It is, by all accounts, established fact that there is a skin of a Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines character unlockable in the PC version of True Crime: Streets of LA. I say this because we have 1. a 2004 GameSpot article reporting as such,
and 2. the PC manual includes special thanks to Troika and White Wolf, the developer and IP holder for Bloodlines.
Now, going by every cheat site under the sun, the character in question is Jeanette, which would make a lot of sense, seeing as she is effectively the cover girl for Bloodlines and maybe its most well-known character?
As far as I can tell, there is no screenshot of Jeanette or any Bloodlines character skin in True Crimes anywhere on the Internet. Okay, fine, I'll nab the game and get a picture myself. Wouldn't be the first time.
Depending on the site, you either unlock the skin (usable in the game's multiplayer mode, by the by) by simply inputting a license plate number at save creation, or killing every zombie in a certain stage, then inputting a license plate number at save creation.
I am here to report to you, unambiguously, that the first is a giant fucking lie. You can't just punch in "VAKLAM". So that leaves the second method, and I'm here to report to you that I've tried like five or six times, am 60% sure that I pulled it off at least once, and have had absolutely no success in getting it to pop. I did grab a 100% save file from the net to avoid having to play enough True Crimes to naturally get to that point, which may have compromised some checks, but the point is, I cannot feasibly unlock what I am assuming is a Jeanette skin myself.
Which means barring someone going through the effort themselves of either 1. playing the game normally, successfully performing the second unlock method, and uploading a screenshot or 2. extracting the model and/or textures from the game files, I basically have to take it on faith that Jeanette is in the game, somewhere, and I just can't grab visual proof of it.
It's not the first time something like this has happened. This does not make this incredibly low-stakes predicament any less personally frustrating.
The only silver lining I can offer from all of this is an "Extra Special Thanks" I saw in the PC manual.
So, I edited this a while ago thinking I'd make a Bloodlines vid for it and it never ended up happening, probably never will. BUT! Since I really like the end product for the sound, I'm posting anyways.
I mean, geez, it just makes sense. Power should be redistributed amongst all of us, not just the few. Communism would actually work for Kindred, where it fails with humans. It's just common sense, you know?
i know gary sending the fledgling emails saying 'hey if u do this thing i'll give u a sexy pinup poster of one of these in-game ladies' is just a game mechanic to explain how the fledgling gets the pinup posters of the game's female characters. i know it's just 'we put these women on the cover of the game to sell it to dudebros and we're going to put sexy posters of them in-game as well.' it's just early-2000s misogyny. i Get That.
but it's also absolutely in-character for gary, and it is much funnier to include 'he just has pinup posters of these ladies in la' in my readings of his character.
anyways vtmb remaster that keeps the 'gary fetch quests for the pinup posters' thing ONLY if we then get another quest that's 'tell damsel about gary trying to sell a nude poster of her and let her loose in the warrens'