Dark Souls Review

How the HELL did I not post about Dark Souls when I finally--?? This game is easily one of my favorites. Ever. My friends find it a little odd that I enjoy a bit of a masochistic challenge every now and then, but I don't care because, hey, I BEAT THIS F&#*ING GAME!

Fellow gamers who have played Dark Souls may understand the duress I went through. Slogging through this game alone, encountering impossible bosses, getting sidewinded by swinging axes, stepping on traps, stepping on mimics, stepping off cliffs, stepping on ambiguous allies and then running away screaming as they two-shot me...the list of horrible, HORRIBLE atrocities I had to put up with is almost never ending. But that's why it's so unique! Too often nowadays, I experience little to no real challenge in video games. It's always "respawn here", "facetank there", "flail around in the shadows while enemies stumble drunkenly around to find you, then give up, saying it must have 'been a rat'". At worst, I've always felt like if I fucked up, all I'd have to do is load up an old save point, sprint back to where I was, then hurl myself into unnecessary combat again to brawl my way through the storyline. And this, in it's own right can be extremely fun (don't get me wrong, I LOVE games like Borderlands). However, I'm a kid who went through Devil May Cry on Dante Must Die mode with Alastor and no items saved up, so I'm used to having to deal with subtleties to bully my way through a game.

Okay, I'm getting sidetracked, sorry. Basically, this game is a game designed to make you die as many times as possible by giving you extremely unfair situations to have to deal with. Instead of stacking the odds in your favor, it does almost anything it can to stack them against you. Fighting a boss who can penetrate your defenses, smash you into the ground, takes little damage, has massive area of effect attacks, burning breath, and could simply nudge you off the building if it wanted to kill you? How about fighting TWO of those motherfuckers at once? See a shiny treasure you think might be a valuable piece of armor that will give you strong enough defenses where you can survive a couple hits? Surprise! It's a fucking trap. You're dead.

While practically any situation from Dark Souls sounds absolutely dickish when described without any real context, what makes the game good is that you can LEARN from your mistakes to come back and tackle the situation with (hopefully) mastered finesse. There is always a pattern to the traps. There is always a hint to look out for in areas. A cast shadow, a low rumble, the muffled shuffle of footsteps around the corner. Everything (well, nearly, almost, maybe everything) that could lead to your demise is given to you with a perfect path for you to continue onward. Any mistakes that lead to your death are mistakes that COULD be avoided in the future. You learn to approach shadows cautiously, to scout areas with item drops, to equip situational armors, to run away from monsters that are obviously stronger than you, and to not take chances in the dark. Your character is only human. He can only block from the front. He has limited stamina. He can't wield heavy weapons without proper strength training. You are given so little, but asked to do so much in return.

But that makes it all the better.

The grandiose conflicts that are encountered in the game only add to the intense euphoria after the sense of achievement and furious air-fisting have subsided. The moments you encounter and look back on stay with you, no matter how much time has passed. I'll never forget that moment where I battled a monstrous spider-witch to a standstill or that rapidly rising sense of dread as two legendary giants I had heard about took up arms against me or that time when I dove at JUST the right time to narrowly avoid a golem's earth-sundering swing.

This game was painful. It is not for the weak-hearted, or for the casual among us. Though not the most streamlined game due to its inherent proclivity for making things frustratingly difficult, it is one I'd personally recommend to any I call friend. Not only is it a game harkening back to the challenges of older days, it is a game that will give you a great feeling of accomplishment for every step along the way.

Torchlight II Review

Wow, it's been a long fucking time since anyone's posted on this site.

Anywho, after reading a rather comical Cracked article about Dishonored that really rang true, I decided to give this game review blogging business another shot. And what better game (other than Dishonored, Borderlands 2, Dark Souls, Spiderman: Web of Shadows, Ninja Gaiden 3, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Bayonetta, Marvel vs Capcom: Fate of Two Worlds, Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sands, Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and...uh...those games I'm too lazy to stand up and look at) would be better to get back into the groove of critiquing my well-wasted time with? For those of you who have never heard of Torchlight, it's pretty much like a condensed, purified, more fun-intensive, less-farming-intensive version of Diablo II. For those of you who haven't heard of Diablo II, it's an exercise in futility and rage management as you control a small character that fights lots of demon guys in a 2-D plane of existence.

But. I liked the game.

For those who have ever explored a dungeon crawler before, the concept should be familiar: beat baddies, level up, choose skills, get badass weapons, then fight bosses. Repeat. Everything that Torchlight does for you, it hands to you either on a silver platter if you're a casual player, or it shoves down your throat while kicking your balls with dynamite-laden steel toe boots...if you're not so casual that is. The degree of customization that can occur as you approach varying builds to get through the game can either make your character a god known far and wide as a magnanimous (big word!) hero or that-one-guy-who-got-his-ass-handed-to-him-by-an-exploding-barrel. Stacking this onto the huge differences in difficulty that are offered to players can make for a truly challenging free-for-all dungeon crawling experience with friends online or a quick blitz when you're alone.

I guess that the impression I got from the game was kind of like if you merged Halo with Left 4 Dead with a dungeon crawler, you'd get something like Torchlight II on elite mode. 

Either way, it was a fun game, and for 20 bucks, it runs surprisingly smoothly on my computer, has offered me many dozens of hours of gameplay and several characters worth of interesting build manipulations. This is one of only a few computer games I have recently played that I would earnestly recommend to any who have stumbled upon this blog and slogged through the review. Also--if you play--beat the shit out of Cacklespit. For me.

Shadows of the Damned Review

Shadows of the Damned is a fun-filled action shooter game which, despite its somewhat limited gameplay, makes for an entertaining and unique ride. This Suda51 game takes place in the Underworld as Garcia "Fucking" Hotspur chases after the hellishly sex-bent demons who kidnapped his fiancee. Armed with his trusty Johnson (a talking, morphing skull spirit), his less-than-substantial grasp of the English language, and a foul-mouthed-take-no-shit-from-anything approach, he decides to bust down the doors of Hell and take back his dearly beloved. The gameplay style is very similar to a somewhat smoother over-the-shoulder Resident Evil 4 with a quicker demand for shooting and reactions but a lesser demand on ammunition. Where this game shines, however, isn't its gameplay or its story, but the atmosphere and the bizarre comedy that this game is filled to the brink with.

"Demon hunting! Yay!"

Prompt Time: Franime

It has been almost a month so I guess I will suggest the next prompt; I would not be surprised if Tom was the only one to respond to it. Here I go...

Has there been a game that you really liked and hoped someone turned it into a T.V. series or movie? If it already has been done then feel free to comment on how well they adapted the game into the new form of media. If it hasn't been done for a game you are interested in than go ahead and explain how the adaptation would (or would not) be interesting.

Well, feel free to really discuss anything about it...

I probably should explain the title of the post but I will not! I think the only person who will know what I am referring to is Oliver. Do not worry your head since I will reveal the answer in my response to this post.

\Eric

Bioshock 2 and [Insert Clever Subtitle]

            To explain the premise of the Bioshock games to anyone who frequents this site would be pointless. If you are reading this and you do not recognize the Bioshock moniker, then you have indeed clicked a wrong link somewhere. Incidentally, please don’t follow this link. Anyways, the Bioshock was well known among gamers for being quite good, particularly for its mind-blowing plot twist and spectacular setting and atmosphere. The ending, generally regarded poorly for being terribly shitty, wrapped things up rather nicely for the player, seemingly leaving little room for a sequel. But oh how we were wrong, for the suits over at 2K did think that there was plenty of room for a sequel, and so we were given Bioshock 2. Though the game had a long and difficult development (eventually working its way around to five developers) and was criticized for shoehorning a multiplayer component that nobody asked for, it came out with decent reviews in the high 80s. However, many the general consensus on the internet was that Bioshock was superior to Bioshock 2, a sentiment that I frankly disagree with. Read on to learn why.

Prompt Time: The End of the World

My "Couldn't-think-of-a-better-image" image.

We all play games for lots of reasons, but everybody has their own ‘thing’ that they’re really into, one genre, style, or mechanic that always has us coming back. e|2|2o|2 has already told us about what it is he loves so much about PvP (Player versus Player) games, even though it was more a review of Bloodline Champions and less an argument for why he loves PvP enabled games… But I’m not here to criticize e|2|2o|2, as tempting as it might be. For as little as you may care, I’m about to throw in my two cents in response to the prompt of what I would throw into a game, no matter the cost, even if it meant bankrupting the company, losing my job, becoming homeless, having to scavenge half-eaten cheeseburgers out of a McDonald’s dumpster and resorting to needle mugging innocent strangers in front of ATMs to make a quick buck. After all, is what you just withdrew out of the ATM really worth the risk of getting stabbed with a syringe that may or may not have HIV? I should think not, but alas I am losing focus.

            Instead of ranting about something morally grotesque like some other people on this site, I want to let you know why I love games set in post-apocalyptic worlds so damned much.

Catherine, the True Story

"Would you like to review techniques?"

Huh? Oh, that sheep's still looking at me. I wonder how well it would survive if I knocked its glasses away...Oh wait, the prick's still expecting an answer--

"Uhh, no sorry, gotta run. Good luck to you guys!"

Damn, this climbing is getting really tenuous, and everyone around here just mopes and complains about how their life sucks. There should be at least one of these fluffy morons that knows a decent technique. If I keep asking around and listening to their blather, I might find at least one jackass with an ego smaller than the size of this god-forsaken tower...Jesus, I hate this place.

"Uh, hey there! Mind sharing some techniques so we could both get out of this?"

"News flash! Fuuuuuuuuuuuck you! I need to do what I can to survive this!"

...the FUCK? Did that son of a bitch just talk back to me?!