Average-but-arresting games used to be the backbone of the industry. What price perfection?

8 hours ago 3

It should perhaps come as no surprise that the highly anticipated horror adventure sequel Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has fallen short of expectations. Released this week to mixed reviews, it had a tortured gestation, arriving after seven years in development via two different studios. A few reviewers are disappointed that the title dropped a lot of the complex role-playing elements of its acclaimed predecessor, while others are frustrated that you begin as a powerful elder vampire and never develop much, despite being able to earn a few extra abilities as you explore the snowy city of Seattle sucking blood and fighting monsters.

What I have experienced messing about in this admittedly flawed game, and watching my vampire-loving son play with huge enthusiasm, is that it’s enjoyably idiosyncratic and compelling. The slightly soft-focus, icy cold rendition of Seattle gives it a film noir feel, accentuated by streets lined with neon signs and lavish members’ clubs where besuited vampires play classical music on grand pianos. You can flirt with exotic bloodsuckers, you can psychically lob sledgehammers at bad guys; my son particularly enjoys making people explode by cursing their blood and then throwing stuff at them. It’s like starring in some forgotten 1990s vampire flick that has since developed an obsessive cult following.

The game is also a reminder that flawed-but-fascinating games were once the backbone of the industry. From the mid-1990s to the late 2010s, it was possible for a team of fewer than 50 development staff to create an OK mid-budget adventure, get it published globally and find an audience. I know this because I reviewed dozens of them, from wannabe 2.5D platformer Pandemonium!, to riot simulator State of Emergency, to horror shooter The Suffering. The PlayStation 2 housed hundreds, thanks to its vast popularity. For every Gran Turismo or Metal Gear Solid there was a Enthusia Professional Racing or Kill Switch, or a Toca Race Driver 3 or an Oni.

The Xbox 360 was crammed with them, too – the game that Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 immediately reminded me of was Activision’s 2009 shape-shifting action adventure Prototype, in which amnesiac lead character Alex Mercer wanders a realistic New York transforming his limbs into weapons and absorbing enemies into his bio-mass. It was the 360 era that saw the ultimate example of the flawed treasure: Hidetaka “Swery65” Suehiro’s ludicrous, awful, brilliant detective adventure Deadly Premonition with its often terrible visuals and a narrator so unreliable you wouldn’t trust him to read you a bedtime story.

Over the past five years, the mainstream games industry has been short on these sorts of experiences because development costs are too high to risk it. So I’m glad to see recent titles such as this one, South of Midnight, Mafia: The Old Country, Atomfall and Dying Light: The Beast come along and be a little bit weird and awkward on a mainstream budget. It’s easy to forget in the psychopathically revisionist business of writing video games history that not all the best ideas came from the most acclaimed titles. Mega Drive strategy sim Herzog Zwei gave us most of the features of the real-time strategy genre before Dune II or Command & Conquer; King’s Field set the foundations for the Soulslike trend, but attracted only average reviews; Shiny Entertainment’s overlooked 1997 shooter MDK was one of the first titles to feature a zoomed sniper rifle scope and its visual effect for the concept was adopted by many later developers.

For many years the phrase “classic 7/10” was a joke among games journalists as the score became a convenient go-to when a game defied easy critical evaluation. But that seven has often hidden interesting treasures that players would often discover for themselves by playing magazine cover disc demos or renting it from Blockbuster. Those avenues aren’t open any more, so you must use Steam demos and YouTube videos to root out the slightly bruised truffles of the games industry. It’s worth the effort. Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 may well be getting it in the neck from critics right now, but it could well turn out to be immortal.

What to play

I bounced right off Scarlet and Violet, but Pokémon Legends Z-A has been well received in my house. It’s (finally!) an updated, remixed, modern take on Pokémon, dispensing with turn-based creature-battling in favour of quite frantic fights where you’re directing your team in real-time, firing off moves and dodging your trainer out of the line of fire.

It’s set in the faux-Paris city of Lumiose, which gives it a certain je ne sais quoi; it’s got entertaining character writing; and though it has attracted a lot of criticism for its bland graphics, I can confirm that kids absolutely do not care about this (and frankly, neither do I – it still looks better than every other Pokémon game I’ve played, and if I could show this to my 11-year-old self playing on a monochrome Game Boy screen, she’d lose her mind). I think I still slightly prefer Arceus’s wilderness feel, but this urban Pokémon paradise is stylish nonetheless. Keza MacDonald

Available on: Nintendo Switch/Switch 2
Estimated playtime: 25+ hours

What to read

I’ve been playing a lot of Battlefield 6 online and this IGN story about the war between “Zoomers” and “Battledads” amused me considerably. Younger players enjoy zippy movement which allows you to hop, skid and shoot almost unfettered, while the game’s older fans prefer its more authentic, slower approach to getting around. The game’s creators are having to somehow appease both fanbases. Good luck with that.
I’m a sucker for a retro console, so was delighted to discover Atari is set to release the Intellivision Sprint, a modern reproduction of the classic Mattel console from 1979. According to VGC, it will come with 45 games and a version of the machine’s weird controller, which featured a number pad. It’s out in December priced at £99.99 or $149.99.
Kind of related to my essay above is this article on Endless Mode, with the headline Shorter Games with Worse Graphics Really Would Be Better For Everyone, Actually. It makes the familiar point that we’ve not really gained anything experience-wise from the era of mega-budget, super high definition games – and development staff have suffered. Maybe it’s time for a re-think.

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Question Block

A potentially valuable question came in via email from a friend of mine this week:

“I’ve noticed that classic video games are becoming collector’s items, sometimes selling for thousands. How do I know which games are likely to be worth something in the future?”

There tend to be two categories of valuable video games: vintage instalments in much-loved franchises such as Pokémon, Super Mario, Final Fantasy and Street Fighter; and incredibly obscure releases that hardly anyone has ever heard of, but have soared in value simply because they’re so rare. In the latter category are titles such as Mr. Gimmick!, the Scandinavian version of 1992 NES platformer, Gimmick!, or Konami’s failed 2003 action game Ninja Five-O for the Nintendo DS – both are now incredibly hard to find. If you’re looking to start a collection, stick with the big franchises I already mentioned as well as new titles popular with hardcore fans – anything by From Software, Capcom, Nintendo, Squaresoft and so on. Limited-edition and collectors versions of those games in mint condition are your safest bet. It’s not really worth bothering with more casual perennial blockbusters such as Fifa, Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto unless it’s an obscure spin-off or rarity – the Grand Theft Auto Complete Collection on the PS2 now goes for about £3,000.

If you want to buy older titles, forget eBay and major charity shop chains now, as almost everyone has cottoned on to which games are worth something. However, car boot sales and smaller charity stores are worth a rummage – if you find a SNES or N64 game in good condition (the cardboard packaging makes that rare in itself) then it’s bound to be worth more than the couple of quid you pay – in fact, so is almost any console game released before 2000, unless it’s a big annual sports game, a kids game or a major Nintendo DS title. You are not going to get rich on Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training.

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