Dark Souls: Prepare To Die Edition

Dark Souls is probably one of the best games I've played.

Most games are only a challenge to figure out, rarely do you have a game that was a challenge the whole way through.

I always have a moment of sweaty hands at the beginning of a tense game, I blame Resident Evil 2 for having a beginning where you immediately have to sprint out of the center of a horde of zombies.  But once I learn the mechanics of swinging the baseball bat into undead face technique, it becomes a matter of lining them up and finding a good supply of bats.  Dark Souls kept my hands sweating up until the very last encounter with Gwyn, the Lord of Cinder.  In fact, I remember distinctly in one of my failed attempts my fingers slipping from the thumb stick and coaching myself mentally not to clutch the controller so hard.

The game mechanics are such that you're in control of your left and right arms independently and you have a stamina bar that could be used to help you reinforce your shield, dodge or be used at your attack.  Positioning and facing are important, as you are completely unprotected without a shield or a way to parry - so even simple creatures become hazardous if you don't have your shield up or are flanked.  One of the more hazardous traps in the game is a room full of about ten basic hollows.

Perhaps I had a malicious 'follow the rules to a fault' game master, but back in lets call the good old days of pen & paper RPGs, an epic encounter was the single bugbear you stumbled across, and if you were able to survive it was cause for celebration.  The modern gamer slays umpteen thousand creatures before calling it a win, but it kind of white washes them all.  Dumbing down games dumbs down the players, you adapt to the skill level.

That said, I don't think this kind of "let your guard down a second and your dead" hazard would be very easy to recreate in a shooter.  I've ramped up the difficulty on COD and it just means more random head shots, sure my reaction times got quicker, but I was really just twitch killing and memorizing levels.

Dark Souls had amazing and epic boss battles - I kept thinking I hit a brick wall, and a few attempts in I might get in a lucky attack.  Nerd I am, my brain in perfect Arnold-speak says, "If it bleeds, we can kill it."  I've fought lava creatures, demons, dragons, undead and the progeny of the gods.  This game outdid itself.

Souls and Humanity are currency in this game, if you die - you keep your gear but lose your unspent currency unless you can make it back to the spot where you died to reclaim it.  You can use a point of humanity if you die to return to human form (better resistances and better loot), but it makes you susceptible to other players invading your world to kill you and steal your humanity.  It's a brutal and hazardous trade-off, because you might drop your souls in a bad spot if killed.  I got in the habit of running to a "safer" area if I was invaded, that way it would only cost me a little bit of progression.

If I had played this game when it came out, I would probably play through it 2-3 more times as different character types, make a pvp build, "save" every NPC you encounter.  As it stands, Dark Souls 2 should be out in a couple months ...

Enjoy the opening cinematic if you haven't seen it:

The Wolf Among Us - Episode 2

I think the way Telltale puts together these games is rather brilliant.

This is less of a game and more of a story with participation, and having to make a quick response in a given situation, with no chance to ponder of the potential weight of your action makes the max/min player in me panic.  I look for the Paragon vs. Renegade answers in dialog choices, this one makes it tough - "what would *you* do in this situation?"

They do an excellent job of making you the Big Bad Wolf you are, when you interrogate your witness - you have a bunch of good-cop reactions that your suspect back talks you about, and every time there is an obvious bad-cop option; "Smash the bottle in his face", "Burn him", "Punch him".   You know he's lying, you've caught him and you're trying to solve a murder investigation.

Eventually I smashed a bottle in his face and got my info...  people think I'm a meanie now.

After the episodes complete, you have a chance to compare yourself to what the rest of the world did in those situations.  Apparently 70+% of the people out there don't have the patience to be a good cop.

The story continues, as we investigate the decapitation of Snow White, we discover it was actually not Snow but a troll that was glamoured to look like her because some guy has a fable-fetish and tries to recreate storybook scenes.   The final scene reveals our culprit ... now I feel pretty good about my negative responses to this guy (one of the 17% reported :)).  Next episode - the hunt is on!   *hooowwwwwl!*

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing

In an effort to try and multiplay with a buddy of mine, I really do get exposed to some stinkers.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is a game that was due out in the year 2000 where it could compare itself to Diablo 2 and say -- look, I'm almost that - but without the story stuff and add in a bunch of disconnected references to nerd-culture.  I was confused for a long time at the bad dialog, but then realized that much of it is intentional - the game doesn't take itself seriously, and but maybe what I mistook for terrible writing/acting was a subtile piece of nerd culture, a hilarious inside joke for the few that get the reference.

Probably not.

This game is a fairly pointless and mindless button pusher, you don't encounter a creature - you encounter 30 that you have to click-spam past.  Originally I tried a ranged character, but when dealing with packs so large - every one of them ended up being something to kite, or 10 of his buddies were chewing on my ankles while I reloaded.

However, the single biggest flaw in the entire game was there was no story.  It was simply a series of quests - kill creatures, find a pathway through a tunnel in a sewer, nothing new or amazing, stuff you've seen in every other game out there.  You find your fathers lair, you rescue some people and ultimately kill the mad scientist.  
The ultimate reward at the end of this epic journey is a dialog box saying you have defeated the boss.

This game ended like Napoleon Dynamite's dance, 3 seconds of awkward silence and a sprint offstage.

I'd skip this one.

Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons

Don't read this if you haven't played it yet, I don't think I want to try and describe this without spoilers.  It will punch you hard in the feels, and is not a huge time commitment (only about 4 hours total).   Totally worth it.

The story begins with the younger brother kneeling beside the grave of his mother, remembering how she died drowning and he wasn't able to save her.  Your older brother calls you in to see that your father is extremely ill, and you two must work together to maneuver his cart to the town doctor.  The doctor sends you on a mission to gather medicine from a special tree.

Mechanics in the game are simple, big brother is left thumbstick - little brother is right thumbstick, and both have their own single action button.  You have to overcome obstacles together, Big boosting Little so he can lower a rope and they both progress - or Big swimming with Little on his back because he's terrified of water now.

None of the puzzles are overly complex, and there is a lot of flavor along the way in the form of simple interactions on your journey.  If there are animals to interact with, Little has a knack for it - if there are levels to pull, Big has the strength for it.  The art and set design are crazy awesome, at one point you pass through a giants battleground and have to maneuver you way through these giant fallen bodies.

When you finally make it to the base of the special tree - Big gets stabbed by some sort of were-spider in it's death throes, so Little runs for the elixir.  By the time he returns - Big is dead, and Little is now forced to bury his brother.  Again, this was so artfully done, you feel the pain and loss as they pan 3 times around, on the second revolution you see Big standing there and they embrace (and you hope for a fleeting moment), but the third pan you see he is still in the ground and he was merely saying a final farewell.  Thankfully a bird that the brothers had set free on their journey arrives and conveniently takes Little back to the home island.

Here's where it hit me hardest.  Little sees the ghost of his mother next to a river he cannot cross - perhaps to console him, perhaps to remind him of his fear.  ... I tried looking for an alternate path, or something to climb or float on, but after exhausting everything else, I clicked the action button for Big and heard his encouraging voice from beyond.  Now Little is able to channel his brother to get past obstacles he felt were too much for him before, he still can't pull the lever on his own - but the combination of the two when he hears his brother, he finds the strength.

Painkiller: Overdose

This was originally designed as an addon, but they were embraced and funded by the developers to turn it into a full game.  Belial -  half-demon/half-angel and the powers of both was too powerful to be let free, so he had his wings torn and was cast into a pit of purgatory.

The story takes place immediately after the ending of Painkiller Black - after Daniel defeats Azrael, the bonds holding Belial weaken, and he begins his 16 level climb through purgatory to exact his revenge.  Each level has a theme that is a purgatory equivalent; a (n evil) farm, a (n evil) fun park, a (n evil) viking shore, etc.

Even though Belial was "so powerful he must be imprisoned" - you are restricted to weapons with ammo, there is no additional demonicishness power that he can use and he plays very much like a normal mercenary.  The only way you know he's really a demon is by his saying "delicious!" as you pick up souls or his bit of flavor at the beginning of a level - "Smells like burning flesh - man, I'm hungry!"

This game really is a mod pack with a few cinematics attached to it.  It's harder than the first in that some levels you seem a little unbalanced or under-funded in ammo, but I think this works out well, as it makes you aim instead of spray - or use the right weapon against the right mob.  Recommended?  If you enjoyed Painkiller Black and want just a little bit more.

The Cat Lady

I'm not sure what originally possessed me to purchase this game.

"You've heard of Doctor X, he's the man with the cure."

I'll be honest, this game takes a good amount of patience to get into, I probably would have never played past the first introductory chapter if it weren't for this backlog exercise - but now that I have I can say it was worth the investment.  Like a good book, after about 100 pages of playing it - I couldn't put it down. 

There are no overly complex puzzles to figure out, it's all simple "Monty Python" animation, mostly exploration and collecting as a vehicle to tell the messed up story of Susan Ashworth, an older single lady - labeled "The Cat Lady" and ostracized by society.  She decides she's had enough and offs herself, only to meet the Queen of Maggots who says that she's got plans for her and sends her back to life.

"Hey there pretty lady..."  (creeeeeeeeeper)

Chapter 2 you begin in a psychiatric ward under observation, trying to convince people that you're well enough to return home.  Here's where everything starts getting messed up.

Susan has the power of her cats, in that she can return to life completely cured of any affliction.  She meets some extremely evil people.

There are hints of American Horror Story season 2, but I'd say this has more in common with Dexter.  I don't want to give too many spoilers, but this is a morbid ride not suitable for children.  Enjoy!

The Wolf Among Us - Episode 1

If LA Noire and Borderlands had a baby, they could name it "The Wolf Among Us".  It is the game play of the former and the art style of the latter, all based in a Shrek-ish world where storybook characters are real.

Fables have relocated to the big city - some are well to do, but many of the fables have had to adapt to normal life and find common work.  You are Bigby Wolf (Big B. Wolf?) turned detective, solving the crimes and covering up the fable presence.

Based on the subject and with Snow White as your partner, I assumed this would be a juvenile game - but it has a gritty alternative dystopian feel, the pig who's house you blew down (when you were still "The Big Bad") comes over for whiskey and a cigarette and when he needs a break from the farm where he's been relocated.  It all works because fairy tales have grown up.

What I like about this, and all of the Telltale games really, is that there are no obvious "good guy" responses, all of your actions are potentially questionable.   You could let someone go after he attacks you at which point people lose respect for you, or you could rip off his arm and people are intimidated by you - it forces you to think about what YOU would do, rather than try to pick out the hero response in a situation.  Brilliant.

v>> SPOILER <<v
Your investigation centers on a murder of the Donkey Face girl.  In this fable, a queen cast a spell on her husband while on her death bed, ensuring that her husband would remarry, but only someone as beautiful as she.  Unfortunately, the only person more beautiful was their daughter - who was then forced to hide from the unwanted affection by skinning his prize donkey and turning it into a cloak which she had to wear everywhere.  Brutal.
^>> SPOILER <<^

Don't Starve

I find it funny that what modern games call "permadeth", used to just be called "game over".

Don't Starve is another one of these play-until-you-die games ... and it is very easy to die.

You begin with nothing, and gather things to survive - if you starve or your fire goes out in the dark, you die.

I've played over 12 hours and still haven't made it past the first world, but that's mainly because of my inability to resist big shiny red buttons.  This game favors clown-fish-in-a-reef exploration, you should keep to a small known area and avoid a lot of the world - I roam, and I really want to find out what kind of treasure/meat a thing drops.

I've resisted using the Wiki to do research, this is a game where someone could probably build the ultimate food generator setup and that would probably spoil things.   Though you are forced to deal with and eat off of the world you are dealt.

This again is a game that is very simple in design, but executes well enough that there is a lot of repeat play.

Painkiller: Black Edition

Painkiller: Black Edition is nostalgia for those of us who spent long hours playing Doom and Quake.

The story in 20 words or less:  You and wife die in car crash, she's in heaven, you're in Purgatory - Hell needs a hitman killing Lucifer's generals.

Almost everything in this game is flashback to earlier days; secret area wall panels that slide down to reveal floating skull power-ups, the SHRING! sound of picking up floating armor or the CHUNK! of picking up a box of ammo for you 200 round no-reload-needed shotgun.

If you don't look too deep, this game can be a lot of fun.  It's got a metal soundtrack and the main levels culminate in boss battles with giant creatures. The big challenge here and throughout the game is to not over think yourself.

Remember the days when gigantic Shadow-of-the-Colossus sized creatures didn't have to be taken down by some environmental stumble into a conveniently placed stalagmite?  These guys do - grab 100 rockets, it's party time.  twitch-twitch BOOM!

Mental Note:  If I am ever at some point a "boss" in some sort of dangerous "hell", I will not stand in an arena full of ammo for weapons I don't even use.  It just wouldn't make sense.   Or at least fill it with faulty ammo that explodes or fires backwards.