RECOMMEND - Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines - I Blame Twilight for this Game's Lack of Success

Name: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
Developer: Troika Games
Publisher: Activision
Platform: PC
Released: 16/11/04

It's getting to be that time of year again. It's getting dark, cold, a little spooky. As a rule, mainly because I'm a "Big Jessie", I don't play scary games. So I thought I would recommend one of my favourite PC games that deals with vampires, werewolves and ghosts. Scary enough, right? Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (Hence forth to be known as VTMB because screw typing all that up however many more times) was the first PC game I bought with my own money. Now I'd like to claim that the idea of being a vampire with cool powers, stalking the streets of L.A. was what attracted me to this game in the first place. It wasn't. It had an 18 certificate and a sexy vampire lady on the cover. (Hormones make a growing lad make ridiculous decisions) As it turned out, the choice to buy the game was fully justified. Stalking the night-time streets of downtown L.A. with vampire superpowers was way better than my limited intentions could have hoped for.

You start of where all good RPGs start you, the character creation screen. Here you get to pick whether you went a man or a woman and, most importantly, what type of vampire you wanted to be. The selection was pretty impressive, each type having traits that made them distinctive enough to want to try a few before you really got into the game. You get to choose from seven delicious flavours of vampire clan. Each clan comes with their own wee quirks and each have a set of Disciplines that grant you special abilities. (And yes, I'm about to nerd about all of them)

• Brujah - These are the brawlers. If you're wanting to "tank" your way through the game, smashing villains in the face with your undead fists then this is the character for you. The downside, of course, being that you aren't too smart. Lock picking and hacking aren't your thing and forget about talking your way out of an argument.
• Gangrel - A bit more of the same with these guys, but with a bit of added magic. The Gangrel have impressive physical strength and are also capable of summoning swarms of birds, bugs, bats and wolves with Animalism to attack their enemies. (No, not a "swarm" of wolves. It was just a poorly structured sentence)
• Malkavian - Possibly my favourite clan. If you start as these guys then your character is technically insane. That's a bit unfair. You see the world in a different way. All of your dialogue options are like bizarre snippets from a 13-year-olds emo poetry book. Characters you interact with acknowledge this and tend to either make fun of you or give you a wide berth. For me, it enhanced an already interesting story. They get the Dementation Discipline. This ranges from making people run in fear from you to causing everyone go berserk and attack one another. You know, fun times.
• Nosferatu - Very much like the 1922 film of the same name, the Nosferatu are disfigured and are masters of creeping around in the shadows. They actually have to. The game punishes you if you perform too many supernatural acts in front of "normal" people. There's nothing more supernatural than a Nosferatu rocking up the street with his hunchback and 3" claws. Luckily, there is a sewer system in the game that has an exit close to or inside most of the buildings you need to get to. These guys are for a proper stealth run.
• Toreador - These are the exact opposite of the Nosferatu. Go one of these guys if you enjoy talking and manipulating people to do your bidding. Like the Malkavian they get a few bonus dialogue options. For being beautiful and charismatic, not coocoo for coco pops. To be honest, they're the closest to playing as a regular human as you can get. (Except with increased strength and issues with sunburn) Still fun though.
• Tremere - Mages! They're mages that use blood magic and to be honest I would pick them anytime I wanted to do an offensive run because the blood magic, Thaumaturgy, is the fucking tits when you level it up. You make guys explode. With your mind. Like some sort of meat tornado! I don't have to sell you on it more, I had you at "Meat Tornado".
• Ventrue - Essentially vampire aristocrats, they are treated with both great respect and resentment wherever they go. Though again, you're gifted with high charisma and knowledge so talking and hacking will be your path through the game. Physically complete crap so firearms are the way forward if you do find yourself in a fight.

You'll notice I picked the two clans with the interesting Disciplines as my favourites. This isn't Deus Ex levels of "Play Your Way", sometimes you'll be bottlenecked into a fight and it's better to have a few offensive powers to get you out of a jam.

Before I get into it, I should probably explain that this game was released unfinished for various reasons. Luckily it gained such a cult following that the modding community went to town on it. If you feel like grabbing a copy of the game, a very quick look online will net you a heap of patches that range from improving how the game runs and fixing the unfinished content to changing the clans you can go with different powers. (I haven't looked into the latter)

The game gets is basis from a popular role-playing game series of the same name. I've been told that unlike you're standard "Dungeons & Dragons" style of game, VTM takes a more "political intrigue" route. (Like Game of Thrones with slightly more fangs. Possibly less death)
Starting off, you're in the process of being sired. (Becoming a vampire) Just after the deed is done, various vampires burst in and take you to a hastily thrown together "court". You are on trail for becoming a vampire without permission. It is against vampire law, known as the Masquerade, to increase the ranks of the vampires for fear of revealing their existence to humans. Your sire gets executed right there and then, without a word in defence. You're about to get the same treatment when a few in the crowd start protesting. The vampire in charge of the trail, Prince LaCroix, give you a stay of execution to save face literally seconds before the place comes under attack from enemy vampires. You then have to play through a tutorial that is slightly tweaked towards each of the different clans but ultimately the same overall.

This is you now out in the main game. I'm not going to give you a blow-by-blow, just felt like giving a brief intro to events that set you off on your adventure. There are four main hubs; Santa Monica, Downtown, Hollywood and Chinatown. These aren't massive by any means but each have enough side missions and extra places to explore that it can make for a fun distraction from all the serious vampiring you'll be expected to do for the main story. There are also areas that could be compared closely to a dungeon from Zelda, where you go and solve puzzles, then fight a boss at the end. (Well, most of the time. The rules aren't so strict here)
The game operates with a standard experience system. For every mission you do you get more xp and other various rewards. Playing through the game, those are the second reason I try to do everything. VTMB is really quite well written. Every character you meet has a story to tell and a distinct personality. You aren't dealing with Elder Scrolls levels of reusing voice actors for all the same lines.
As I said earlier, the game was released unfinished. This results in a few cases of crashing or items going missing. Not ideal. Some textures can get a little choppy and character models seem to think that their coding is more of a suggestion rather than what they should follow. Super easy to fix, and I say this as someone who's pretty computer illiterate at best. You can find the majority of the patches and mods here: http://www.moddb.com/games/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines/mods
Of course, with all downloads, scan them, you never know.

I realise I'm recommending a PC game that didn't sell well (at all) over 10 years ago. But I now have a platform to shout about these things which I didn't have then. If you like the first-person, action RPG a 'la Deus Ex then this is definitely one to look out for. It's currently £3.74 on the Steam Hallowe'en sale until November 1st. (Normally £14.99) Thank you for letting me ramble, have a safe Hallowe'en. Spooky kisses. ;}) <--- (My Hallowe'en emoji)

REVIEW - Destiny 2 - One Man's Destiny is Another Man's Destiny

Title: Destiny 2

Developer: Bungie

Publisher: Activision

Platform: PlayStation 4 (reviewed), Xbox One, PC

Release: 05/09/17

: Electric Boogaloo

Unlike a lot of people, I didn't really play the first Destiny. I finished the story (for what there was of it) and faffed about for a bit in the original incarnation of the post-game stuff. (which was pretty sparse) Needless to say, I wasn't exactly blown away by the experience. Going into Destiny 2 my hopes weren't too high. I've now been playing it pretty solidly for two weeks now and I don't regret a second of it. Firstly, it remembered the character I created all those years ago for the first game. It was like seeing an old friend. (An old friend that could shoot blackholes from their hands. The best kind of friend) You then get dropped into an intense situation with most of the powers you knew and loved. Pew pew, you're kicking ass while everything is going to shit around you. New Big Bad shows his face. Breaks your powers. Disposes of you. Oh.

Any chance of sorting this out over a pint? No? Okay.

There's actually a story this time. Yay! You have to get your powers back and beat Dominus Ghaul (pictured) before he kidnaps the Traveler and gets superpowers of his very own. Luckily, as the chosen one, you find a way to regain your powers in pretty short order and are sent all over the solar system rescuing those necessary to save the universe. I have one little problem with this. Throughout the game, you are referred to as the only one to have been able to regain your powers. The place you got them back is accessible to everyone. Why doesn't everyone just form an orderly queue and get suped up again? Also, as an MMO, literally thousands of players have gone through the same process. Why can't we just pull together and finish this invasion 5 minutes after it started? I know. I'm picking holes in a story I couldn't come close to writing myself. It just removed any immersion for me, story-wise.

I love the way my eyes really bring out my eyes

Have I mentioned how pretty this game is? It's pretty. There you go. I've said it.

There are so many screenshots of me pointing a gun at beautiful scenery

Bang bang, take that stunning vista

Alright, alien landscape, this is a stick-up

I've played the majority of what the game has to offer at the time of writing. (Everything except the Leviathan Raid, which is a pretty big undertaking if what I'm told is true) Story missions and side missions (adventures) can keep you occupied for a fair amount of time. Like I say, I'm two weeks in and I still have a few to do. Activities unlock as you progress and if anything, the main story acts as a prelude to the actual game. Once you're done with it you're then presented with a whole plethora of new quests and activities to challenge you. As this is an MMO, you are encouraged to team up with others and take on these challenges together. This is done best with friends (in my experience anyway) as playing with strangers can result in encountering the worst examples of humanity. (Again, in my experience) Post story I've pretty much played with a couple of friends exclusively and it really makes the game a lot more enjoyable, especially when enemies are coming at you like rats from a sinking ship.

I've found my new summer getaway

PvP is something I've dabbled with as much as to get a feel for it. That feeling is "Eww, I suck at this, nevermind". Some matches are good, some are embarrassingly bad. My overall experience makes me glad there's so much more to do in the game to advance my character and get decent loot. Speaking of loot, it's everywhere. Hidden chests, tradeable tokens, Legendary and Exotic drops from bosses. There's loot for days. Don't get me wrong, a lot of it you'll look at for two seconds and scrap. In a way, it makes finding the better stuff that much better, but it can also be where the game can be it's most grindy. I haven't experienced too much of a grind which is nice and, again, I think that's in large part to having played with other people. It takes your mind off it so you can just concentrate on blasting aliens and explore new worlds. 

SPACESHIP!!!

The worlds are big, as you might expect. Each one is split into areas that have tonnes of hidden little objectives for you to find. The best of these being the Lost Sectors which act as mini-dungeons for you to explore and fight groups of enemies. The reward at the end of them won't blow you away but I really enjoyed the act of exploring and finding these areas. Strikes are good fun as well. Here you're teamed up with two others and sent on a tougher than average mission with the chance of a pretty decent reward. These do have a habit of repeating themselves as you get assigned a random one when you select "Strike". (Not a massive issue and more Strikes will become available over time) The various quests and adventures (side-missions) reuse a lot of the map you may have already explored through the story missions though they can do a good job of guiding the player in a different direction to keep the gameplay interesting.

Oh, Nathan Fillion is also the best damn robot ever btw

Of course with it being an online game, Destiny 2 is at the mercy of it's servers. Scheduled or not, if the servers are under maintenance then you aren't playing until it's done. This can be a little frustrating, especially if you've planned a game with others. On the other hand, the maintenance is there to improve the game over all and add new features as they're released so it's a bit like complaining about a cake having to be baked before you can eat it. (Also, we can assume you have a few other games you could be playing while you wait. Like Enter the Gungeon *wink*)

The one Grunt that would give Master Chief a run for his money

Would I recommend Destiny 2 to you, most valued and gracious reader? I'm currently having a lot of fun playing with others. If you have a reliable group of friends then go forth and Destiny together. If you have an unreliable group of friends, play something else. Solitaire, maybe, I dunno. (If you want to join a clan, I hear the Pangender Space Octopus [PGSO] is pretty cool, just putting that out there)

Currently £55 for the standard version of the game, £70 to include the season pass and £80 for a little bit extra. (Not, in my opinion, £10 extra though) A bit on the steep side and you can guarantee something happening over the Christmas period when it comes to the sales. Or just ask for it from Santa. (Like a grown-up)

REVIEW - Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy - Orange Was The New Blue

Name: Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy

Developer: Vicarious Visions

Publisher: Activision

Platform: PlayStation 4

Well, look who it is. It's everyone's favourite spinning mascot. (Eh, the orange one, not the blue one) Yes, Crash Bandicoot is back and ready to relive his first three adventures. Time to game like it's 1996! And '97 and '98. (Jeez, yearly releases. Who did it think it was? Assassin's Creed?)

First off, the game looks lovely. The backgrounds and character designs have been remade shiny and new for our eyes to appreciate. (I did fiddle about with the buttons at one point to see if I could switch between old and new but alas no) New cutscenes add a bit more depth to the overall story and additional voice acting round off the experience nicely. The gameplay itself, however, seems to have remained much the same. This isn't a bad thing but when starting it up you have to remember that 3D platforming in the mid-90s was still in its early stages. For a 20-year-old set of games, they stand up pretty well. Some of the levels later in each of the games require the precision of a highly trained assassin to land specific jumps. The timing of certain obstacles becomes a memory game of trial and error. Crash Bandicoot does not hold your hand basically. You get a wee reminder in the corner of the screen telling you how to jump and spin at the start then your left to jump and spin your way through the rest of the game. While the levels can provide a steep challenge at times they remain fun and reminiscent of a time 3D platform games were the go-to genre for most gamers.

All the music is either the original or slightly modified version of the iconic soundtrack. (I've had the main menu music stuck in my head in work for the best part of a week now) All the sound effects from the "shwoop" of a wumpa fruit to the "aboogada" of an Aku Aku pick up are the originals. It's small touches like that that make the remaster feel like it was a passion project for those making it. (Vicarious Visions having been involved with various Crash related projects in the past this come as no surprise) Even Naughty Dog themselves have gone on record to say they are "very pleased and touched" by the efforts of Vicarious Vision on the CB remaster.

There are a few new features added to keep fans of the originals eager to play the series again. You can now play as Crash's sister, Coco, in most of the levels. (Excluding boss fights and a few select levels) She handles much the same as her brother with the spinning and the jumping. Rather inexplicably there are three gold trophies on offer for killing five enemies as her in each of the games. (I have no idea what makes her so special) For the most part, the character swap is just a fun cosmetic change. (Unless someone has experienced something different, let me know) While there were always checkpoints in the originals, this time the game will put a few extra in if you keep dying at a specific point. (It's probably one of the few times the game will extend an olive branch) On the world map you can save/load your game at the touch of a button and autosave has been added. (There's even a throwback that made me laugh until I remembered it made me feel old)

Time trials have been added to all the levels in the first and second games as well as returning to the third instalment. While some of the levels in Crash seem made for speed running, a lot of the later levels can have you waiting for openings and throw unexpected hazards at you that make the fun of beating the clock feel a little too much of a chore. Needless to say, as some of the game's trophies are tied into getting Gold times on all levels I won't be receiving "dat plat" anytime soon. (Or ever) Loading screens are long. A little too long for a game that came out 20 years ago and has essentially just had a facelift. During these screens, you'll be given a little hint for that level, either a tip for beating the boss or that beating the level without dying and breaking all the boxes gets you a special Gem. (These levels are mostly in the last third of the original game, making it some of the most frustrating gaming since I last picked up Bloodborne. No joke)

I want this on my tombstone

Maybe someday soon we'll get an announcement about a Crash Team Racing remaster. Oh, what a glorious day that would be. If you didn't play it the first time it was a pretty solid racing game akin to Diddy Kong Racing and Mario Kart. I Have my fingers crossed for that one. In the meantime, I still have my hog and my tiger. (I don't include the baby polar bear because I only really played the first and third Crash back in the day)

Would I recommend this game to you? Aye. It's hard as balls and doesn't reward you for your efforts like a lot of games do now but frankly, that's pretty refreshing. You have lives, you can get a game over and despite your best efforts you will still fail to get that collectable you've spent the best part of an hour trying to unlock. But in that process you hone your reaction times, you get a little more focused. (A cup fell off the counter the morning of writing this and I caught it without looking. Whispered a prayer to Saint Crash) Sticking on a few levels to pass the time is easy as you're not bogged down in a confusing narrative, you just run and spin and smash boxes until the level ends.

Most prices are at around the £30-£35 mark. Works out at roughly a tenner a game which I had no issue spending. Available for retail and download for Playstation 4.