Game of the Year... 2011

Yes, you read that right, despite the fact that we find ourselves nestling in the dawn of 2013, I'm about to give my 'Game of the Year' awards for 2011. The thing is, just like last year, 2011 was so jam-packed with great releases--most of which took an awfully long time to finish and fully experience--that I simply didn't even manage to play half of the games I wanted to, at least until a good 12 months after their release. Indeed much of my 2012 was spent playing 2011 releases. I've certainly experienced my fair share of last year's highlights; the likes of XCOM, Halo 4, and Mark of the Ninja have not passed me by, and I plan on checking out everything I've missed out on in due course, but finally I can at least say I've played not only every major console release of 2011, but also a huge number of lesser-known titles, downloadables, and even DLC. Thus, belatedly, I can administer my verdict on the best games of what was truly a fantastic year. 

Since there are 12 months in a year and I'll take any excuse to include more games on this list, I've decided to compile a 'Top 12', hardly the most-common numerical choice for this sort of list but frankly I feel the number ten gets far too much airtime these days, twelve is far more sensible. I'd also like to preface this with a small note: this list is my own personal preference, simply the twelve games I enjoyed the most, some of them will have been on almost everyone's lists, a couple probably won't, but in no way is this an assessment of quality. Enjoyment is what I want from a game and enjoyment is the factor that decides this list. I could very easily--if reluctantly--argue the nonsensical semantics of why game X is better than game Y but frankly that's not why I'm here. Video games, like any form of entertainment, are a very subjective matter and there will always be plenty of people who share a very different view, anyone in the business of sharing their opinion has to face up to this simple truth. So, without further ado, here goes the first ever Attack Button Game of the Year awards.

Honourable Mentions

Ah the honourable mentions. Yes of course, where would any self-respecting, sympathetic list be without the honourable mentions; those games that I simply adored but not quite enough to make it to the final dozen. They shall not be granted the prestige of a paragraph of praise and accompanying picture, but they were brilliant nonetheless. Here's why, along with a few reasons they didn't quite make the cut for me.

Portal 2 - I adored the first Portal, and frankly my feelings for the second were no different. Valve improved the game in virtually every possible way, building on the story with some surprising plot revelations and entertaining voice-acting, and giving us plenty of new toys to play with. The co-operative game was an absolute blast to play through with a friend, and a lot of care clearly went into Portal 2's production. Unfortunately, I enjoyed the experience less and less as the game wore-on, and the humour began to grate on me; I shamefully regret that I seem to be one of the only people worldwide who didn't find Cave Johnson funny in the slightest, but there you have it. 

The Gunstringer - Twisted Pixel's Kinect-exclusive tale of a sheriff marionette risen from the grave and out for revenge was a wonderful surprise of 2011. Not only did it take fine advantage of the Kinect technology, but offered a laugh-ridden campaign that failed to fall into the motion-control trap of gameplay gimmicks. Despite The Gunstringer being a fairly repetitive experience and unfortunately suffering from some hardware-integration issues, it is one of the only Kinect titles to date that actually feels like a real video game, and TP deserve plenty of praise for realising such an apparently lofty goal. The free DLC that shipped with the game, 'The Wavy Tube Man Chronicles', was also absolutely brilliant and I hope we'll see more great work with Kinect from this developer in the future.

Modern Warfare 3 - With another year came another blockbuster in the Call of Duty franchise. As far as those games go, my interest has varied over the years from 'mild indifference' to 'rabid fanboy craze', and Modern Warfare 3's release saw me transform somewhat closer to the latter. Whether or not you adore or detest the franchise, I find it hard to mount a cohesive argument against the quality of Call of Duty's raw gameplay and the stupidly addictive nature of its multiplayer. Yes these games are completely unrealistic, yes the multiplayer can be an unbalanced mess, and yes this thing is the biggest cash cow in the industry, but so what? Just as there are nights when I'd rather watch a bit of Commando than The Hurt Locker, there are times, especially in video games, where I just want some old-fashioned, stupid fun. CoD has, at the very least, provided that in spades for a good few years now, and Modern Warfare 3 was no exception. The campaign, while being about as mind-meltingly Michael Bay as you can imagine, provided a fitting end to the most profitable video game trilogy of all time, and countless nights in front of the console were guaranteed for fans the world over as the game's multiplayer and co-operative offerings continued to expand. Personally, I felt a little burnt-out on the game after a couple of weeks, the multiplayer did little to grab me and I never got back into it, but MW3 deserves plenty of praise.

Saints Row: The Third - Well, well, well, the franchise that began as nothing more than a fairly-meagre GTA clone has gone on to not only match its influence, but exceed it. Some of the most hilarious writing, most-involved customisation, and most addictive open world gameplay of all time made the third Saints Row game an utter joy to experience from beginning to end. Not only hearkening back to the days of the more crazy GTA games, but topping them in nearly every way and delivering what the Saints Row franchise initially never looked capable of: a wholly unique experience. Sure, the story itself was threadbare, the difficulty seemed to jump about all over the place, and unfortunately almost all of the game's DLC has failed to match the quality of the full product, but Saints Row: The Third was the booster injection of fun for which the open-world, gangster genre was sorely overdue.

Batman: Arkham City - Anyone who has played an Arkham game would tell you it's not just the intuitive combat, the gargoyle-clad stealth rooms, or the Riddler puzzles that make it special, it's the whole package. When you put so many brilliantly-polished mechanics and features together, the result is a shining example of what a video game can be. That's what Arkham Asylum was. Arkham City, at least from my point of view, was just more of that. Now, I'm not one to argue against 'more brilliance'; 'more brilliance' is, by definition, a wonderful thing and I very much enjoyed spending more time in this particular vision of Batman's world. However, I was left feeling that very little had been done to improve the formula. Sure, its a winning formula and 'don't fix what ain't broke', but that sort of excuse has never been enough for me. I felt as if Rocksteady were doing nothing more than riding the success of the first game, and even then, it was a bumpy ride at times, with the game's story becoming something of a convoluted mess as one-too-many villains were shoehorned into the plot. The only major gameplay addition came in the form of Catwoman as a playable character, which I personally could have done without. Don't get me wrong here, I adore both Arkham games and am confident in Rocksteady's ability as a developer, but I sincerely hope, if there is another of these games, that they have enough confidence in themselves to shake things up a little.


12 Shadows of the Damned

Just about making the list is Grasshopper Manufacture's punk-rock, action horror. What the game lacked in gameplay, it more than made up for in character. Garcia Hotspur became one my personal video game icons and it only took him a few hours of gameplay to do it. Not to mention his witty sidekick Johnson, who acted as a fine cowardly counterbalance to Hotspur's brutishness. The pair were an instant hit, and represent all that I loved about Shadows of the Damned. It was stylish, it was hilarious, it was undeniably cool, it didn't take itself too seriously, but knew it had a damn fine world to show you and a kickass story to boot. It was an experience like no other in 2011, an impressive feat considering the raw gameplay itself might well have been Ctrl+V'd from any other third-person shooter. But Shadows of the Damned was about more than pressing buttons and shooting dudes; it was about the ride, and it was one I haven't forgotten.


11 Rise of Nightmares

Part of the reason I loved Rise of Nightmares so much was because it stood out. Even now, nearly eighteen months on from its release, it remains one of the only Kinect games that really tried to, well, be a video game. And for the most part it succeeded. The team at Sega Wow did what virtually every other Kinect-developer has failed to do; they didn't see the device as a hindrance, as something to be worked around as best as possible with shortcuts and handholding, they didn't even see it as a piece of serious hardware that should be treated delicately to cater to a 'hardcore' crowd. They saw the mad little toy that makes people the world over flail their limbs about in the living room like madmen. They saw what is, for now, the essence of Kinect: a kinda broken, kinda stupid thing that can actually be a whole lot of fun if you don't take it too seriously. They said let's make a game for that. And that's just what they did. Rise of Nightmare's cliché-ridden, hilarious B-movie horror, combined with surprisingly varied gameplay, remarkably intuitive control systems, and more wacky gestures than you can shake a leg at, more than cement it as one of my favourite games of 2011.


10 Dead Rising 2: Off the Record

It seems that not a lot of people noticed Dead Rising 2: Off the Record. For a variety of reasons it slipped under the radar, but I would implore any Dead Rising fan, or even anyone with a passing interest in the franchise to pick it up because it is, quite simply, the best game in the series. Finally the folks at Capcom paid attention and made some of the changes fans and detractors alike had been clamouring for. The introduction of a sandbox mode was a much-welcome feature, eliminating the pesky time limitations and letting players get down to the meat (or perhaps flesh?) of the Dead Rising experience. Snapping "erotic" photos again felt like being reunited with an old friend, and at least on a personal level, the most important addition of all was the return of perhaps the world's favourite wartime photojournalist, Frank West. The developers took the time and care to not just rush out a re-release, but really make a product worth the money. The completely re-imagined story, along with the new area, weapons, and psychopaths all contributed to making the game more than justify its creation. There are still things in the Dead Rising formula that require a bit of tweaking but Off the Record improved far too much to be ignored. In short: fantastic!


9 L.A. Noire

L.A. Noire was something special, not just in the way it went about using its marvellous MotionScan technology to present lifelike characters, but in everything else it did too. The interrogation mechanic was something else, and the way in which Team Bondi went about converting the methodical, slow-paced style of an adventure game into an open world was a stroke of genius. Not to mention they wrapped it all up with an emotional story, and decorated the game with just the right degree of raw brutality and dark corruption to capture the fragility of post-war Los Angeles, and its inhabitants. The game was a triumph; a sterling example of storytelling, artistry, and remarkable technology. The tale it told left a lasting impression on me, as did the characters I met along the way. The pleasure of donning my sleuth cap and sussing out--or at least attempting to suss out--each crime was the realisation of a childhood dream. I can only hope we see more games taking inspiration from L.A. Noire in the future.


8 Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3

I'm hardly a fighting game pro but this game made me feel like one. Capcom's fantastic design allowed rookies to pull off 100-hit combos and screen-filling ultra moves with ease, while meticulously balancing each member of the game's huge roster to suit the competitive community too. The inclusion of well-made challenge and training modes only eased the introduction for less-experienced players, and the overall accessibility of the game is one of its finest attractions. Fights themselves are truly a spectacle to behold, with utterly sublime graphics and magnificently-detailed animations. You'll never see a slow fight in MvC 3 and the game does a sterling job of essentially capturing what you would expect a battle between the likes of Ryu and Wolverine to play out. The initial release of the game would've made the list by itself, such was the quality of the core game, but the Ultimate edition really completed the package. The addition of so many new characters and stages was enough to sell me on the product, but Capcom went above and beyond, tweaking and re-balancing each character, adding a spectator mode that was sorely-missing in the original, throwing in a free downloadable--and completely wacky--card-based bonus mode, and even the little novelty additions like playable Galactus went a great way to making Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 fantastic value. The attention to detail on display from the developer, and the care they invested to make a truly accessible fighting game was a gesture I fully appreciated, and to this day UMvC 3 remains one of my all-time favourite fighters. 

7 Mortal Kombat

Just edging ahead in the fighting game stakes is Mortal Kombat. This is a franchise that, at least from my point of view, trod a drastically fluctuant path since the turn of the millenium (and perhaps even a little bit before, the less said about Mythologies: Sub-Zero the better) and fans--myself included--were, understandably, rather equivocal in our expectations towards this new game. But as more footage was released, doubts were vanquished and excitement grew, with good reason. Mortal Kombat (9) is a sensational video game, and the perfect example of how to reboot a struggling franchise. Netherrealm took MK back to its roots, whilst adding a modern touch to spice things up. All of the game's classic characters returned, and each was designed and balanced so well that I found it impossible to decide on a favourite. It was one of the only fighting games in recent memory to feature a full story mode that actually made sense, and evidently a lot of attention went into providing as full an experience as possible. The Challenge Tower was an addictive and varied addition, while the game's multiplayer--the lifeblood of any fighter--was handled very well, with the theatre-style spectator mode a nice touch. Roll on Injustice!

6 Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Human Revolution surprised me. I'd never been much into Deus Ex before, I played and enjoyed the first game enough but never really invested myself in the series. Picking up a copy of HR, I expected a decent little stealth romp to kill a weekend. What I found was an awful lot more; a wonderfully-imagined, and rather scarily realistic cyberpunk vision of the future; a story wrought with intrigue, fascinating science, and conspiracy; and some of the most dynamic gameplay I've seen in the last few years. To top it all off, the game handles stealth--should you choose that particular path--brilliantly, with some truly challenging segments, multiple pathways through nearly every area, and countless options to deal with the enemies you face. The quality of the story missions can't be understated, but it was outside the core game that I really found myself falling in love with HR. There's such a lot to explore in the game, so many computers to hack, well-written side missions to undertake, and secrets to find, and all of this content is such a lot of fun to discover. A hallmark of a well-made game is a world worth exploring, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution can safely check that box.

5 Dead Island

Oh Dead Island, you were the zombie game I've always wanted. You took zombies and made them scary, something that an awful lot of developers have been unable to do. You built a world that really felt like it had been overrun with the undead, complete with the raw helplessness and terror that we imagine would come with it. I felt genuine dread at the prospect of running from one end of a city to the other, sure in the knowledge that the fight for survival would be a tough one. A fight with more than a few zombies was a true challenge, and the wild howls of the lethal infected would send a shiver down my spine. Dead Island did so many things right that I was more than willing to overlook its minor flaws, and I feel anyone else should be too. Techland crafted a survival horror experience that was simply fun to play, with an intuitive combat system, a ludicrous amount of content, and a co-operative game that can't be missed.

4 Rayman Origins

It's hard to put into words just how much I adore Rayman Origins. As a lifelong fan of the limbless wonder, I don't think anybody could've been happier than me to see his return to the two dimensions from whence he came, and a big, beaming smile didn't leave my face from the moment I picked up the controller until I set it down. The game is beautiful. In fact, let me just say that again for emphasis; the game is beautiful. It is an utter joy to make one's way through each and every wonderfully composed level, accompanied by a cheerful soundtrack every bit as gorgeous as the world that dances to its beat. The nicely-balanced difficulty, hilarious multiplayer, and hours of potential replayability were generous sprays of polish on an already shimmering game. Rayman Origins is a consistently blissful experience from start to finish, and I was truly sad to reach the end; which is not something I feel very often. 

3 Gears of War 3

It's amazing just how good Gears of War 3 is. After the original blockbuster, and it's more than impressive sequel--a game that more than managed to deliver on the developer's promises of a "bigger, better, more badass" experience--I admit I felt some trepidation going into the final chapter of the trilogy. Could they really do it again? How can you possibly improve on a game like Gears 2? Well, as it turns out there's an awful lot of answers to that question, and Epic Games knew them before the rest of us. Gears 3 was the ultimate package, an explosive campaign saturated with some truly great storytelling, the horde and beast modes that surpassed their peers and cemented Epic's place as masters of their own innovation, and, perhaps best of all, a balanced, addictive, and superbly refined multiplayer. The game captured every aspect of the franchise that people adored, polishing each to a gold standard and throwing in plenty of new tricks to keep it fresh. It not only surpassed its outstanding predecessors, but somehow made them look puny and hollow when put up against such a masterpiece. As we now know, it wasn't the final Gears of War game and I can only hope Judgement delivers this year, but I won't believe it until I see it. After all, how can you possibly improve on a game like Gears 3?


2 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

How can one summarise Skyrim in a paragraph? After spending my first hundred hours in the game's world, I felt like I'd only just scraped the surface of what that game has to offer, and I remained just as eager to see it all as when I began. It's more than a game, it's another world. A living, breathing, wonderfully-built world that you want to explore. The fiction is rich, the scenery beautiful, the adventuring wild and the quests innumerable. It feels as though you're living another life. The freedom the game offers you only enhances this, and it's something I feel other developers could learn a great deal from, as well as the reason I adore the Bethesda RPG model more than any other. They don't confine you, shepherd you along, hold your hand or tell you what to do. Skyrim teaches you its basics and sets you loose, there's a hell of a lot out there to discover and Bethesda are confident that whatever you find, whichever path you take, cave you explore, town you terrorise, or quest you undertake, you'll be desperate for more. They're right.

1 Dark Souls

Yes, as you may have guessed, Dark Souls takes the 2011 crown. What can I say that I haven't said already? I've spent over three hundred hours on this game now, completed it over a dozen times, and I continue to fall deeper in love with each passing minute I spend in the world of Lordran. People talk about the similarities between Dark Souls and Demon's Souls and they're certainly there to see, but From Software didn't just build on a solid foundation, they went above and beyond. Preserving the intense difficulty and dark fantasy adored by many in the first game, they crafted a whole new world even more intriguing, mysterious and unforgiving than the last. They built an experience that functioned on a completely different level to most video games, centrally-focused around the ideas of challenge and achievement through a combat system that taught players to learn from their mistakes. It says it all when the game took me about fifty hours to complete first time through, and now I can finish it in around five. And in spite of what little value that achievement really holds, I'm proud of it. I've "beaten" an awful lot of games in my times but Dark Souls is the first I feel like I've truly "conquered," and I'm still desperate to play more. In the same way that my character has levelled up over time, I too felt like my own stats were rising, my dexterity piqued after countless battles, my foresight matured through my adventures, and my strategies honed through repetition. Everything about Dark Souls is handled in a way that appeals to me and my sensibilities, from the lore that isn't thrust into your face with hours of cut-scenes, but delicately gleaned from your interactions with the world itself, to the boss battles that feel every bit as grand as they look. It's an incomparable video game experience, and the best I had in 2011.

Review: Dark Souls

Prepare to... yep.

Here we see a Dark Souls player burning his controller in rage.

Dark Souls is such a hard game, that even reviewing it is a difficult process, it attracts such a unqiue crowd, and sits proudly in such a niche market, that there’s very little to compare it to, no real benchmark for the ‘Frustratingly Difficult Dark Fantasy’ genre. I’m not a big fan of sports games, but I can still play and review them, commenting on the improvements and possible shortcomings in relation to other games in the genre, but when it comes to Dark Souls, there’s so little out there to quantify it against. So, I’ll approach this review as a long-time gamer, a fan of the fantasy RPG, and someone who enjoyed the fresh, challenging gameplay of the game’s predecessor, Demon’s Souls.

There’s no hiding the fact that, while this game doesn’t share the title of its forebear, the similarities are countless and clear to see. Simply put, anyone who enjoyed Demon’s Souls will feel right at home here, and for those of you who deemed the first game a frustrating, rage-inducing experience that you never want to live through again, well, you might want to steer clear of Dark Souls. If reviews were nothing more than advice on what to buy, this one could end right there. The game retains plenty of the features and style of Demon’s, and while it does bring an awful lot of new things to the table, the core structure remains the same, and it’s doubtful that any of the additions will prove meaningful enough to win over those who couldn‘t find enjoyment in the first game. The series is designed in a very specific way, and attracts a very specific crowd, providing something of a unique flavour in the game market, that most players will either love or hate.

Most things are weak to fire... not everything though.

Almost everything about the game is unique in some way, right down to its visual style. This is a fantasy game through and through, you’ll be battling skeletons and zombies, making your way through forests, dungeons, and castles, but there’s much more to it than that, plenty of unique environments, straight-lines and jagged-edges are used to great effect, and some wonderfully grotesque and original enemy designs give Dark Souls its own morbid stylistic flair that you won’t find in traditional fantasy games. From Software somehow manage to make no area ever look welcoming, every single path you walk down gives the impression that you probably shouldn’t be walking down it. Castles are cold and overbearing, forests are so dense and dark that you’ll wish you could leave a breadcrumb trail for fear of getting lost, even the brightly-lit areas--of which there are plenty, the game isn't excessively dark throughout--can fill you with dread. One of my biggest complaints about the first game was the lack of originality in environments, castles, caves, dungeons, it felt like typical fantasy fare and I hoped for more unique areas to match the original and varied designs of the enemies and gameplay. Dark Souls very much addresses this, while From Software are still confined by the limitations of the genre, and you will still be making your way through swamps and caverns, there are plenty of exciting new environments to explore, a lush valley, a grand ancient city, lava-filled ruins, a giant hollowed-out tree, and much more. Variety is a big part of the game, and the number of different areas is staggering and will keep you hungry for more. Overall, Dark Souls is a good-looking game, it won’t win any awards for graphics, and the frame rate suffers from time to time, but From Software have captured a very unique, dark look to their world, and use it well, every area you visit feels different from anywhere else you’ve visited in other games.

Some of the environments are breathtaking. As in they will suck the breath out of you and leave you a lifeless corpse.

Probably the biggest change from Demon’s Souls, is that this is an ‘open world’ game now. I use that term loosely, because I don’t want people to think this is something like Skyrim, you can’t exactly wonder off wherever you like, but you are given free reign over where you go next. You won’t be picking and choosing levels to warp to, and then teleporting back to a safe hub at the end of each area any more. You are literally dropped off in this world, and free to explore it. Well, ‘free’ might be pushing it a little, some areas will have to be unlocked as you progress, and others will be far too difficult for you to journey through without some experience, but there is no one set path through the game, and it really is up to you to both choose where you would like to go next, and to figure out what on Earth you’re actually meant to be doing. The game provides very little guidance, as you would expect I suppose. You’ll always have some vague instruction about what you should be doing, but it’s left to you to figure out how. For example, at the outset, you are tasked with ringing two bells and given a rough indication of where they are, you being the classic ‘Chosen One’ who will free the world of evil or some such cliché. The story, like with everything else in the game, is mainly left for you to figure out yourself. There are NPCs to talk to, but very few actual cut-scenes or exposition to speak of, even the ending scenes, of which there are two (good or bad), are incredibly short and don’t explain much. It’s a unique style of storytelling and not one I particularly enjoyed, while the story wasn’t really the reason I was playing the game, I would’ve liked perhaps a little more time dedicated to explaining the world, a little extra motivation to play through a game never hurts.

This is the equivalent of a Chuck E Cheese in Dark Souls world.

So guess what? This game is hard. The number of things that can maim, impale, shock, burn, poison, curse, and just plain old kill you is insurmountable. There are lethal traps, treacherous paths, poisonous swamps, and, well, lava pools filled with dinosaurs. Death waits for you around every single corner, ready to strike just as soon as you mistime a sword swing, sprint a little too far, or take one more swig from your potion than you really needed. It really is that brutal, everything has a measured pace to it that you must learn and master if you ever hope to make it through. Timing is probably the most important factor in the game, it's all about knowing the right moment to strike or block, or the precise time to jump to make it over a treacherous gorge rather than falling to your doom. You’ll end up naturally learning animation routines, and even have to carefully plan out when to start casting your spells or swigging your potions, since every action takes a second or two to actually play out, and you’ll be granted no temporary immunity while trying to recover or preparing to strike. The gameplay essentially consists of a long string of learning experiences, first you must become accustomed to the heavy movement controls and timing-based combat, then you will learn how to pace yourself in fights and exploration, mastering each area and battling hordes of enemies as you go until the feel of the game becomes second nature. It certainly takes time to get used to, but after enough time with the game, you'll figure out the tactical combat and carefully-paced progression.

The open world nature of the game doesn't change it as much from Demon's Souls as you might think, since there is still a general hub area you’ll return to, and safe areas throughout the world in the form of bonfires; you will learn to love these little beacons of joy, providing you with an opportunity for a breather and the ability to level up and repair weapons, with the bonfires themselves also serving as checkpoints. From Software deal well with the transition to ‘open world’ style gameplay by including these little safe spots, if you buy the right equipment, you can do all the things you would normally have to do at the hub, right there at any bonfire in the game, removing the need for constant backtracking which would only add more needless frustration. Having said that, there is still a lot of backtracking throughout the game since you never quite know if you’re heading in the right direction, and will sometimes find yourself exploring a whole area, only to be greeted with a dead end and be forced to make your way back. The game does things to make this much easier on the player later on, but in the early going it can be enough to put some people off. The auto-saving checkpoint nature of the bonfires can also pose problems at times, since you’ll respawn at the last bonfire every time you die, so, in the worst case scenario, you could find yourself constantly respawning at a dead end bonfire, forced to try and make your way back through a difficult area and wishing you could just teleport to the hub. But of course, this is all part of the Dark Souls experience, everything you do is a risk, even resting at bonfires can backfire, and you have to consider every choice you make, whether it’s going left at a fork in the road, resting to refill your potions, or taking on a boss.

Enemy designs are one of the best bits about the game, even the gross ones like this scaleless dragon.

Boss battles make up a big part of the experience, there are around two dozen bosses, almost all of which must be defeated if you wish to complete the game. Most of them provide a great challenge and will have to be taken on in a variety of different ways, with a lot of the fun of the game coming from working out the perfect strategy to take down a boss. They all look great, the enemy design throughout the game is inspired, and every creature you face looks and acts differently, giving you even more of a reason to proceed with caution, never knowing what horrendous abilities the next foe might hide. Despite their fearsome appearance and, often devastating power, you’ll want to kill an awful lot of these enemies to acquire the currency of the game; the titular souls. Souls are everything, experience points and money all rolled into one. You’ll spend them on spells, weapons and armour, while also using them to repair and upgrade your equipment, and even level up. It’s a simplistic and interesting currency system and works well. Soul management and careful spending becomes key, particularly early on, and knowing that at any moment you could be struck down and lose everything you’ve earnt gives players added incentive to stay on their toes when carrying a horde of souls.

Multiplayer is present, but not in any traditional sense, just like with everything else on the game, From Software add a unique twist to the way they handle multiplayer. As with Demon’s Souls, players can leave messages for each other dotted about the world, warning of any traps ahead or offering small messages of encouragement. Ghostly shadows of other players will appear from time to time, reminding you that there are others facing the same peril. Co-operative and competitive multiplayer do exist, and work as intended. Players can join up together to face bosses, or invade others’ worlds to do battle. Various items and conditions are required to engage in this multiplayer, which help to limit the potential for excessive invading. The multiplayer side of the experience is not something I have personally taken much interest in, but it certainly is available and functional, and the more ‘passive’ side of the multiplayer, i.e the messages and ghosts of other players, are a great feature that certainly help to ease new players into the game. Even the tutorial is built using these messages, quickly getting you into the habit of checking them all for useful information.

Believe it or not, he's one of the good guys.

The game is really an adventure, that's the one thing I will always keep coming back to. Forgetting about the difficult gameplay, and frustrating elements, it really is a fantastic fantasy role-playing adventure. It drops you off in the world without force-feeding you reams of dialogue and exposition, and lets you go about your own journey however you like. Other games have done this in the past and will do it again in the future, but the way Dark Souls simply lets you loose in this world really can't be compared with anything else. Despite the linearity of some of the progression, and the complete lack of side quests or a branching storyline or any of the traditional 'open world' tropes, they manage to make the game feel like your own personal adventure. You have to figure out where to go, you have to learn how to fight, you have to make every choice and find every soul and explore this world in your own way. Despite my criticisms of the lack of story and guidance, in a way I really appreciated that part of the game because it grants players the ultimate freedom to go about their story and take whatever they like from it. There's a lot to be commended about the game's somewhat minimalistic story and lack of hand-holding.

All in all, I had a great time with Dark Souls. The challenging gameplay and dark design appeal to me, but I accept that I am part of a very niche market. There are certainly plenty of criticisms that people can throw at the game, not necessarily from a technical standpoint--aside from the frame-rate issues the game stands up well--but from a design perspective, it can certainly be argued that this game was made to frustrate. The story isn’t really ‘told’ in any traditional sense, and only the faintest suggestions of guidance are available to let players know what on Earth they’re meant to be doing. The sluggish combat controls can be frustrating, the camera is clumsy, the inventory system could be better, and frankly, the addition of a pause button wouldn’t go amiss. Yet, I would still rate this game as one of the best of 2011 so far, and loved the adventure it took me on. It is a very difficult game, but that can never be a criticism because the difficulty level was an intentional design choice and worked out just as From Software wanted. They set out to make a tough, oppressive game, and they succeeded in every aspect. This won’t appeal to everyone, but it was never really meant to.

Dark Souls will make you love bonfires in ways you never imagined. No, not like that. 

As I have stressed throughout, and fans of the Souls games will continue to stress, the game simply appeals to a certain crowd, it's an acquired taste. The gamers out there who revel in overcoming challenges, who get the biggest thrills from beating the hardest levels, who have spent hours grinding away at a frustrating game just for their own personal satisfaction and triumph upon beating it, these are the people who Dark Souls is made for. From Software have very much mastered the art of appealing to a particular audience. The game isn’t for everyone, I’m sure they’d be the first to admit that, but if you’re one of the people who it is meant for, then you’ll love Dark Souls.

For me, the experience might best be compared to one of those old 'Choose-Your-Own-Adventure' books, everything is set in stone and you'll always ultimately be doing the same things, but every time you play it feels like your unique story. Also, like the old books, a lot of the choices you make will result in horrible death. 

For the purposes of this review, the Xbox 360 version of the game was played.

Dark Souls Doom Diary - Days 6 and 7

As Frank Sinatra once sang, I did it my way. 


Dark Souls is complete, and not a moment too soon. Literally, I beat the final boss at around 11:20pm. I actually don't want to comment too much on what I've just played and the sheer intensity of that experience, I'll save that for the review which should be up by the end of the week. On Friday night, after a day of grinding and with the deadline of the challenge looming, my determination got the best of me. I decided I wouldn't let anything stop me from completing this game on time, and trust me, a lot of things tried to stop me, mostly scary things. The reason I'm not particularly conveying exuberance or joy in this post is because I'm still overwhelmed with disbelief that I've actually finished the game. Some of the battles seemed impossible at times, and even just getting through some areas was the most daunting task. Parts of it felt like I was just banging my head against a wall. The last few hours were some of the hardest I've ever had in gaming, and I've played Atlantis no Nazo. 


The game was everything I expected, and more, I really am sadly too tired to write too much on it right now. Not to sound like one of those people who pretends gaming is a strenuous activity, but that last session genuinely left me exhausted. 


Apologies for the lack of post yesterday, I was playing well into the night and, had I even attempted to write something in my sleep-deprived, caffeine-fuelled state, it would have been beyond incomprehensible. 


The review will be up soon, which will serve as a proper end to my Dark Souls-related musings, and in which I will go into much more detail about how this game turned out. I feel like it was one of the most excruciatingly intense, yet ridiculously rewarding gaming experiences of all time. I really wish I could write more, but this must be the effect of playing that game under pressure for nearly two days straight. 


I'm speechless.

Dark Souls Doom Diary - Day 5

In case the picture isn't clear, I'm grinding. 


The sad fact is I am not good enough, or at least not confident enough in my character and skills, to carry on to a new area, because every time I try, I seem to get slaughtered pretty easily. I know where I'm heading next, the area known as Sen's Fortress, a place that opened up after I killed the spider, so should be pretty well-suited for me. I've spent a lot of time grinding today, killed that mean old hydra I met back on day one, along with another sub-boss or two, and I entered a covenant.


Now, the covenant system in this game confuses me a little. This is probably because, as with most aspects of Demon's Souls, very little is explained. Basically, I seem to be able to join one of several covenants, or factions, and each one grants me a few bonuses, but I can only be in one at a time. Remember that ring I mentioned at the start of the week? The Old Witch's Ring? I finally found out what it's used for, it lets me talk to a half-spider, half-lady type thing who invites me to join her covenant, which I did. This got me a cool new fireball spell, after that I carried on exploring the area and discovered the covenant which I plan to stay in for the rest of the game; the path of the dragon. Now, I got a pretty cool bonus for joining, and there's only one way I can really describe it; I get to transform my head into a freaking dragon's, and breathe fire. So now you see why this is the covenant for me. The fire attack doesn't actually seem too powerful, but that's probably something to do with my stats. Anyway, each covenant has a leader, (guess what mine is? A huge freaking dragon!) and you can talk to them, and it seems like you can take on special missions for them or give them items. I'm not sure what this does just yet, but I'll try and find out, maybe it unlocks further covenant bonuses or something like that.


So it's been another boring day sadly, but I've decided that today will be the last extended period of grinding I do in this game. From now on I'll be charging head first into the jaws of death with nary a care in the world for my STR or INT values. If I'm to have any hope of finishing in time, I'll have to start making progress, and that begins tomorrow. I've chosen my next destination, and will make my way through it even if it kills me, which it will, several times. If I can get a few bosses beat tomorrow and get through a handful of areas I might just about have enough time to finish it off by Sunday evening. I'm not holding out much hope but there could still be a chance, and even if I don't finish then these posts will continue until I do. Nothing stops the Doom Diary.


Wish me luck.

Help!: Top 10 Dark Souls Tips

Now that I've spent over 24 hours with Dark Souls, I thought I'd take the time to write my first 'Help!' article for the blog, these will usually comprise of little hints and tips that might hopefully help some people out. In this case, ten tips if you're getting started with Dark Souls or for more experienced players who just want to reduce the number of times they feel like hurling their controller at the screen.

Tip: Watch the teeth...

In no particular order:


1) Mix it up: There are an awful lot of ways to play Dark Souls, it's not just your usual case of ranged, melee, or magic. Everything has sub-categories, there are the different magic specialities like pyromancy and miracles, tons of melee weapons with different styles, heavy weapons, light weapons, dual-wielding. You can choose to hold a wand in one hand and an axe in the other if you like, I certainly wouldn't recommend it, but the option is there, along with a lot of other options, so what I would recommend, especially if you're just getting started, is to really take the time to try out all the different systems in the game. Your inventory will quickly fill up with a wide variety of weapons, they behave very differently, and its worth giving them all a try, you might be pleasantly surprised.


2) Consider your options: There is no one set path through Dark Souls. Once you finish the tutorial area, you are free, make no mistake, this is an open world game, it's simply that some areas of that world are a lot more dangerous than others. If you're finding one area too tough, there'll always be at least one other place nearby you could try. It's definitely in your best interests to get in the habit of fully exploring your options instead of tiring yourself out hacking away at an area you might not quite be suited to. 


3) Combat is more than just light and heavy: At first, I expect most players will focus mainly on a mixture of blocking, and light and heavy attacks, but don't be afraid to experiment, because the combat system really is a lot deeper than that. Backstabs, parries, lunging strikes, ripostes, there's a lot to master, and it can be overwhelming to learn it all at once, but if you gradually try and work some of these moves into your arsenal, you'll become a much more effective fighter. Try tapping B to quickly dodge a strike and then immediately attack to deliver a devastating reply, or when an enemy is blocking with a shield, try flicking the stick forward and hitting RB/R1 to kick the shield away. There are plenty more useful techniques like this for you to discover.


4) Upgrading your weapons is key: This won't matter too much until you're further into the game, but when you start encountering tough enemies, the game becomes a lot harder if you're still relying on the same old sword you picked up near the start. Try to learn the upgrade system, it's not too difficult to understand, and use it well. Pick a weapon you like the feel of, and focus on building it up, at first the attack difference will be negligible, but once you really start getting into the upgrade trees you will notice a big shift in your weapon's power, and suddenly battles become a lot easier. Further on down the line you can invest in multiple upgraded weapons, giving yourself various elemental damage effects to suit any encounter will make the whole game much more manageable.


5) Never rush into new areas: This one might seem a little obvious, but it's worth reinforcing. If you're exploring somewhere new, you have no idea what could be around the next corner. The areas in this game are all vastly different, and nearly every one of them is full of traps just waiting for headstrong heroes to come charging in. Don't do it. I'll tell you a story to put you off. After beating the early parts of the game quite easily, I got a little cocky. I started moving a little faster. "Nothing can stop my awesome power!" I would cry, defiantly taunting the game with my foolhardy naivety. I wound up almost trying to sprint through the sewer section, which, as you may or may not know, has a lot of trap doors in the floor, perfectly designed for idiots like me to fall straight through. Which I did. Into a room of bug-eyed freaks that turned me to stone. Lesson: Don't rush, ever.


6) Pay attention in boss fights: I'll let you in on a little secret; you're going to die on these bosses. It's an inevitability. So, what should you do? How can you make these deaths work for you? Learn from them! There's a pretty high chance that the first time you try and take on a boss in this game, it'll kill you. So what I always do, on my first attempt, or even first few attempts, is try and learn as much as I possibly can about the fight. Just keep your shield up, stay alive as long as you can and figure out as much as possible so you are armed with the most valuable weapon of all when you return; knowledge. Pay attention to the boss, what attacks it uses, how fast it moves, if there is any pattern to the way it fights, what sort of signs it gives before unleashing each attack. Memorise as much as you can, write it down if you have to. Try and have a look at the arena you're fighting in too, as this can often help shift the fight in your favour. If it's a big open area, remember to use that space to run away and heal whenever you need to. See if you can spot any chokepoints, corners, changes in elevation, or possible barriers to help you out. Learn as much as you can to make the fight a lot easier for yourself next time.


7) Don't stress about starting classes: The class you choose at the beginning of the game has no real impact on how the rest of the game goes. This isn't like your traditional RPG where you have to pick a certain class to use certain armour or weapons, all of them can use everything, so don't worry, there are no long-lasting effects. The only differences in classes are what gear and stats you start with, but these differences aren't big enough to fret about, and you'll change armour and stats to suit your own play-style as you go. If you pick a warrior class and decide after a little while you'd rather specialise in magic, you can go ahead and do that very easily. I began the game as a pyromancer in robes, and am now a knight decked out in heavy armour wielding a giant sword. The game grants you the freedom to play it however you like, regardless of class. 


8) Look around!: Searching areas fully is a big part of the Dark Souls experience. You'll get a lot out of it if you take the time to stop and look around, check out side paths, go out of your way to pick up any items you see. There's a lot to find in this game, and most of it is hidden in some way, there are items, weapons, and more importantly bonfires, shortcuts, and even helpful NPCs that you might not notice unless you explore thoroughly. It's always worth taking a little extra time to fully observe your surroundings, you never know what you might find.


9) Learn from other people's mistakes: The bloodstains and messages on the ground, left by your fellow adventurers will (mostly) be pretty useful, so it's always worth checking them out, especially in new areas as they will often point out hidden traps or enemies that you might not have noticed, they'll save your life quite a few times if you give them a chance. They'll also help you find hidden items and areas, I've discovered quite a lot of useful gear thanks to the messages left by others. However, it is worth noting that not all of these messages will be useful, in fact, some people, dickheads I believe they are called, will purposefully try and get you killed, that's where the game's rating system comes in, along with your own common sense. Say if you stumble on a message atop a cliff saying "Try jumping off", with a rating of 0, you might want to ignore its advice, but if that message were rated highly, you should probably listen to it, believe it or not there are moments in this game where seemingly leaping to your death is the best course of action and can help you find secret areas and items. 


10) Treat every death as a learning experience: Fact is, you're going to die an awful lot throughout this game, and it'll most likely frustrate you to no end. Minimising that frustration is key to making it through the game with your sanity intact, and the best way to do so is to treat each death as a learning experience. Think about what you did wrong, the deaths are almost always entirely the player's fault so don't get mad at the game, or yourself, just focus on realising why you died and think about how you won't let it happen again. This will not only help you stay calm, but genuinely make you a better player. If you're dying over and over from being too hasty in battle, say to yourself "Ok, I need to slow it down a little.", if you seem to be falling to your death far too often, start focusing on moving more carefully. These little adjustments in the way you play will go on to drastically improve your chances of survival, and, in turn, make the game much more enjoyable, so it's always worth trying to learn from your mistakes.




So there you have it. These are the guidelines by which I am living my Dark Souls adventure, and, for the most part, I think they're helping. I hope they can come in handy for you too!

Dark Souls Doom Diary - Day 4

Remarkably uneventful day in terms of Dark Souls, since I have been too busy with pesky real-life business to get much done. I've still had a few hours of play, and want to get one or two more before bed so this'll have to be a quick post. Basically, I'm grinding. Kaiden just doesn't seem quite tough enough to handle any of the areas that are available to me right now, so I'm tediously killing a few enemies over and over to level up. There are probably much better grinding spots elsewhere in the game than the one I've chosen, but at this rate I'm going up a level every five minutes or so. I'm also focusing on levelling some weapons, which leads me onto another point I wanted to briefly touch on.

The upgrade system in this game is deep. There is a lot going on, and, in typical Dark Souls fashion, the game won't really tell you much about it, leaving me to figure out what I can by myself, but basically, you collect different shards, which can upgrade your weapons in different ways. Rarer shards will add elemental damage and the like, while the more common ones will simply improve strength. At certain points when levelling your weapon, you can choose which path you want to take with it, for example, I levelled a sword to '+5', at which point I was given the option to continue levelling it all up to '+10', or create a 'Raw' or 'Divine' sword with my rarer shards, giving the weapon different characteristics. I've also collected some souls from a couple of bosses, which are also apparently used to create unique weapons, although how I would go about this remains to be seen. It turns out, playing this game without a guide is pretty darn tricky, but I'll stick to it.

So, apologies for this brief post, to make up for it I'm about to write another little article about Dark Souls that you'll hopefully enjoy or find useful. And then more grinding for as long as I can stay awake.

Kaiden out

Dark Souls Doom Diary - Day 3

Day 3, two bosses beaten, well over one hundred deaths now logged, some sweet wraith-style armour discovered, quite a lot happened, but day 3 will always primarily be remembered as 'Day of the Insects' in my Dark Souls Journey. 

Having ventured on from where we left off yesterday, me and Kaiden found ourselves in a swamp, an area I specifically abhorred in Demon's Souls, and this was no different. Not only is the swamp poisonous, but it plays host to some of the creepiest creatures in the entire game. Huge mosquito-types that spray you with blood, some giant fly/spider hybrids, and leeches, which are also obviously wonderfully oversized just to make them that much scarier.

This area is not fun. I'm sure, when Dark Souls was being developed, this is the part where they just let the extra-sadistic half of the office design an area, the enemies are terrifying, every step you take poisons you further, and the place is so dark that you can barely see a few feet ahead of you, let alone figure out which way you should be going. Oh and, just so you don't feel too pleased with yourself when you do finally make it out, the very next area is a tunnel covered with spider webs, leading to one of the hardest bosses in the game.

As you may have noticed, I've had a rough old time with Dark Souls today, I've now logged about 23 hours with the game, but the last few of those hours have really pushed my limits. As with Demon's Souls, the first couple of areas of the game seem hard at first, but once you play them for a few hours, they become much more manageable, you feel like you have some control in those areas once you know where the traps and enemies all are. I know that I can run through the first few castle areas now without too many problems, I know the enemies, I know the layout, I'm in control. Down in the dark swampy depths, I lose that feeling of control entirely. When you're in a huge open area with enemies rushing you from every direction, the ground poisoning you as you trudge slowly along, and the lighting so dim that navigation becomes a chore, it seems nearly impossible to suggest that you could ever really learn this area well enough to feel comfortable in it, and it certainly seems impossible to suggest you could ever enjoy it. Maybe that's the intention, they clearly set out to design a treacherous, harrowing, oppressive environment, and they succeeded, but in doing so, they've made an area that I never want to visit again because nothing about it was fun. 

This same thing happened to me in Dark Souls, and it might just be one of my own personal issues, but I dislike the fact that any time I play this game again, I'll always dread that area and wish I could skip it entirely. I suppose it's an unavoidable element in a game like this, when the game is specifically designed to frustrate and scare you, there will undoubtedly be parts of it that fill you with dread. But, in this instance, it's not a case of being scared of the swamp, I've already conquered the area, I know I can do it and the enemies there aren't particularly challenging, it's simply a case of finding everything about that swamp to be tedious, unfair, and completely lacking in any enjoyment whatsoever. Maybe it's just me, or maybe it really is a case of the developer's going a little too far with this one. There are always those odd levels, even in your favourite games, that you sometimes wish you could avoid, the 'Library' of Halo: Combat Evolved, Ocarina of Time's 'Water Temple', those bits in the last-gen GTA games where you have to control RC planes, you get the idea, and I really think these swamp sections are the 'Souls' series' absolute worst bits.

Anyway, enough of "Mike's Pet Peeves", on with the story. After finally making it out of the swamp and reaching the spider's lair, I was treated to yet another brilliant and ridiculously challenging boss battle. I won't lie, that one took about fifteen tries, and the feeling of satisfaction from finally beating it was quite overwhelming. That's probably the best thing about these games, the feeling you get when you finally do it, when the thing you've been desperately hammering away at over and over finally falls down. There are times when I literally have to set the controller down and jump for joy, it feels that good. People will always criticise these games for the amount of time you spend in a state of frustration and anger, but what they don't realise is that, at least in my opinion, the rare moments of elation you get from eventually overcoming whatever obstacle is frustrating you are totally worth it. I spent about three hours, getting more and more annoyed, grinding away at that area and boss, but when I finally beat her, my moment of triumph felt pretty damn good, and it really felt like I'd accomplished something. I think that's the real driving force behind people who play these games, the sense of achievement and overcoming the odds when everything is stacked against you. Emotions that, sadly, are somewhat hard to find in games these days. Dark Souls provides them in spades. 

My feeling of triumph turned out to be short-lived after the spider's demise. I was killed shortly afterwards by a colossal lava demon called Ceaseless Discharge, and that's all I'm going to say about that.

I went back to the relative safety of the castle, searching for new routes, ended up in a forest where the insect theme continued in the form of a battle with a giant laser-firing butterfly. I might as well stop putting words like 'giant' in front of everything, you could just assume from now on that most things in this game are stupidly huge. The butterfly didn't put up much of a fight and was defeated quite easily.

Now I find myself in a bit of a pickle. There are four or five possible routes to go, all of which seem to contain enemies that might just be a little too tough for me, so I'm back to grinding, the trouble is, I'm at the point where it takes quite a lot of time to even go up a single level, so it doesn't really seem worth the trouble. I've switched off the game for the day while I mull over my next move. We're nearly at the halfway point of the week and I feel like, if I continue at this pace, I can definitely finish the game by Sunday, but the move I make next could prove vital. I have no real idea which way to go or what to do next, but I'll have to decide one way or another.

Tune in tomorrow to see how it turns out...

Death count: I have no idea anymore, but it's easily over 100