Friday Flashback: VtM: Bloodlines
Instead of delving into the depths of 8-bit consoles and DOS-era PC games, this week we're hopping back a mere six years, to 2004. The game is Troika's Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines, a brilliant first-person RPG that lets players experience Vampire: The Masquerade first-hand, through Deus Ex-style RPG and action elements.
Like most good stories involving soulless bloodsuckers, Bloodlines takes place in Los Angeles. You're a freshly transformed vampire dropped into the middle of undead intrigue revolving around the discovery of a sarcophagus that could contain one of the oldest and most powerful vampires in the world. Like all good Vampire: The Masquerade campaigns, Bloodlines' story is moody, bleak, and violent.
The action is very similar to Deus Ex. Stealth and strategy is highly rewarded, and if you try to fight through everything with guns blazing you'll quickly be torn to little vampire bits. There's a huge selection of guns and melee weapons, and a skill system lets you decide just how you want to play through the game. The system is based directly on Vampire: The Masquerade, and you can get different traits and abilities depending on the clan you choose. You can magically drain blood from victims as a Tremere, become invisible as a Malkavian, or summon animals as a Gangrel.
Will GreenwaldBungie and Activision join forces
After three years of relative independence, Bungie is teaming up with yet another software giant of dubious moral fiber. The makers of Halo (and Myth and Marathon) have announced an exclusive 10-year partnership with Activision.
Under the partnership, Activision gets exclusive publishing rights to all future Bungie games for the next decade. Bungie will make the games and Activision will package them, market them, and ship them out. Bungie is keeping its software sovereignty, though; the company will stay an independent firm and retain intellectual rights to all of its future games.
This is a major boon to Activision, which is seeing the makers of its biggest cash cow running away as if the company was on fire. Infinity Ward has been crumbling ever since the sackings of its studio heads, and the addition of Bungie to Activision's stable will help shore up the company's losses.
Either that, or Bungie will release Halo 4 and Bob Kotick will immediately run through Bungie's offices, hitting people with a ball-peen hammer.
Will GreenwaldFrom the Game: Team Fortress 2 Minigun
[From The Game is a regular department on Aggrogate, featuring replica items from video games. FTGs can feature merchandise, convention swag, special edition pack-ins, or personal replica projects from across the Internet. If you have something you want featured in From The Game, drop me a line.]
Oh, it's a treat for you this week. Not only is this the second homemade game replica to be featured on From the Game, it's the very first Aggrogate Video! Yes, we've started producing videos for the site. Keep an eye out, and watch our channel. There's more content to come! Meanwhile, get the details on the minigun after the break.
Will GreenwaldSquare-Enix not interested in money, says it’s “undecided” on Final Fantasy 5/6 DS remakes
Square-Enix used to be all about the remakes a few years ago. Playstation, GBA, DS, PSP, you couldn't throw a moogle without hitting a remake of one of the first six Final Fantasy games. It arguably reached its peak with Final Fantasy 4 for the DS. Instead of a simple port like the Game Boy Advanced or Playstation releases, or a shined-up version of a mediore early installment, like Final Fantasy 3, this was a fully-realized 3D remake of one of the best games in the series. It left us with high hopes for remakes of the immensely enjoyable Final Fantasy 5 and the arguably-best-Final-Fantasy-game-period Final Fantasy 6. Those games never showed up.
Instead, Square-Enix focused on Final Fantasy 13 and its whole high-concept "Fabula Nova Crystalis" boondoggle, occasionally releasing the rare nugget of hope to nostalgic fans in the forms of Final Fantasy 1 and 2 for the iPhone. And frankly, if Square-Enix milked the first Final Fantasy any harder its nipples would fly off.
Will GreenwaldBin Digging: Xbox 360 Edition
This week we're diving deep into the bargain bins to find the cheapest quality Xbox 360 games out there. There's a surprising number of pretty good titles that can be had for just a few bucks. They aren't all AAA-class system sellers, but they're decent, playable games. Even titles that wouldn't necessarily justify full retail price are certainly work a playthrough at $5, $10, and $15. Highlights include Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Mercenaries 2 (which remains one of our top 5 sandbox games), Mirror's Edge, and the first Assassin's Creed.
As always, for a game to be eligible for Bin Digging, it must cost less than $15 and it has to be a game you'd actually want to play. No shovelware. Read the full list after the jump.
Will GreenwaldTuesday’s Trope: Blind Idiot Translation
[Tuesday's Trope is a weekly department highlighting an amusing video game trope from TVTropes. Aggrogate is not affiliated with TVTropes.org in any way. All trope examples come from TVTropes and are shared via the Creative Commons license.]
Someone set up us the bomb! What is a man? A miserable pile of secrets! I am error. You spoony bard! I feel asleep!
Ridiculous dialogue has been a mainstay of video games since the days of the NES. It doesn't come out of thin air, though. Nearly every instance of truly ridiculous text in a video game is the result of a poor translation job. In tropespeak, it's a Blind Idiot Translation. It can be as simple as mixing up an L for an R (Japanese treats both as the same phonetic sound), or as complicated as utterly messing up a main character's name and lines.
Blind Idiot Translations aren't so big a problem today, but before video game companies actually started to make an effort in translating their games into English, you couldn't walk past an NES without tripping over a cartridge filled with insane ramblings.
Notable Blind Idiot Translations include:
Will GreenwaldDeals: Rockstar’s complete library for $42 on Steam
Valve has put up a pretty awesome deal to go with the new Steam client update. For just $42.49, you can pick up Rockstar's entire game library. The Rockstar Collection includes Grand Theft Auto 4 with Episodes from Liberty City, GTA3, GTA: Vice City, GTA: San Andreas, GTA2, and the original GTA. You don't just get a bunch of GTA games, though; the collection also includes Bully: Scholarship Edition, Manhunt, Max Payne, Max Payne 2, Midnight Club 2, and Wild Metal.
GTA4 with the two expansions alone would justify the price, and the entire GTA library (without the London expansions for the original GTA, it seems) makes it a pretty awesome deal, but throwing in the violence of Manhunt, the crassness of Bully, and the noirlarity of the Max Payne games? It's a must-download package.
If you're not a fan of Rockstar, Steam also has Left 4 Dead 2 on sale for $20.09. It includes the just-released The Passing expansion.
Will GreenwaldValve’s Steam client gets an update
Valve has release an interface update to the Steam client, and so far it looks pretty good. The entire client has been tweaked, so things like your friends list, game library, and achievements are easier to track.
The entire interface has been changed to offer more information. The game library now offers multiple views including a graphical grid view and a detailed list view. The news page now features both Steam updates and aggregate news site updates, making it a more catch-all news service. The store features a new layout with better category browsing. Friend and achievement lists are also improved, and integrate more directly into the game library.
If your Steam client hasn't automatically updated, you can manually download the new client by clicking on the Steam menu and selecting "Check for Steam Client Updates."
Will GreenwaldVideo game love affairs and booty calls
When we invest money and attention in a video game system, we bond with it. Anyone who grew up with a video game system probably feels as much if not more attachment to that system than to their first girlfriend. We embraced our consoles of choice like our own identity; we weren't just kids, we were NES kids, or SNES kids, or Genesis kids, or Playstation kids. Fights would break out over which console was better. We took sides and we loved it.
We still have love affairs with our game systems. Sure, the arguments have cooled down a bit as gamers have gotten older and the video game market has gotten much bigger and more cross-platform. If you only have an Xbox 360 or a Playstation 3, you might still feel a bit defensive about which system is superior, but when nearly every major title is available on both platforms, it simply boils down to exclusives and online service. Still, we feel close to our consoles, and they remain a staple of our homes.
Some systems just can't keep the passion alive. Maybe you had a strong relationship with them in the past, when the very idea was fresh and new, but in retrospect you don't really see why you cared so much about a console that did so little. I've experienced these fizzled affairs twice, and both times they were named "Nintendo."
Will GreenwaldDrew Brees to be on the cover of Madden NFL 11, will probably get injured shortly
It's that time of year again. Once again, a star NFL athlete has been chosen to be sacrificed upon the altar of the Madden Curse. This time, New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees will likely face personal injury, as he's going to be the NFL player on the cover of Madden NFL 11.
This is the first time that fans have picked who will be on the cover of a Madden game. From February 4 to March 15, Madden fans voted for their choice of player on the Doritos Change the Game web site. So when Drew Brees gets hurt and is out half the season, this time it's your fault.
Some might say that the Madden Curse is a hoax, or a joke, or a series of coincidences. Whatever it is, it's pretty damn amusing that nearly every athlete on the cover of a Madden game made in the last decade has either gotten injured or simply performed poorly. According to Wikipedia, the following players have allegedly suffered from the Madden Curse:
Will Greenwald
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