boys and of course Dracula. For example, one of the options when speaking to the bartender is "I don't drink... alcohol", a clear reference to Bela Lugosi's Dracula. Additionally, the Camarilla ending is a Shout-Out to the final scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark, which itself was a Shout-Out to Citizen Kane.
- One of the weapons the player can use is a severed arm.
- Gorgeous Gary Golden, a former movie star, loves to make these.
"Forget it, boss. It's Chinatown." |
- In the Hell Hotel level, obviously an Homage to The Shining, the ceiling has collapsed right in front of Room 217 (which was replaced in the film by Room 237).
- The dialogue option of "Did I just fight a landshark?" is a pretty obvious reference to the old SNL skit.
- The ship the Elizabeth Dane is the name of the Leper Ship in John Carpenter's The Fog.
- There are several references to being shot like "Old Yella".
- The flamethrower runs on burninator-brand fuel.
- In a minor side-quest in Hollywood, LaCroix asks you to make a critics review of an Italian restaurant to be a bad one. If you are playing Malkavian and have enough dots in Dementation discipline you can use "Maggots. You are eating maggots." Line from '87 movie about vampires: The Lost Boys.
- You even get to lampshade it in a subsequent dialog choice:
Tommy Flayton: This place will pay for this! As sure as my name is Tommy Flayton, they'll never serve food in this town again! |
- Mitnick the computer hacker is a reference to Kevin Mitnick, previously one of the world's most notorious social engineers. He now runs an IT security consulting service.
- The clock in the Player Character's apartment had a brand name printed on it, said brand name being "Zaphod".
- There's also a reference to Traffik: a cool, afroed Jive Turkey sends you on a mission to retrieve a briefcase, with "beautiful" unknown contents.
- There's a reference to Futurama in the Santa Monica health clinic: if you examine the patients' files on the doctor's computer, one of them suffers from frequent bouts of sexlexia.
- You can also use Zapp Branningan's classic pick-up line--"I find the most erotic part of a woman is the boobies"--on a would-be Blood Doll in Hollywood. It works about the same as it did for Kif.
- Also in the Santa Monica health clinic's computer, you find a listing of doctors, including a Dr. Roberts, who has never lost a patient. The file notes that "No one can succeed like Dr. Roberts."
- And, of course, the Italian Giovanni's desire for an "endless night".
- Perhaps more subtly, if you choose to save Heather Poe by giving her your blood, the cutscene goes through the exact motions of the scene in Interview with the Vampire (The Movie) where Lestat Embraces Claudia.
- There's also a one armed man named "Gimble" who turns out to be a serial killer. Sound familiar?
- "Nobody expects the Malkavian Inquisition."
- A radio ad for a brand of butter called "I Thought it was Margarine" (all the crappy taste of margarine, with all the saturate fat of butter).
- When enduring the Mandarin's experiments, his verbal notes call the squad of commandos you kill "The Belmont Squad".
- The experiment right before that, which tests if a cross can repel you, is given the name of Dr. Van Helsing from Dracula.
- Malkavians are full of this:
- "How long have they raged against the machine?" when asking Jack about the Anarchs.
- Malkavian to the bail bondsman: "Are you the key master?"
- The Malkavian Player Character has an option of replying "I SEE DEAD PEOPLE" when asked by Beckett if they have encountered anything out-of-the-way.
- Malkavian to Damsel after you agree to spy on LaCroix: "I heard a rumor that he was into field hockey players."
- Dominating one of the employees in the blood bank leads to him saying that he feels asleep.
- When a Malkavian frees Carson from Gimble's prison, we get this little gem:
- Though considering the nature of Malkavians in general, that particular one may also be referring to The Shining, especially since the player just rescued a man from a psychopath when that particular reference occurs. There's also a dead psychotic in the room (And Gimble), and the bounty hunter is called Carson (as in Johnny Carson, who was always introduced on the Tonight Show with that phrase. Carson does not appreciate you mentioning this.
- If you don't see the reference in the ghoul called Romero with zombie killing as his profession, you really need to read up on your homework. His job is also the plot to Cemetery Man.
- Malkavian seducing a woman in the Asylum: "I'm not fully functional, but programmed in multiple techniques."
- The Malk response to finding out the blood bank freezer password from Phil (1969): "Just like the summer."
- A male Nosferatu Player Character's default outfit consists of white pants, a codpiece and black boots.
- When you rescue Kiki from the Tong, the first thing she asks you is "Aren't you a little short for a Tong?".
- If you turn off the power for the house of drug dealers at the beginning of the game, one of them angrily shouts that he was about to unlock "Sheng Long".
- The Katana looks like Connor MacLeod's sword.
- One of the TV news reports involves a giant squid-like creature being washed up on the shoreline at Providence, Rhode island.
- If you talk to the group of thin-bloods at the Santa Monica pier, you can, with sufficient Persuasion, convince one of them that either a) killing the head vampire will turn him human again or b) that a full blood transfusion will do the trick.
- If you log in to Carson's computer, the messages "Grumble Grumble" and "It's a secret to everybody" appear at the top of the screen.
- A very subtle one in the Nosferatu warrens. One of the old ledgers makes reference to three missing workers named Whitman, Price, and Haddad.
- A vampire woman named Jeanette owns a night club and has a superior named LaCroix... twelve years after Forever Knight.