Dark Souls (PS3/XB360): In Soviet Lordran, Game HATES you.

I'm going to start this review by referring you to another review. Take five minutes to watch this review of Demon's Souls from "Zero Punctuation." Go ahead. Watch. I'll wait.

For those of you who haven't played Demon's Souls, let me explain to you why this was hilarious.  How Yahtzee describes his first play is by no means at all and exaggeration when he completely shredded the game. How he recited every single action of the game is quite literally how every single person who has picked up that game played it. The game was relentless, brutal, and unforgiving. Admittedly even through my first play through, I was so aggravated and frustrated i took it back immediately. But I kept reading all the high scores it would get and how beating certain parts were some of the most satisfying in gaming. So i took another crack at it, had a better idea of what type of character i wanted and even though there was still a huge struggle, I managed to push through the game, now have a powerful mage/melee build and can pretty much walk the game at will. Its become one of my favorite games on the PS3.

DARK SOULS: (PS3)

While they claimed there would be no sequel to Demon's Souls, Dark Souls is essentially a spiritual successor to the game. So as you can no doubt imagine, I was very excited to hear this game was coming out, and very disappointed that my PS3 was in the shop when it did, But I did play a little on the 360 before really hammering into it on my proper system. Story wise, its about as descriptive as the previous game...

At the creation of the world, there was nothing but darkness and fog, and this world was ruled by dragons. Then came the Fire of Lords which brought the human race.  A group of 4 entities used the Fire of Lords to harness their powers and rose up to usurp the dragons, leaving them completely laid to waste. As time past, a plague called the Darksign began to hex the human race, cursing them to live on as undead and slowly lose their sanity and become hollow. Here we find our created hero (Lady Velfir the Red, in my case), trapped in a cell in the undead asylum, a place where the undead is corralled to wait out the end of days. You gather that they still have their humanity and sanity, and an unnamed knight frees your character and you then begin a brief tutorial level to learn the mechanics of the game. As the knight dies he tells you that there is a legend amongst the undead who are not hollow and you need to leave. After getting past the beginner boss, a massive bird yanks you away from the asylum and takes you to where the actual game takes place, the Citadel of Lords. You meet a bit of a prick at the Firelink Shrine and he informs you that there are two bells to ring  in the legend and where to find them. And thus dost the true Dark Souls begin..... 

God that was hokey. When you start up a new game you will have to create a character, just as you did in the previous version. it seems with all new options and sliders that the game provides you with, your character will still end up looking  like a half evolved troglodyte regardless of how you set it, and by the time you get equipment you aren't going to be able to see their face. In my last game I started off as a mage class (royalty actually) who had some melee potential because of the weapons I aimed to get using my magic stat. Since I have had so much success with this class and I figured i could replicate it, i started with the Sorcerer class (the weakest starting class in the game, technically). What is cool about this game is that the starting class is not a definition of the character, once you start playing the game and leveling you are able to allocate your stat points where you want, giving you the freedom to equip a character and learn abilities as you decide to do. So you may start as a soldier class but if you add enough to your faith you can learn the cleric abilities and etc. 

You'll note I didn't go into too much detail when I was describing the tutorial level. The Main reason for this is because if you had played the previous game at all, nothing of the controls have changed for the most part minus a few minor tweeks. The game uses the shoulder buttons for your respective weapon uses and blocks and parries depending on what class and gear you chose. The D-pad is used to navigate your menus, you have the same dodge/roll/dash button, square still uses items. To new players to the series, these controls may seem awkward to start but once you get the knack of them, the become second nature. Oh yeah, and going to your start menu doesn't pause the game still.  So if you need to manage your inventory or rush to a specific item, make sure you have a safe place to do it or you will find the business end of a hollow's sword quickly, trust me.

Many of the same game mechanics are in place. Souls are the end all be all currency in the game. You get them mainly from killing enemies or finding soul items to use. Souls are used to level your character, upgrade your items, buy spells, or any other transactions in place. When you die, you go back to zero and you have have to return to the spot where you died to reclaim what you lost. If you die again, they're gone for good and you need to get them back the hard way. The online mechanic operates the same way as well. There is no lobbies and no way to join your friends in a game, but occasionally you will see the ghost of another player of a similar level in your game, and you can drop a soul sign to be teleported into someone else game to help them, or use their soul signs to summon them to your quest to help you. You can't heal when summoned, so you gotta play even more carefully. You can also drop into other peoples game to kill them for rewards.

There are a number of changes though, too. Most notably is that the game isn't broken up into stages as the first was. Now you have a gigantic Non linear map that you are free to explore as you please, with no real wrong way to follow, as most locations link to others. Two things I will happily debase myself on is that the game actually has checkpoints where you can recover and respawn as you progress through the level. The other is the absence of healing herbs in exchange for Estus Flasks, which can be refilled at all checkpoints for free and boosted to recover more health per use. Instead of becoming just a spirit and losing half your health like in the previous game, in this version you have your Hollow Undead form and your Human form. Functionally, its main purpose is to affect your drop rate determined by how much humanity you have. You can gain humanity by finding items, killing random enemies, or finding them on corpses.You can use the humanity to switch from undead to human form, and kindle fire pits to allow you to carry more Estus (Kindling fire is helpful because it refills other players estus as well). You can also join covenants, which basically choose your alignment for who's game you will invade. There is no World Tendency to affect the characters you see or how you are viewed this time around, as there was in Demon's Souls.

Now, I've discussed that the game is difficult, but how much more so than the first game? Well, allow me to go through my first few hours of the game. The game starts and I work my way through the tutorial level and come across a massive boss, just like in Demon's Souls. I try to hit him and only do one damage, I figure this is a supposed to lose fight and I get crushed in one hit. Wrong. I spawn back and march into the boss again, this time trying to actually fight him. Easily crushed again. The third time I find a door off to the side that gets me better equipment and have a much better go. I kill the boss and move to the main game area. Its open ended so talking to some broody smart ass at the Firelink Shrine, he tells me have I to go either up or down to find the bells I need to ring. Following the most obvious path takes me to this extended graveyard. Sliding down the cliff side I found a pair of skeletons. I march up and start hacking away, doing very little damage. They swing back and in 2 or 3 shots, my ass is dead and back at the start. Marching my way back down there I try using my spells to keep them at bay. Don't do enough damage fast enough and they cut me down. After 3 or 4 attempts at this and learning that killing them gives me no experience, I say eff it and try another way. Follow some downward stairs and an elevator, I find a dark area with a number of hollows. Easily cutting through them I confidently march along a bridge to get surrounded by a pair of ghosts. My spells do zero damage and I try to melee them. Zero damage, they swing massive ghostly blades and kill me in one hit.  Next attempt I try to outrun them as they are slow. I get by and march into a thin corridor that opens to a square room, and 6 ghosts come from the floor and promptly cut me to fucking ribbons.

After a few hours I had to put the game down. I was ready to scream. I am very good at Demon's Souls and this game is humbling me on an insane level. But after cooling down a bit, I found an off beaten path with enemies more my level. Obviously the path I was supposed to take I trudged my way along the castle to find a checkpoint. Pushing further on the battlements I reach my first boss, the Taurus demon. After slinging a spell or two he lunged at me and turned me into a red magical splatter on the stone.

Now why would I continue to play a game like this? It's the sign of crazy person. The reason because this as frustrating as the game can get, you get this immense feeling of satisfaction. When you finally squash a boss. It hinges back this old school original Nintendo philosophy of memorizing every nuance of a stage each time getting just a little farther, just a little farther. At the time of writing this, I was at the tail end of the game. I am in a stage called the Tomb of the Giants. Its a stage with pitfalls and virtually no light, with massive skeletons hacking at you the whole time. Dying multiple times on my way down to find a lantern, but at the cost of my shield, making me able to see but that much more vulnerable. HOURS I spent trudging my way down, dying and losing all my souls every time. But at the end with the right combo of help, I managed to beat one of the most dangerous bosses Ive had yet.

At the Time of writing, this is the last boss I got through. I was unable to do it without summoning help.

The tagline for Dark Souls is "Prepare to Die". This couldn't be a more accurate description. This game will chew you up, spit you out, feed you to it's dog, and bury its shit in the garden. You will scream, you will cuss, you will spike controllers. But if you are determined, or just flat out stubborn this game will give you immense satisfaction if you can barge through it. But don't be surprised if your hair goes a little grey from the stress. Every time I play I think of starting over with a new build, just to try all the new equipment, see which plans are most effective. I give this game a very high recommendation, but buyer beware. Dark Souls is NOT for everyone.

Catherine (XB360): Its like an aneurysm, One and done.

People have always said to me: "CannonMan, I've always wondered what it would be like to be as pissed off as you are all the time. What does that feel like and how do I do it?"(Shut up, they do.) Well, now I can proudly announce to them that its a very simple process. Just play Catherine for about 3 to 5 hours and you will develop such a hair trigger for blood boiling murderous rage, that it would make a Tourettes syndrome support conference seem like the most zen center in the universe.

CATHERINE: (XB360/PS3)

Our story starts off with a bizarre introduction from a lady with red afro by the name of Midnight Venus, introducing the premise of the game as if you were watching some late night television show then starts the story with our protagonist, Vincent, dazing out at a coffee house with a woman named Katherine. We learn he is in a relationship with Katherine, who is a bit of a controlling but stable woman who tries to have "the talk" with him about showing more commitment to their relationship and taking it to the next level. This is something Vincent is not wild about.

See Ladies? We can use our cellphones when were bored of you too.

He makes his way home and after a brief credit sequence he goes to sleep and we enter the first stage of the game. Before going into the actual game play lets keep on the story a bit. Vincent has a nightmare where he is forced to climb a tower that is falling apart at the base, being guided by what appear to be sheep telling him if he falls he is going to die. Our protagonist narrowly escapes falling to his doom, and learns from one of the sheep that he, like the rest of them have been cursed and cursed by someone they know, and all they can do is to keep climbing to save themselves. He awakes to a wet bed and rushes out the door to get to work. He meets up with his friends at his hangout. They discuss Vincents situation and retort that all of them seem to have their own issues with relationships and about a curse that seems to be affecting the men in their area, but eventually leave Vincent to his own devices. As he's drifting off in thought about his future, he is joined by a blond, flirty vixen who goes by the name of Catherine. They seem to click about not wanting to get hitched and have a good night of drinking and ends with her forcing herself onto him.

Angsty doofus's like this tool don't get girls like her. Trust me, I'm an expert on the  topic.

As Vincent fades into the next night, he awakes to find himself in that same nightmare: Wearing his boxers and trying to climb a tower of blocks as they fall apart below him, racing up to the top before the other sheep that climb do. Waking up next to the new girl from last night, he now realizes that he is botching this situation and begins leading a double life while trying to figure out how to fix things.


Now then, Lets look at a simple definition Shall we?

fun /fən/
Noun: Enjoyment, amusement, or lighthearted pleasure: "anyone who turns up can join in the fun".
Adjective: Amusing, entertaining, or enjoyable: "it was a fun evening"

Apparently, this term seemed to be missing on the list of things that were supposed to go into the game when development started on this project, because there certainly was a severe lack of it. The game is friggen frustrating. I will say that straight off. If you have the tendency to throw controllers, set up some blankets and pillows on the floor. If you have the tendency to scream and cuss, close your door. You will be doing a lot of both, trust me. The concept of the the game is fairly simple: A story driven puzzle platformer with some horror elements. The objective is to climb to the top as fast as you can. There are not a lot of complex controls to use aside from the directional pad or one button to use items you find as you climb or one to pull and push blocks. You can pull a block off the edge, or push a block or blocks to move a row. The tricky thing to learn about the game is the physic dynamics. So long as the edges of the block are touching, the block will remain hovering. Some blocks are harder to move than others, some you cant at all, some slide the whole length of a row. There are some that fall apart and some that are traps. Each stage has a new theme and will throw a new curve ball at you, forcing you to adjust your strategy on how to proceed.

As your proceed through each stage you will reach checkpoints, where you can talk to the other cursed to learn a little more about them and more importantly learn new techniques and tricks to assist you in climbing to the top. There are also a series of conversations you have with other characters and at a confessional about your own opinions of relationships that will determine the outcome of the game for you.

After every few stages, you reach a "Boss Stage" where some incarnation of Vincent's fears or trepidations will manifest themselves and chase you up the level. Increasing the challenge. Here is my problem with that, this game isn't exactly easy for the first time play. The controls are kind of awkward to learn and its hard enough to just keep pace with the stage so it doesn't fall below you. Throwing in a boss that chases you and leaves you with that much less time is just going to result in constant deaths.

And you are going to die in this game. A lot. To infuriating levels. If its pushing things in the wrong order and leaving yourself trapped, taking too long to think of what to move, not noticing a trap somewhere, or just the boss spam killing you, you are going to hear the violin game over screen many, many times. But if that wasn't frustrating enough, they give you a limited number of lives to do it with! By the first boss stage I was cussing at my screen and had to turn the game off. It was fucking infuriating.

What makes the game so frustrating is that the controls are very awkward in and of themselves. As I said its really just a matter of using the D-pad but the problem is sometimes when you climb down, you accidentally climb behind the level. The camera can only spin about 45 degrees either way, so if you are well behind a stack and you moved a block, you get to eat shit. Even better is when you are on the other side, they inverse the controls, so its very easy to get yourself stuck in a position where you cant get back before the bottom drops out. I would say at least 60% of the deaths I had in this game came form me not using the right control when I wanted.

I think what really got under my skin the most is that watching the cutscenes just made me as angry as the levels did. Through the entire play through during every single cutscene I'm thinking. "Jeez, Vincent is an asshole" or "God what a bitch!". Through most of the game I am getting increasingly angry at what a unlikeable set of douche bags this cast of characters is. But to make matters worse, I start comparing things that are happening to the game to my personal life and getting even more angry and depressed. I am getting mad at a FICTIONAL CHARACTER, for him having two other FICTIONAL CHARACTERS hanging all over him or wanting to be with him despite him being a complete prick in both situations. I'm getting jealous over people who don't exist! Good lord its my high school anime disillusions all over again.  Maybe if I didn't play video games I wouldn't have this fucking issue, (you know, in addition to good looks, charm, a notable presence, confidence, or a generally likable personality. But that's another post for another blog entirely.) And while the story starts off as something most people can relate to and follow along with, to quote Yahtzee: "The story goes 8 ways bananas by the end". There is a massive jump from reality to fiction (more so than what you are already accepting in the premise) that it so jarring it almost put me off from finishing the game.

The Last thing I want to bang on about is this character here: Erica Anderson.

Looks can be deceiving. 

In between stages you visit Vincent's bar "The Stray sheep" with his friends. The Waitress there is Erica, she is also a friend of the group of main characters. She is cute, flirtatious, and charming. In between cutscenes you can roam around the bar and talk to her to learn more about the curse. The exact quote I told my sister was "Both of these Catherine's piss me off. I wish the game had more to do about Erica, she is the hotness." Well, without spoiling too much the best good ending you can get unveils a little secret about Erica that makes me want to retract that statement or confuses me for having it. I can hear my sister laughing at me already.

Here's the thing though.. Through all the cussing and screaming and bitching I've done about this game, it was never so frustrating that I would put it down for long. I had to beat the next stage. I shot a video of me playing one of the later stages and no joke it ran for 45 minutes and I couldn't do it, I couldn't post it because the quality sucks and you cant really see the screen. I was mad, but would never quit. But then in the last few stages.. something happened.. Something about how I was playing clicked, and I realized essentially if you focus on just the LEFT and RIGHT keys and really nothing else, the game feels a lot let complex. Suddenly I found myself starting to really fly up the stages, and then learning a few of the snake tactics, there were very few levels that would slow me down. Going back to the earlier stages I found myself rocketing up the towers like a gunshot, suddenly I was trying for gold ranks and not just beating the level, I was having more fun with the game. I was trying to race through the stages to see what happened next. I guess the point I am begrudgingly getting to is that the game actually is pretty fun once you get the knack of it. The game also has something along the lines of eight different endings so it does have some replay value although after one or two times I was totally over it. There are also time trial modes and multiplayer as well.

So I suppose I would say Catherine is worth a try, but you would be well within your rights to smash the disc with a hammer for the amount of cheap deaths it gives you, or trade the game after you've got your fill.

Oh yeah, and Toby is the worst...

Fable 3 (XB360): Swing and a Miss.

Back in the earlier days of the original Xbox, I remember people going batshit at my store talking about how excited they were for a game called Fable. Ranting on and on about how it was going to be completely open ended, lifelike characters and a world that changes in real time, and the ability to see things change with every action. Since I was able to get a free copy from the Microsoft retail site. I gave it a shot, and all I played was a was a cheap Zelda knock off with a less compelling story, shitty foppish acting, and Sims heart bubbles that would appear when I would rip ass in front of them. With a combat system that moved slower than the story, the only fun I had in the game is the genocide of the villages that would call me chicken chaser. Contrary to what everyone thought, I thought the first Fable sucked a bag of soggy dicks.

But at the recommendation of Rooster Teeth's Drunk Tank podcast, I gave a crack at Fable 2. Now, I'm not sure what exactly they changed, because it didn't feel like they changed anything but for some reason I've yet to figure out, I was really enjoying the game. The characters were still annoying but I found the story a bit more compelling and interesting (hell, it starts with a child being flung out a castle window. I don't care what game it is, that's fucking awesome). The combat seemed to move more fluidly and I was definitely enjoying going from town to town wrecking havoc and leaving ashes in my wake. I thought Fable 2 was great.

So since my PS3 was fried, I felt it was good time to crack open the free copy of Fable 3 I got for renewing my Derpbox Live gold account. Yeah this game is old to the rest of you but its my first time playing it.

FABLE III: (XB360)

So the story opens up with you picking your gender and learning that you are the descendant of the 2nd game from about 20 years ago. You are living your posh lifestyle as a member of the Albion royal family before finding that your brother, King Logan, is a bit of dickhead. Trying to convince him to show mercy on some civilians (you actually get a voice for some of the cut scenes) he forces you to chose to kill them or kill your significant other (I'm assuming its a significant other if your are a male protagonist too). You then get your ass out of the castle with your butler and some old night to start gathering troops for a revolution, and thus the normal Fable rigmarole begins......

I couldn't let the douche bag male die fast enough.

And when I say normal rigmarole, that couldn't be a more accurate description of the game. With the exception of the overall character models (which seem to be ripped straight out of Sims 3), this game can be a complete copy paste of Fable 2. Almost nothing is changed as I remember it. One button for sword, one for gun, one for magic. Each one of them altering your appearance depending on how you use it. Same choices of weapons. Same results for buying real estate. Same groups of actions for dealing with the doofus civilians.  They may have made some minor tweaks, but its virtually the exact same game as the one before.

Granted, there are a few changes. The world of Albion is slowly advancing in technology, so while still strongly fantasy based in most aspects of the game, in some areas it goes to a more steam punk themed industrial area. The interactions with said doofuses has been changed a bit as well too. Normally when when you want to bone or marry one of the generic masses, you have to whistle like a asshole or flex to people to show off your heroic bravado and the masses clamor around you, cheering and wooing like the paper is here. In literally a matter of button presses you can have your way with pretty much anyone in the land. Now they force you to do a stupid fetch quest before you can be their friend. Exactly what this game needed, Less reason to talk to the random dipshits that inhabit it.

3 or 4 goofy whistles and this broad is ready to get the 5 STDs I picked up in the last town.

For the record, there must be something bad in the water or Albion is inhabited by the dumbest class of people in fictitious existence. It takes very little to impress them it seems. I tested some of these actions at work and the went as followed:

~~Current Karma: Neutral~~
-Whistling at work while swinging my arms was met with blank stares and people walking away.
-Belching loudly earned me a disgusted look form most of the women and a "nice" from the other male in the room
-Trying to Fart on people just resulted in them leaving the room repulsed.
-Trying to Dance with a random female got me a sit down interview with my Human Resources Department.
~~Ending Karma: Bad?~~

Last I checked in the world of Fable that should have resulted in me getting cheered and praised for at least 3 of these.

Anyways, back to the topic. As I went through my quests, you meet characters who will join your revolution. none of which are interesting or substantial with the exception of maybe Paige. Its the same story for all of them: "We support your cause but don't trust you, so you'll have to do this for us." Which typically involves exploring a cave, killing the Hollows or Hobbes inside them, and reporting back.  But as I ripped through the game, I found myself just trudging along, not getting invested in the characters or feeling any build up to the coming revolution. Even storming the castle didn't feel any more exciting than a standard dungeon and ends with a rather anti climatic fizzle.

Here's what kinda spoiled the game for me, I knew going in that after the revolution you take control of the kingdom and its your job to raise enough money to protect the city from an impending evil. You can continue the tyranny to raise the proper money, your can act justly with your promises to the people, but go broke in the process,  or in some cases just leave things as they are, and the amount of money you have by the end of  ta year determines how many casualties you can expect. I knew money would be important so before the war started I made sure to maximise the payout of the lute mini game and in about an hour or 2, earned enough money to buy the major properties of the Bowerstone Marketplace and raised the price of all the stocks to max. This is effective because your properties pay you a set amount every 5 real time minutes. Having something to do that day I just left the system running while I ran out for like 3 hours. When I got back I had amassed enough Gold that I was able to buy out all the property in Albion. Drop all the shitty houses to lowest rent, Drop the stores to normal, and Raise one specific district of High price housing to maximum and by the time you reach the mid point in the game, You'll be sitting on 10's of millions easy. Allowing you to continue being a good guy and save all your citizens in the process, with tons of money left to spare.

The king is such a Cock.

So if I enjoyed Fable 2 and this felt like a copy paste of that, then naturally I would enjoy this one, right? Wrong. I don't know what it was about this game, but the story did virtually nothing for me. I didn't like or become sympathetic to any of the characters and I Never felt driven to complete the game. I played it because it was the only game I had on the chopping block.

The combat in this game was incredibly slow. The Fable franchise never had lighting quick combat, but 2 at least felt smooth as I played it. In this one if there is more than 3 enemies on the screen the frame rate slows down in a free fall to the point where it feels like I'm playing in super slow mo. Swinging melee took forever and I would end up getting gang raped by whatever monsters I fought. Since my character was female and I didn't want her to be an ogre like I had in 2, I switched to Ranged and Magic and then the game became insultingly easy. Most enemies drop in one or two shots so all you have to do is rapid fire your pistol till you get surrounded then hit a level 2 or 3 area of effect spell to stun lock things in place and clean up with the gun. Combat is supposed to be the meat of the game, and it did nothing to engage me. You have to look at games like Bayonetta, Devil May Cry, or God of War, these games are a blast to play because the combat is fast, fluid, and complex enough to string interesting combos. If they found a way to mix your three styles of attacks for different combos it might be a whole nother story. Instead they went with the one button Darksiders/Zelda approach. It gets boring very quickly.

This isn't my video but the guy kinda looks like me.. Except not fat.

If that wasn't bad enough, the frame rate tends to chug in non-combat situations as well. The lute mini game I mentioned earlier is basically a color matching puzzle over a span of a few seconds. You hit the buttons in the right order, the modifier goes up. That's fine. Its not a complex game, but whats frustrating is the icon to follow starts moving, but then when the assholes on the screen start moving and cheering, any smoothness on that gauge is gone and the thing jumps around, causing you to miss your color. Its fucking annoying.

Lastly and probably the worst note, is the game is simple. On my first play through I managed to breeze through the entire game and land the achievement for not being knocked down once. It was simple to do, in the rare situations where you are weak you'll probably have like 3 dozen potions to recover so you are never in any real threat of danger.

I don't understand why this franchise is so successful. Everything this game has other games have done better. Maybe its just because Microsoft fanboys and fangirls don't have enough first party content they feel they have to vehemently defend anything they can play that Sony owners can't. I'm not even a huge fan of Legend of Zelda but I can openly admit that Fable tries too hard to be better that it ends up falling short. The more useless goofy shit you add for people to do the worse the main game gets. You know what, I take that back because Yakuza 4 was able to load in enough shit that in 130 hours of game play I still have stuff to do and the story was still great. What is Fable's excuse? None, because if a game like Bioware's Jade Empire can come out and do everything Fable did and better, and Lionhead would not change or use aspects from it? Then they are just being stupid.

I'm certainly glad I got this game for free, because if I fucking paid for it I would have been even more disappointed. Fable 3 doesn't suck. But its certainly not good.