Dark Souls and Punishment

Prepare to die - we literally designed it to be unavoidable.

Dark Souls and Demon's Souls get a lot of well deserved praise because they do so many things right. In a time when most games will shy away from difficulty or challenge in the name of mass appeal these games will kick you to the curb, hold a knife to your neck and make you beg for more. They have great combat feel, immersive worlds, variety in gameplay, and epic bosses.

But I'm not here to tell you what the Souls series does right - I'm here to tell you about the few things they do wrong and how it sabotages the entire experience.

Bit Rant: Guns and Disempowerment

Today I'm going to try something a little different with a new series I call Bit Rant. Basically this will just be a humorous rant against popular mechanics or topics to approach them from a different point of view. As such everything here should be taken as parody rather than literal critique.

With that out of the way, let's talk about how horrible the mechanics in modern FPS games are and how they directly undermine their narrative themes!

To The Moon and Interactive Storytelling

To the Moon is an indie game that came out in November of last year. I think for most people it flew under the radar - in fact the only way I discovered it myself was by chancing across it while perusing the indie section of Steam during one of their (in)famous sales. The game itself is quite good and I highly recommend it to anyone that is interested by the trailer, but what I'd really like to discuss isn't the game itself but where it (and games like it) belong in gaming.

Bastion: Choice, Morality, and Metaphysics

When I first played Bastion I was expecting a fairly competent hack and slash game with an artistic aesthetic - what more could you reasonably expect from an indie title for $15? Once I got into the game however I began to realize that Bastion was far more than that; it engaged me in a way that I haven't been in years. Every facet of the game feels deliberate and necessary, culminating in one of the most powerful moments in gaming I've ever encountered.

But before I get too far ahead of myself...

Spoiler Warning

I'll be talking extensively about a lot of the major events in the game as well as all of the relevant context. If you haven't played this game yet I cannot overstate the need to stop reading and go play the game for yourself - the game is a work of art and worth every penny of the cost and every minute of your time.

Xenogears Retrospective Part 3: Fei and Freud

In part 3 of this retrospective I'll be examining the character of Fei a bit more closely and his relation to the part unification theme in Xenogears. I will of course be talking about elements that occur late in the game, so if you haven't played the game you might want to skip this one.

Spoiler Warning

DMC Demo: First Impressions

So I've been a fan of the Devil May Cry series for quite awhile now. They've always had a great mix of tight and challenging gameplay with unique and humorous characters, settings, and situations. The series drops all pretense of realism in the first few minutes and never looks back, allowing for some truly hilarious spectacles in an environment without the need to question them (of course you can keep an enemy floating in mid air with bullets, it makes perfect sense if you think about it).

When the prequel/reboot of the series was announced I was very excited - that is until they released the teaser trailer for it. Capcom passed development of the new game off to Ninja Theory (previously development had been handled internally) and the design direction was clearly a deviation from previous titles, especially regarding Dante. It was revealed later that this was a conscious decision as Capcom wanted this to be more of an origin story, depicting Dante as a very different character than in the first four games.

While there was a large backlash from fans (as was expected) I was cautiously optimistic. Having an origin story to show the growth into the established character can be very interesting. My primary concern was that it showed a distinct shift of focus onto the story itself, something that had never been a major concern in the previous games. I worried not that the new direction would be negative but that the change in focus would result in a decrease in attention to detail in the aspects of the game that had been so central before.

With the release date fast approaching Capcom released a demo for DMC recently, giving gamers their first real look at the game. Were the concerns of the fans justified, or was it all just fear of change? Let's take a look at how the DMC demo stands as it's own game and in contrast to the series as a whole.

Xenogears Retrospective Part 2: The Morality of Violence

In part 2 of this retrospective I examine how each playable character relates to the theme of the morality of violence. I will be talking about events that happen throughout the game, so anyone who doesn't want to see any spoilers for the game should avoid reading this article.

Spoiler Warning