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Vampire:the Masquerade - Bloodlines (PC)
by Danscomp
The party's over, so now take off your face
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Vampire: The Masquerade, Bloodlines is set in a gaming universe where Vampires are very real. Before you start thinking similarities with Sookie Stackhouse, the Masquerade predates it by a decade. It is also one of the best RPGs ever made. ... If you have a PC and like Vampires, you absolutely must have this game - dated or not.
In it, not only are vampires literally everywhere, they are organised. They have taken up battle lines, usually against the other Vampire clans. The Camarilla are the largest clan and they operate by a strict code; The Masquerade. The making of new vampires is strictly controlled. The rules for feeding on humans (don't be seen doing it and don't kill 'em) and displaying vampiric powers to the general public (don't) are enforced by game mechanics.
Kill too many - innocent - humans by feeding on them till they die and "the beast" inherant in all Vampires takes over for good. Humans that are part of combat missions are fair game. Be seen using powers costs you a masquerade point. Loose 'em all, and Vampire hunters will take you out.
There are other clans out there. The Anarchs, who unsuprisingly don't like rules. They're not the bad guys though. Think noble bikers and against-the-establishment types, often disillusioned former members of it. The Camarilla live by rules, each clan within the main clan ruled by a Vampire Elder, one of which in each city is elected Prince.
The main bad guys are the Sabbat. They operate like packs of rapid dogs, consider Humans fair game and revel in revealing their power to anyone around. Although the Camarilla and the Anarchs keep their numbers fairly constant, the Sabbat adhere to no such constraint. They are making new Vampires all the time, and although the Camarilla and Anarchs win most encounters, they face increasing numbers and a war of attrition has begun as they attempt to conceal the worst of the Sabbat Atrocities from Humankind.
Wolf, Nobleman, Blood mage or Nutcase?
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To begin with, you have a choice of seven vampire bloodlines. You can choose directly, or the game can choose for you based on your answer to a series of questions. Each bloodline is believed decended from Cain, and each has unique powers. As the game does not award experience on kills, just achievement of objectives, you are not tied into any one type. Each bloodline has a unique appearance based on sex and a number of "upgrades" based on clothing.
Brujah - Usually members of the Anarchs, Brujah rely on brute power to get the job done. You can stack powers such as unnatural speed (Celerity), Potence (Strength) and Presence (Supernatural Charisma). They get a bonus to unarmed combat, but are more likely to frenzy in combat, which means you lose active control.
Gangrel - Loners and wonderers, Gangrel have animalistic traits. They tend to hunch over and the guys (even white) have dreadlocks. I love these guys. Their powers include summoning (Animalism), Fortitude (Damage resistance) and Protean (Claws and infravision, leading up to a kick-ass animal form). They also frenzy, but gain huge bonuses when they do.
Malkavian - Fruitloops, nutcases, a few gunmen short of a posse. Malkavians are genetically insane. In the game, this manifests in your interactions with people. There's a lot of talking in the game, and your choice of responses can be utterly hillarious. Street signs also talk to you. Sometimes you will get helpful hints this way. Sometimes you will get rubbish. The character on the game case, Jeanette, is Malkavian.
Their powers include Auspex (perception), Dementation (cause other people to go insane) and obfustagate (Invisibility). You also get access to some truly trippy outfits.
Nosferatu - What it says on the tin. These guys look like Nosferatu. The mere sight of them by humans in a non-combat situation casuses an automatic Masquerade violation. As a result, while other bloodlines can walk among humans, they spend most of their time in the shadows or underground. It can be challenging because of this to play as one.
Their powers include Animalism, obfustagate and Potence. They also get more blood from feeding off rats (yes, really) than other bloodlines do. Their appearence can never be greater than zero. No charming humans into feeding off them. No chance to talk your way into information. You will have to resort to lock picking and hacking.
Toreador - The pretty vamps. Think Brad Pitt in Interview with a Vampire. Other bloodlines often find them horribly pretentious and as shallow as a puddle. Their powers include Auspex, Celerity and Presence. Humanity rewards for protecting humans are doubled. Costs for killing innocent humans are also doubled.
Tremere - Blood mages. Warlocks. Generally untrusted and feared by other bloodlines for their unique power, Tremere can be a hoot to play. Powers include Auspex, Domination (mind control) and the almighty Thatamurgy that can cause those about them to vomit blood or even explode. None of their physical stats can rise above 4.
Ventrue - Your traditional I-Vant-to-Suck-your-blood Vampire. Usually of noble birth, they can be haughty and spoiled. They tend to be the rulemakers and are never far away from positions of influence or power. They are unique among the bloodlines in having no powers that will cause a masquerade violation. They have Dominate, Fortitude and Presence. They are also the most likely gaming choice to resort to guns. They cannot feed off rats, and feeding off vagrants often causes spontaneous vomiting.
There are a whole host of skills that you can also invest points in aside from powers. You can boost your unarmed or armed skills, firearms, dodge, standard perceptive skills, hacking, finance (lowers item costs) and others including appearance. Books are also scattered throughout the game.
Your powers cost blood. You can replenish it through buying (or finding) different grades of blood bags or feeding. If in a non-combat situation, you must not be seen feeding. You can ambush someone or charm them into willingly letting you, in which case people assume heavy petting!
Dead by dawn
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You begin life in L.A., sired by a Camarilla member with no permission to do so. Your first waking hours are spent in front of a council debating whether to execute you or not. It is no spoiler to say that they decide against it. You may think this a long review (the longest I've written), but I've barely scratched the surface. The game is extremely violent. When it says 18 on the cover, it means it.
The plot is excellent, the characters you encounter well thought out with some marvellous voice acting. It has great, atmospheric locations with some great jump out of your seat moments, and varied quests. The graphics were wonderful at the time. They are still servicable now. The score is good, if not great. The length of the game is very generous, even before you factor in the myriad subquests. It also has multiple endings.
Released in 2004 on the same day as Half-Life 2, it was eclipsed by that Game's huge success as well as some intial bugs that were subsequently fixed. It never got the recognition through sales that it and the talented team behind it deserved, though it has gone on to become an absolute classic.
New physical copies tend to be expensive (£60!) though used copies abound for under £20. If you are worried about getting a duff disk set, Games downloads direct offer it for the same price.
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Die Hard Trilogy 2 (PC)
by DooYou
John McLane is back! The maverick cop with a wise-crack for every occasion returns in the sequel to one of the best all-action, arcade style games.
Die Hard Trilogy 2 takes everything that made its predecessor great and adds to it. The different gaming styles of the first game remain but they are linked by a cohesive story and ... cinematic scenes. During the course of the game you will indulge in some third-person style adventuring, some high-octane extreme driving and some gun-game style shooting. Each style is an excellent example of the genre with the third-person section offering much more in the way of puzzle solving than the similar section in the original game.
But don't worry action fans - the Die Hard name means big explosions, big guns and villainous terrorists. Las Vegas is the target this time as a consortium of international terrorists hold the city to ransom, threatening to turn it into a huge crater in the middle of the Nevada desert. If there is one man that can stop them it's John McLane.
The game flips between the different sections depending on what is happening in the story. For example, you might be playing in third-person when you reach the end of the level to see a bad guy jumping into a car and driving off. Now it's time for a car chase. Each section is as polished and slick as you would expect, in fact they are often better than many full games. The PlayStation version really pushes the console's performance with graphics that show how far the PlayStation has come. The PC version, of course, looks as good as you would expect it to being as old a game as it is.
Enemy AI has been completely overhauled, as has their animation. They now have five different damage areas so that when you shoot them you had better make sure they stay down; there is nothing worse than being killed by a terrorist you only shot in the leg the first time.
Die Hard Trilogy 2 expands on the action packed first installment without loosing any of the excitement. it's as good as being in a Hollywood spectacular.
So put on your vest and get your cheeky smirk ready, it's time to go to Vegas! Yippie-ki-yay!
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Team Fortress 2 (PC)
by RemnantField
Preamble
Now, to get this settled, we all enjoy the first-person shooter genre of the video gaming community if you play avidly, at least, the majority of us do. What's in the current market today is vanilla, it's Call of Duty or Battlefield, and even the most recent, HALO 4. So, how to sum them up? Well, I have played Call of Duty, ... and sure it really is satisfactory for a while. Then you play online, and once you get through all the game modes, you ask, what now? What do I earn? Well, you have to prestige, or do whatever you want afterwards, brag about what level you are. I honestly have no idea how it works, so let me introduce to you, Team Fortress 2.
Graphics
Look at the front cover of the DVD copy. It should be noticeable. You should see a slightly bearded fatso with biblical amounts of ham in his fists. You see a hardhat guy, a HAZMAT psycho, and some western assassin. These are only 4 of 9 unique and distinctive characters you, the player, can control as you make your way into the game. So now you could ask if you did, what's with the massive fists of the mini gun man? Why is everything so shiny? Why so much red? Well, do you know the company named Valve, the geniuses behind TF2? They're art style was not that much of a priority, but that NEVER meant that they were lazy. Treyarch, Infinity Ward, Dice, Activision, and whatever other companies of award winning games were very balanced, they perfected models, resources, skyboxes, dialogue, so many in-depth developer concepts. Valve really focuses on gameplay, and that is what makes them so unique. Half-Life was their most famous series of FPS games, and was extremely popular during 1998 and later. It still is, about 10 million copies or maybe less by 2012, yes, that is an estimate. The games graphics obviously would've been neater, I didn't really pay attention to 1998 graphics, but what made this game so different was that there were absolutley no cut scenes, the whole game was played while in first person view. There were chapters title as such, and the setting of the game was Black Mesa and was in the future. Other games made by Valve are developed by the company's main 3D game engine, Source.
Gameplay
The way that Team Fortress 2''s default GUI is obviously similar to Half-Life's H.E.V. suit's GUI, different font, but same GUI. As I mentioned before, there are 9 different classes, they have no actual name, but they are named as: Scout, Soldier, Pyro, Demoman, Engineer, Heavy, Medic, Spy, and Sniper. As you can see, their names suggest what they are experts in and the point of each class is to use their abilities (special or not) to your advantage. There is also no Deathmatch thing like in the more popular FPS franchises, this game primarily uses communication and the classes to advance toward points and capture them. Different gamemodes include: Attack/Defend, Control Points, Payload, (Blu (Builders League United) moves a bomb from their spawn to a certain place) Payload Race (same idea, but both teams race their bombs to points) and even a co-op mode called Mann VS Machine where a team of 6 players battle 8 waves of robots and prevent them from deploying a bomb.
There is taunting, and you could even kill when taunting! (Taunt kill)
Throughout your playtime, as long as your item server is okay, you are able to find items that you can equip on any characters as long as the weapons/hats/misc/etc. items are wearable by a certain class. There is a cap on how much you find each week, my average item count from what I remember is 8-11 per week.
Updates
A key aspect about why a Team Fortress 3 hasn't been made is because Valve updates Team Fortress 2 and mainly has themed updates, like Halloween became Scream Fortress, December Holidays became Australian Christmas, but sometimes Valve makes an patch/update that has no holiday relevance, for example, Mann vs. Machine! Not only is it a game mode, but new types of weapons called Botkiller weapons, as well as some outfits that were robot themed. I thought that MVM is one of the most memorable updates Valve has ever made. It is almost lie another different game!
Overall Rating: 9/10
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