"Nighthawks" is a HUGE game and if this was a book, I wouldn't be able to put it down...

Thankfully there are no gambling mini-games to get addicted to...

A lot has happened since my first week as a vampire in Nighthawks. As I felt the approach of Act One's ending, I was completely convinced I had to choose one of the many companions I had come to know during the story so far, to come fight the bad guys with me. After all, the lot of them was suddenly gathered at the bar, just waiting for me to recruit them. Turns out, it didn't work that way at all. Initiating the final mission had me kicking out my companion of choice and going to bed, only to have the mission start automatically in the morning with me going at it alone.

Unlocked some new areas in the city...

But it all ended up okay, though with a couple of surprises. This story is full of twists and turns and unexpected events, and new characters keep popping up. Not only full NPC's, but also new companions who raise some of your stats when they join you on your adventures; though I never felt I couldn't accomplish something because I made the wrong choice in who I let tag along. So I played it taking turns, and always asked along the person I had made the least progress with yet according to those stats.

I can't help but think of Xavier in GK2...

The main mission of Act Two didn't really take me that long to prepare for. At least this time I had learned my lesson and I didn't fast forward, but instead played through all available days going on all kinds of side quests. But even then, after a while, it really felt like I had done everything I could do in this act. But with still new nights coming along, I decided to spend my time a bit different: I went underground to map out the entire sewer system, drawing the routes, locations and ladders in a spreadsheet. I was sure it would come in handy someday...

Mission: Accomplished!

But there were plenty of other interesting missions to undertake before I go to that point. The main goal was to earn the trust of two prominent figures in the vampire community, with them voting at the end of the month on my presence in Cradlebridge. It took quite the scavenger hunt to accomplish that, and I uncovered many secrets along the way, with me having to decide how to act on the things I had discovered. Did I make the right choices? Even now I'm not sure, and I have a feeling I will only be able to judge that when the game reaches its conclusion. But that's still a long way off...

Excellent voice work during this sequence!

My favorite mission, however, didn't have much to do with politics: it was about finding out what happened to a little boy that went missing. After locating his house, I went inside to find an exact replica of the building as a doll house, and through some mysticism its history and that of its residents slowly unraveled to me as the dolls moved around and the rooms lighted up one after the other. Sally Beaumont plays a leading role in this story, performing - sorry, but I have no other comparison - as if she was Dolores Umbridge pretending to be Mary Poppins.

Playing an RPG in an RPG...

Another side quest with which to pass the time is Sanguine Nights, an in-game role-playing game you can participate in when you visit the local diner. You have to make choices basically in the same way as in the Nighthawks game itself, but it's the added comments of the other players that make it so memorable. I still would like to play a real D&D game myself some day, to be honest, but I'm afraid perhaps it's been too romanticized in other media...

You can decide not to do this to Becca, but I couldn't help myself...

The highlight of each night to me is always the early evening at the bar. The companions are all gathered there, and talking to one will trigger an interaction between them, where they are usually teasing each other in some way. These bits just feel so... wholesome, for some reason. I love those interactions. They're such a huge contrast to the often violently dark parts of the story. At those moments, they just seem like a group of friends, hanging out together, playing the occasional prank, and it really shows Cobbett's versatility as a writer and his innate sense of humor.

I also have a more revealing screenshot of Lux...

After 25 hours, Act Two is done and I'm confronted with even more vampire characters in Act Three making life in Cradlebridge difficult. Looks like this time it's my job to reconcile different factions in the city, or find a way for them to coexist at least, but I'm not quite sure this time if I'm going about it the right way. Only time will tell, and with Nighthawks, time is exactly what you need, because I'm still only halfway the game, I think, so there's still a lot to discover!

Yeah, I'd like to go cruising again...

You can find Nighthawks on Steam and on GOG!