Clive Barker's Undying

These past couple of days I've been going through the motions and written about two popular franchises. One of which was evolving and flourishing, the other was stagnating, under the influence of other media and lazy campaigns. Today though I'd like to try something a little different and write about a great game, which never took off, and yet for me it was a staple of action horror, one which footsteps were not followed, in my opinion, to the detriment of the genre. I am going to give you my take on Clive Barker's Undying.

The game was developed by Dreamworks Interactive, and shipped by Electronic Arts in 2001. It retains it's name because it is influenced heavily by famous horror author Clive Barker, who was a consultant on the game's protagonist and story. The game was rated highly by critics and didn't have major technical flaws, but maybe because of bad marketing it didn't sell very well. So much so that the planned multiplayer was never implemented and all ideas for a sequel were scrapped. And it would seem that Undying perished the year it was out with scarcely a whimper.

This is the SPOILER warning for all those people who believe me and want to play the game yourselves. I know it's dated but you won't be disappointed. If you've played it, or you're not convinced, please continue reading.

Patrick, holding the Gel'ziabar stone in
the first few seconds of the game

The atmosphere is the first and main thing that impresses and implies horror in the game. But since atmosphere is scarcely much without a plot and is intrinsically bound to it, we have to look at that first. The protagonist of the game, by the name of Patrick Galloway is an irish ex-soldier, who devoted himself to the occult after a mystical experience with his friend Jeremiah Covenant on the front lines. In the war they were charged in a special unit which investigated local superstition, so it can be silenced before it spread fear amongst the ranks, when one day they fell prey to an ambush. In the middle of the battle a shaman used a magic stone to try to kill Patrick and in the last minute he was saved by his friend. Both believing in the supernatural and indebted to Jeremiah, Patrick retired from the army, only to return to Covenant manor in answer of an urgent summons. The game itself starts in front of the manor's gates.

"For Oneiros is simply that, the dream city of
forgotten souls. Governed by none but
watched by many" – Keisinger

The game has a remarkable pacing, taking it's time for every piece of gothic-themed horror ti sink in, while still being action-oriented. Just by opening the menu you see the ghastly images of the forlorn haunted edifices you'll explore, accompanied by a dramatic choir singing "As I breathe, I live; As I breathe, I know" in latin. You move your cursor to discover it's a candle's flame and it actually burns the menu tabs, which look like scraps of paper. The air of mystery and subtle building of pressure makes this menu the best introduction to the atmosphere I've ever seen, whilst we can complement most games by saying that the menu is just intuitive, here it serves a function.

"The reflections of the waters that
separate us ripple across my bedroom
walls filling my room with waves of
moonlight. If it is quiet enough I can
hear them chanting." – Lizbeth

The gameplay seamlessly follows theme after theme of gothic and victorian horror literature. First it projects the subtler atmosphere of the haunted manor and bestial howls, all the while a curse upon the family in question being just the beginning of a large sequence of set pieces.

"Some things never change.
One by one my kin are dying.
This pathetic excuse of a world is
coming to an end" – Ambrose

Soon Patrick would explore hallow ground, mysteriously marred by undead irish monks, just to perform an arcane spell and go back in time to take an artifact and witness / cause the fall of the self-same monastery, so he can kill with a scythe a bestial seductress and her singing long dead mother.

"I am not usually a man given to hatred
but I could gut Otto Keisinger and feel no remorse"
 - Patrick

Before he's through Patrick discovers the hidden truth behind the haunted paintings, and the grisly fate of their creator. Follows a pirate warleader to his coven to slay him, fights a warlock to avenge the death of his wife on a ziggurath in a broken world spiraling towards the abyss and kills a witch in her primeval world called Eternal Autumn. All along getting scraps and warnings about the "Undying king".

"I have seen the crown and
it burdens my brow. Behind the
canvas is another image" – Aaron

All those themes and more are present as pillars to the story, or just some homage to gothic atmosphere and people who haven't played the game would think that it's packed too densely, that in fact it became a collection of stories and not a single adventure. They couldn't be further from the truth however, because all the ghosts, monsters and settings are perfectly in tone with the general feel, all the different bosses have their own backstory and collectible journal entries, all the spells and major turns of events are chronicled in the menu by Patrick himself. Odds are that every single level would be as memorable, stand apart on it's own merits and be just relevant as the previous.

" I greet you, Patrick, my brother's
crusading hero. I have brought you
to my realm of Eternal Autumn,
where I rule with unquestioned
authority" - Bethany

Speaking about magic, our irish protagonist has an impressive array of spells by the end of the game, which is sure to be fun especially with the people who want to go about the game running and gunning. The game doesn't let you feel omnipotent ofcourse, the easiest difficulty setting let's you use most your spells however you like, though the higher ones would require some tactic. It's good to know that although it's just an action-horror, combat is not ignored and in addition to the magnificent story-telling mechanism scry and the level-progression enabling spell haste, there are four more offensive spells, some of which combine with weapons or have different effect regarding the opponent, whilst the rifle and revolver can use special ammunition and two other weapons require no ammo. Undying is the only game I've seen in which the player can cast spells, use a weapon and throw a stick of dynamite from his inventory simultaneously.

Each tab is different creepy image.
Each location in the load menu has a
unique concept art as well.

 It is difficult given the age and nature of this game to properly advertise it without giving too much away, or properly analyze it, without detailing the gameplay level per-level. The game has some flaws, as do they all. The bosses are not spread out evenly, so there's a mixed feeling bordering on anticlimax towards the end of the game. Some weapons like the Tibetan War Cannon are arguably out of place, and too cartoony. Also sometimes I feel like I'd prefer the enemies not having special kill animations, to a couple of extra minutes in the Eternal Autumn level, because it had a great potential for beauty, stifled I think, by technological restrictions and is decidedly more lackluster than the others.

To me this game is an example to how action horror games should be made.( And by action horror I mean people, who are somehow trained , fighting against some inhuman evil so as to vanquish it. As opposed to survival horror where ordinary people endeavor to survive the horror, and their struggle is frequently one of growth and realization. e.g. Silent Hill, Amnesia) It takes traditional cues from literature and cultural periods, and blends them in a cohesive narrative, whilst maintaining a challenging action oriented gameplay. This game does not rely on jump scares, does not stop to frighten you, so you can just maul the enemies with your weapons after the scripted sequence, and above all tries to keep you entertained with a dozen or so stuff happening in the story, not just a long haired girl, crawling in your mind like in so much popular culture to date. Show me any bland militaristic action-horror game (Clive Barker's Jericho included) and I'll recommend Undying . Sadly the sequal plans were scrapped long ago and this is the first and last time we'd see of the irish soldier. Nonetheless nothing is ever in vain and as long as this game is played, it's legacy will not be lost. Or will it? You can leave your opinions and comments below.

Heroes of Might and Magic

Since it isn't all that good to write about my nostalgia games all the time, I figured this time, I'd take a look on Heroes of Might and Magic, specifically the latest, sixth installment.

The first of the first.

In the distant 1986, the now defunct New World Computing released a turn-based role-playing  game for DOS called "Might and Magic: The Secret of the Inner Sanctum". It had 6 basic classes the player could choose from, inspired more or less by "Dungeons and Dragons". The world in which the game took place was called VARN and is a sort of marriage between a classic medieval fantasy and sci-fi elements. The series is considered to be one of the founders of the genre along with The Bard's Tale, Wizardry and Ultima series. It spanned 8 more games, perfecting the RPG formula in the same setting along with many spin-off titles: Heroes, Crusaders, Legends, Warriors, Shifters and Dragon Wars of Might and Magic.Most of the spin-offs were created after New World Computing became a subsidiary of The 3DO Company, and all but the Heroes were single titles.

Coming out in 1995, RPG macromanagement
was somewhat revolutionary.

Why would anyone face or shoot his
enemies diagonally is anyone's guess.

Heroes of Might and Magic: A Strategic quest, came out in 1995 for MS-DOS, and was later ported for Windows 95. It was the first of the franchise where the combat was fought by groups of units and not solely by characters. In the first through fourth title the action took place on the world of Enroth, and after it's destruction - the world of Axeoth (Heroes of Might and Magic IV), adding new features along the way like skill specializations, spell system, artifacts and unit upgrades (HoMM 2). The series spanned a great total of four games and five expansions before 3DO filed for bankruptcy in 2003 and the rights were bought by Ubisoft.

Even though HoMM IV wasn't
what players were expecting, it still
had two expansion sets.

 Ubisoft, perhaps wanting to get out of the shadow of "Might and Magic" and taking advantage of the negative feedback 3DO got for all the controversial changes they made in HoMM IV (no creature upgrades, 3D graphics with an awkward combat camera, heroes were units you could use normally in combat, fewer towns and neutral creatures to name a few) introduced a whole new setting for Heroes in the face of the world of Ashan.

Show of hands, anyone else
disappointed
that this guy wasn't in the game?

Asha is not limited to life, but represents
the cycle of birth, death and rebirth, that's
why necromancy in Ashan is a noble calling

My introduction in the series was when I played the critically acclaimed Heroes 3. With a multitude of neutral units and playable races, it had a fairly interesting and diverse gameplay, I'm sure much more can be said, but at that time I didn't really heed much attention to classics, and when I wizened up, the fifth one more than whet my appetite. I remember I played the fourth Heroes, but it looked awkward and lifeless, so I don't have much first-hand experience with it. I can only go by Internet sources when claiming that Ubisoft ignored HoMM IV's gameplay innovations and build around the gameplay of "The Shadow of Death". The hero was not considered as a movable, killable unit in combat, but he or she could make an action once a turn in combat - casting spells, which were mana reliant, performing abilities, which weren't, or attacking a creature. The fact that the hero could attack a creature and exhibit martial prowess, and not just be an omniscient overseer, in my opinion brought diversity to the idea that constitutes "hero" in the series. The setting is more or less a typical fantasy universe, created by the life-aspected dragon goddess Asha, and assailed by her hellish brother Urgash in his realm of Sheogh. There are 6 other, lesser dragons, each aspected to the four traditional elements + Light and Darkness.

Tall dwarf, bear dwarf, shield dwarf,
spear dwarf, mammot dwarf.... I'm starting to
see a pattern....

The newest game is distributed via Steam and presents a few
awesome features for online players, sadly connectivity
issues  turns the requirements for
bonus content into a silly restriction.

Content wise-Ubisoft's Heroes V, developed by Nival Interactive consisted of only six towns, each with it's own campaign comprising of 5 missions.The campaigns were as follows : Haven, Inferno, Necropolis, Dungeon (Dark elves), Sylvan (Wood elves) and Academy (Mages and constructs) with the expansions Hammers of Fate (2006) and Tribes of the East (2007) further adding the Fortress  (dwarves) and Stronghold (greenskins) factions. Each campaign added maybe a dozen hours of game time, more or less following the story of the Demon Sovereign Kha-Belleth's plans to father a son from the ruling griffin dynasty, who would later free him of his imprisonment in Sheogh.

The last expansion brought most to the gameplay, featuring a double upgrade system (you could  choose from two types of upgrades for any creature), deftly woven in the story and campaign, a new mechanic for Necropolis (quota of raising undead after battles), and the Stronghold rage mechanic (the more rage they get, the stronger they become for up to three levels of rage for each stack which is also a subject to special Stronghold abilities). I think that the second expansion is by far the better of the two. Taking into account the art style of the Fortress units, which lacked a creative spark (dwarves of all shapes and sizes, visually appealing, yet repetitive in design), the rune system which was too heavily focused on macromanaging your resources ( having them in battle makes an enormous impact), and the campaign was far less spectacular than what the original and Tribes of the East had to offer.All in all it was a fairly nice reboot of the Heroes franchise in my opinion, and it tried in earnest to respect the traditional style of play while being fresh and visually appealing. Not enough to brake the mold, but not a dud either.

"The wall of Asha shakes,
when the wall of  Sheogh shimmers".

"Tether a griffin's wings,
and she'll learn to fly using her claws"

Heroes 6 on the other hand is a whole different story. It is the best example of turn-based story telling I've ever seen. And normally I'm very negative towards prequels, because it most often spells " trying to fit everything into what you already set as a standard with your last works", it's rarely creative, or even engaging. If you don't believe me ask one of the Star Wars fans, who's seen the original Lucas trilogy before the prequels. This game, however takes place 4 hundred years before Heroes of Might and Magic 5, long before anyone we knew was born (Kha-Belleth being the exception ofcourse), so there isn't any shark jumping or stretching the plot to make it fit. Actually the game presents surprisingly few shout-outs to the previous titles (the most notable being having a week for double sulfur production which reads "too bad the people of Ashan haven't found any use for this resource yet").Developed by the same studio that brought us the mediocre Warhammer tactical RTS, HoMM VI unexpectedly has a lot going for it.

!!!Since HoMM 6 is a fairly new game, I'm putting up a SPOILER warning, since a great deal of what I want to talk about concerns story and story-telling!!!

"Sheogh smells of sulfur,
darkness smells of fear"

"There is no rest for the wicked,
where there is not justice for the dead".

The game centers around the five children of the Duke of Griffin - Slava. Each of them is connected, or otherwise manipulated by angels, seeking to further their own goals. The story has an impressive sense of pace sometimes, taking two big tutorial missions to establish a sense for world and destiny. Most games rely on a dramatic opening sequence for that, but this game takes the time (personally it took me 6 hours being thorough) to show us what Slava was like, his greatest achievements, his convictions and struggles. All of this makes the starting conflict of the story, his murder by the hand of his daughter Anastasya, much more relevant (it would have been shocking, if it wasn't known from the get go). The story here overlaps, and the campaigns are not in sequence as in the Nival Heroes. This approach brings more immediate pressure as the story unfolds, and makes more sense as each sibling simultaneously peels off a part of the secret conspiracy involving the ancient war between the angels and weird psychic beings called The Faceless.

"There are many dragon gods,
but only one fears the Light"

The maps tie gameplay and storytelling together in a wonderful way. Rarely do you have to just crush the opposition, or escape. Instead each mission gives you a sense of purpose, reflected in various objectives and numerous unique optional missions. A very strong point of the game is the occasional dialogue between the characters at the start of the turn; it's not relevant to the story but reinforces the realism, especially helps when you've spent 20 turns playing and you've lost your sense of destiny as it were. The narrative pulls you back in, with the albeit funny or silly at times yet never dull dialogue. The mission loading screens deserve a special commendation for the sometimes surprisingly insightful and contextual aphorisms. The game does tend follow the main plot around the demon invasion and the war with the Faceless and some credit can be given for making a believable and cohesive narrative and motivation for each of the Griffin siblings and the nation they represent. That being said however, Irina's Sanctuary campaign and Sandor's Stronghold campaign scarcely dealt with the war against the Faceless and the angels' plans on using their bodies to resurrect their fallen kin. In my opinion especially the latter needed some contextualization in the family's struggle, but in both cases it was just a war of dominance against the ruler of the respective faction and later reaffirming the claim on previous territories.

The gameplay introduces new useful features to the Heroes franchise. First and foremost the skill system and inventory received an overhaul. There are now five schools of magic and five categories of might that players can manually choose skills from every level. This eliminates the random, yet somehow more natural way of level progression for a calculated climb to bigger and better abiliies, most of which scale on the attack or magic power of the character. New artifacts are introduced, with the strongest set items available only in online play. To further customize your character there is a tear/blood gouge with two upgrades, each yielding a powerful spell. It is worthy of note that that gouge is a powerful story-telling instrument and often used way to customize the actions and consequences of the siblings in their respective campaigns. Also there is a faction specific skill which can be performed by the hero regardless of his actions this turn and fills up according to his success in battle.

There are a few map changes in HoMM VI. Most noticeably the map is now divided into areas governed by a fort. The fort guarantees the possession of all the surrounding resource points and is defendable.Your resource points are captured only if your opponent takes over your fort, guarding them. Reducing the number of resource to the manageable three (wood, ore, crystals) + gold made it much more easier have and manage an army. That coupled with an easy teleport system to each city and fort makes defending territories much easier and turns invasions into real battles, not just skirmishes and races. Every fort, city and recruitment point can be converted for a price to suit your faction . It would seem that Heroes 6 promotes far more aggressive gameplay than the previous installment, now that the logistics are much easier and invasions can be so rewarding. The AI itself is extremely solid and in the campaign sometimes requires meticulous turn by turn advances, so that you can keep up with your opponents' onslaught. Sadly it isn't always consistent, as some of  the last missions were much too easy in comparison. The units are mostly balanced and have more special properties than in the fifth installment, an especially prominent quality of some Sanctuary units for instance, is the fact of  being amphibian - allowing the hero to literally walk on water.The creatures' skills can be boosted by standing around random beneficial objects on the combat map.

Time to meet the naga daimyo....
daimyo?  Seriously?

The art direction is as suspected on par with everything we've come to expect from Heroes. Each faction has a suitable collection of strange mythical beings. I especially like how Black hole didn't go putting dragons as an elite creature on most factions. Though some might be severely annoyed at the naive and silly portrayal of some of the Sanctuary units in the campaign. Stylistically they look and feel so eastern inspired, so much so that the awkward stereotypically asian amphibians in the campaign become a parody onto themselves. A similarly disastrous blunder would be if the people of Ashan worshipped an entity called " Gawd", it's that obvious and distracting. A really nice touch were the boss battles in which your character battled a single enemy and sometimes it's bodyguards. That made the fights much more personal, though some were obviously less climactic and there just to fill the role. The voice acting and music is nothing that deserves much credit, nor does it ruin the experience, a big chunk of it being unessential fluff to flesh out the world.

When it boils down to it I think Heroes 6 made a remarkable journey through to years, to grace our monitors in modern 3d technology today. It presents numerous character builds and an enjoyable 30-40 hour long singleplayer, occasionally foiled by technical flaws. Disregarding the laughably presented naga, the winding story and obvious character developments, the narrative struck me as a steady pace into new and distinct situations. Even if the story is nothing special I can definitely claim that the story-telling technique, the RPG elements have improved and will likely improve further in the future. One can only hope....

Alien versus Predator, then and now

Since nobody is following this blog right now, in all fairness it's empty, I wouldn't discourage potential readers with long exposition why I didn't bother with it for 2 years. I guess now I finally have a reason.


So, Alien versus Predator franchise is it? Ok, the first Alien versus Predator game (barring the arcade games, gameboy, playstation and Nintendo ones; they are more than 2 dozens and come out as late as 1982... wow) was developed by Rebellion and published by Fox in 1999 both for the PC and Mac. The decade and a half it took to bring the special kind of sci-fi dread from the books and the big screen to the video game format paid off.
The game was well received for the alternate campaigns and play styles (that became the hallmark of the series) it provided to the player. I've played the game and although very graphically outdated today, you can still feel the pressure of being the only marine survivor in a ship with moving signatures. Or being the only one of your planet, assailed from all sides by lithe aliens and marines with those damn rifles...
Bottom line the gameplay styles reinforced a kind of story, which melded seamlessly together. You play the hunter the survivor and the beast, something there for everyone.

The buggers looked like this in 2001

Aliens in the first game.

Aliens versus Predator 2 was published by Sierra and released through Fox in 2001. It perfected numerous things it's predecessor did wrong. It had a save feature, which in a horror game is very tricky to make. As you can probably guess in some games which rely heavily on jump scares and deadly sudden encounters, the save point pretty much ruins the atmosphere. In Doom 3 there was limited to no actual Horror in my opinion because the levels were repetitive, and the fear relied on carefully hidden enemies which sprang with menacing voices, to test your reflexes. Alien versus Predator always had strong roots in the unexpectedly horrible, jumping right around the corner( see the movies for yourself). And to avoid the easy way out a player can take - play recklessly and pressing F5 and F9 like in the 2005 Doom 3, the first game lacked the save option and forced players to become invested in the character's survival.

Aliens in 2010

So why was AvsP 2 scary, even though it had saves, and the F5, F9 combo. I think because it had dibs on the creepy sci-fi atmosphere I talked about earlier. You can feel the pressure and dread, the unique visions of every player reinforce the feeling of how alien this is, and can frequently creep you out rather than help. The gameplay and tone of the game makes every battle a desperate struggle of which the player is subconsciously aware.

Another thing which is more developed is the story. I should issue a SPOILER warning, because I can't realistically talk about the advantages of the story without spoiling.

The frantic pace saves the new installment it's monotony

I dare say his particular game premise does not require much when it comes to storyline. Sure, we expect as much, but more often than not in movies and games the AvP story is an excuse for the aesthetics we have grown to associate with AvP (alien hisses, predator growls, rifle fire cut short, half-lit corridors with acidic ooze and blood smeared on them). In this game however the story turns out deep and involving. The alien first mission notwithstanding (the premise require the alien twist to be in the beginning), the other two campaigns have a unique and unexpected twist. The predator gets ambushed and captured and the marine gets betrayed. And the campaigns overlap in a curious way in which you see the progress of your otherwordly counterpart, which was the first I'd ever seen in a game. It fashioned the jumbled mesh of playstyles into a single story, reinforced by data pads you could read in-game, and logs on the loading screen for each mission. Arguably the best campaign is that of the marine. Being human, the developers made his the most involving story, because corporal "Frosty", not only interacts with the world around, but with his peers. He has friends and enemies, amongst his own race, he lives through betrayal and regret. His last mission brings more depth to history of the planet LV- 1201 than any other and by his actions he seals the fate of the expedition, when his ally sacrifices herself in a nuclear explosion to destroy the alien threat.

Sadly, the games only go downhill from there. The expansion is inferior in both story and narrative. There are no remarkable changes in the gameplay and style, it's a lot shorter and thoroughly fails to impress.  

Grab your trusty Rifle and shotgun and, uhm... not much else really

Which brings us to the last game I would like to talk about - Alien versus Predator developed by Rebellion and published by Sega for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2010. It wanted to revolutionize the gameplay styles with a block, and heavy attack feature. Which as any gamer worth his salt will tell you is a clear indication that they are mainly after the multiplayer experience. And it takes just a few moments for that to become blatantly obvious. For all it's polish and stealth kills, it lacks the depth of the previous installment. The version I played was 15 Gb in size. But the lag in the outdoor zones, coupled with the short missions led me to believe that it was optimized remarkable badly. Again there are the signature 3 campaigns. But here the the premise isn't all that good (in my opinion, it is influenced too much from the sub-par movies, which wanted to cash in on the initial success of the the AvP games and atmosphere but making it human-centric and on earth, robbing it of much of it's sci-fi feel). Characters revisit the same places with different enemies, as in AvP 2 but it didn't come off as clever, just cheap. Knowing all too well that some of these levels would be "borrowed" for multiplayer matches. The alien campaign is short and is as anti-climactic as "your alien falls down into a coma after your queen was killed, game over" ....... uh? The predator campaign was even shorter, though the best in my opinion,. because it atleast tried to bring something new to the culture and technology of the race. The similar was promised for the alien race and in the end we had squat little buggers, which looked the same but were spewing acid. Not even close to what we were hoping for.

For me the short Predator campaign still steals the show

The most attention being placed on, again, the marine campaign. His campaign was longest and most similar in atmosphere to it's previous installment. But not as engaging: your character can't speak, is coupled half the time with a mexican stereotype named Tequila (!?), he doesn't have a personality ("Frosty" was called that for a reason, and in the end he told the player his real name was Andrew) and most of the audio logs you collect are a cheesy way to scare you. Everything you'd expect from a clinical view to the horror of Xenos, to a scared half-wit mumbling to himself. All of the story seems to be directed at the the realization that Wayland has the coordinates of the Alien homeworld. None of the campaigns portray such a grandeur in it's schemes and that's why even that realization comes off as unremarkable.

Helping out a friend....

In the multiplayer aspect of the game, there is one thing that tries to distinguish AvP from all the other multiplayer titles - the melee system. With it a player can block any melee attack except the longer, heavy attack. And seeing as though Aliens and Predators are refitted mostly for melee combat, and marines for ranged, now it's all about how sneaky and quick the former can approach the latter without turning it into a boxing match. Bottom line it looks awkward and clumsy - somehow the marine can block the claws and metals of the extraterrestrials, and he must look out for the clumsy looking heavy attack, or fast alien pounce, which spells death most of the times. The pacing is the one thing that destroys the monotonous sounding combat, but that is because it's easy to die, not because the game gives you many options and limited time to choose from them. As of the writing of this article there are two map packs published by the developer, but in the beginning I think there were as few as 8 maps, and a few multiplayer types, which were to some extent present in AvP2.

How it should have ended

In the end there are many games, proving that single player is an integral part of this medium, more than capable to bring a profit and start a franchise. I don't think the latest polished version of the AvP franchise can build around a clunky dueling mechanic, with a weak premise, short and unimaginative storylines and a heavy handed anticlimactic cinematic ending.

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines

Since I already mentioned this world, here I will get the chance to elaborate further on the wonderfully dark and ambiguous world created by White Wolf's Games Studios, and portrayed in the 2004 computer game Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines.

First - some history....

In 1991 White Wolf published the first edition of the so called "Vampire the Masquerade" series. The settings was a grim gothic-punk world where the supernatural creatures coexist and what's more feed off of the human populace. Of every one race of supernatural beings - the vampires, given the "curse of Kain", have divided into 13 clans, each with it's own convoluted history. However some of them chose to keep vampirism a secret and so "The Masquerade" was born. Upheld by "The Camarilla" and perpetually assailed by "The Sabbat" the Masquerade kept an unsteady balance, a desperate ruse that all is well with the world. And that concept quickly brought "The Origins Award" for the table top game in 1991. Following the second edition in 1992 and the subsuquent third one in 1998 there was a game called "Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption" a generally accepted one with astounding graphics for it's time. Sadly it was hard to manage and had a lot of technical problems. And then in 2001 Troika games started working on a new Vampire the Masquerade game using Valve's Source Engine. Finally, after a grueling and somewhat disappointingly ineffective process of "polishing" it and waiting for the Half Life 2 craze to die out, the gamers were presented with "Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines"....

The protagonist of the game can be either manually chosen from the seven given clans, or can be a result of a quick test to discern you mode of play. The "World of Darkness" is so diverse that for gaming uses the 7 clans are reduced to and roughly divided into "Talkers"- characters that focus on NPC interaction and story diversity like Ventrue, Malkavians, Toreador and Tremere and "Fighters" - characters that uphold their clan's tradition and kinsmen in their mode of play - Brujah, being as close to the "Anarchs" as one can get, Nosferatu having more missions with Bertram Tung and being at home with the spooky Gary Golden, and Gangrel which upholds his/her own philosophy of being as detached from anyone and as independent as possible.

And then comes the character sheet:

As you see the character sheet is divided into physical, social and mental attributes and abilities such as talents, skills and knowldedges. they enhance the feats which your character will posses whilst the humanity and the masquerade bar determine the chance of which you will go into a "frenzy" and drink from the first hapless mortal you find and the chance you will find vampire hunters skulking in the shadows to ambush you respectively.

There is also atleast 1 unique Discipline and 2 more common ones. I will briefly list the clans and their Disciplines' effectiveness whereas M will mean "a must have", S - "sure if you want to" and U - "useless"...
Toreador: Celerity- M, Presence - S, Auspex - U.
Malkavian: Dementation - M, Obfiscate - S, Auspex - U.
Nosferatu: Animalism - M, Obfuscate - M (you gotta be invisible when you're hideous :P), Potence- S.
Tremere: Thaumaturgy - MM (vomit blood owns everything!!!), Dominate - S, Auspex - U.
Brujah: Potence - M, Celerity - S, Presence - S.
Ventrue: Dominate - S, Fortitude - M, Presence - S.

After your character's gender, clan and specifics are chosen you are introduced in the world by a vampire of the opposite who "embraces" you in the heat of passion. You both are quickly for this unsanctioned act, your maker, your "sire" is dealt with and you are spared so that you owe your life to the ruler of Santa Monica, the Napoleon soldier - LaCroix.

The story provides much of the background needed to for one to me immersed and consumed by the world's atmosphere. The game features 4 mission hubs- Santa Monica, Downtown, Hollywood and Chinatown, there are roughly 5 paths you can follow - align yourself with LaCroix, with the Tremere primogen Strauss, with the Anarchs led by Ninez Rodriguez, with the Quei Jin, or you can choose to decide by yourself and either leave unattached or strive for the power yourself.
Ming Xiao (Quei Jin)







LaCroix (despotic Camarilla)







Strauss (Camarilla)








Ninez (Anarchs)

Said power is the mysterious Ankaran sarcophagus, supposedly containing an Elder vampire, whose blood will give unimaginable powers to the vampire who drinks from it.Of course taht power is quickly stolen by the Nosferatu, attacked by the Sabbat's Tzimizce led by Andrei and the way to opening it will lead the player deep into the Vampire hunters' Sanctuary and the Quei Jin Stronghold.

Andrei the Sabbat leader

The story as I said before features enough details and a lot of morally questionable choices, the hallmark for the world of darkness. It gives you the chance to acquaint you hero and develop her through numerous side quests all throughout the 4 mission hubs, sometimes requiring you to go back ( most often to Santa Monica). Finishing
quests is the only way you get experience points and fill out your character sheet. And overall that was what the game was praised for - it gave a good reason for
the gamer to explore an original world with diverse quests and
NPCs, the downside, however, is that just like it's predecessor the game
had a lot of bugs to the point of which a person would think he's playing an
alpha version. Thankfully the undying fanbase of the game has made numerous patches since then fixing the bugs, creating new dialogues ( 3-4 max per patch) and a few new items. But if you choose not to follow the rules in the game (it's difficulty is about average) you can just press "`" and write "impulse 101" that will give you all the items you need including blood packs and clothes. If not, have fun roaming the night feeding off unsuspecting victims until you get to the bottom of the mistery and hopefully survive the deadly twists along the way...

Literature

Since I'm quite fond of horror literature (no not King, though I'd read anything of his if I've got the stamina to) this post is dedicated to Poe, Lovecraft and more in the near future. I prefer reading short stories, because I think that they're mostly more rewarding than a novel, especially if it's one of King's later works (check out the family guy episode with the infamous King creation- The lamp monster).

Art

This section is for art pieces and styles I'm particularly fond of.

To avoid plagiarism I'll probably give you a link with each post I make, but often I probably won't even know who the artist was. Needless to say this section will mostly feature pictures, sketches and paintings, maybe the occasional comic strip.

Movies

This section is obviously devoted to movies.

I'm open to suggestions at any time of course since it's easier to watch a movie, then play a game and worry about hardware and visual software. However reviewing movies is more subjective I guess, so be gentle ;D.