At the time it was definitely one of those, “so obvious I wish I had thought of it first” design innovations. This makes the sweet science of dodging, weaving, and sticking an opponent in the kidneys feel incredibly fluid and engaging compared to the old method of slapping buttons. Punch type, speed, and angle are determined by how the player pushes the right analog stick. All of the boxer’s movement are delegated to the left control stick, while all punches are handled off of the right.
Fight Night 2004 introduced the “Total Punch Control” system, which took full advantage of the Xbox and PlayStation 2 dual analog controls. It took 2 damned decades of boxing video games for someone to finally nail a control scheme that made punching intuitive. Troika closed in February 2005, three months after the game’s release. The release day competition with Half-Life 2 was too steep, and Bloodlines severely under-performed for publisher Activision.
That made for some impressive physics, but crippling bugs. Where are they now?: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines was the first third-party game released on Valve’s new Source engine of the time. Bloodlines was a game begging to be explored and played almost in perpetuity, and it retains an active fan base and modding following to this day. The ghoulish Nosferatu couldn’t survive long amongst humans without alerting the police, and insane Malkavian vampires could wind up having a full (if one-sided) conversation with a stop sign. Not only could you talk, woo, threaten, or bribe your way around most conflicts, your chosen vampire Clan could have a dramatic impact on your play-style. The game was an adaptation of the tabletop role-playing campaign from White Wolf publishing, and managed to successfully carry over a grand sense of choice and mission variation. Troika’s Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines offered an impressively open-ended campaign set against a vampiric society just behind the scenes of a modern-day Los Angeles. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (PC)