Role-Playing

Still playing Dark Souls. I plan on doing the Second Opinion so I'm trying not to say a whole lot about it here on the blog, but I have been putting quite a bit of time into it and I do think it's a pretty superb game. Is it better than Demon’s Souls? That's hard to say.

So after a wait that felt like forever, I finally got my hands on a copy of Dark Souls. I was waffling for a long time between the 360/PS3 versions, but after hearing framerate complaints from a few reviewers with 360 pre-release copies, I went PS3. I'm about six hours into the game or so, and progress is relatively slow although it's been a very rich experience so far. Interestingly (and granted, I'm still quite early) it doesn't seem so much like a true sequel to Demon's Souls, so much as it feels like a modified and expanded reboot.

Hack (and Slash) Job

HIGH This one's not only girlfriend-friendly, she also outscored me on a number of levels. I was so proud.

LOW Paying for a "free" game is confusing.

WTF Must ..... stop ....the sounds coming from the .....actor lady's .... mouth....NNNGggHHHHHHH!...

The Holy Grail of JRPGs Finally Comes to America

HIGH The game's story and characters are engaging and sure to hold players' interest.

LOW Battles can be very slow.

WTF How did they ever get away with calling the villain Joker? I guess no one told DC Comics...

Fable III isn't exactly challenging, as far as game play, story, or game design go.  And yet, it has challenged me in a most unexpected way.  I knew, offhandedly, before I started playing that this was considered a "mature RPG."  And yet I was surprised (pleasantly so, but still taken aback for a moment) to find that among the character attributes for nearly every adult NPC in the game, there is a sexual preference qualifier.

I read what had to be one of the weirdest articles I've come across in a while. Yes, I know it's IGN, but it's still about Dark Souls, and I wanted to see where they were going with the article. It didn't go very far. The points of the article irk me.  It's one thing to compare two relatively similar games, but this is almost going beyond apples and oranges into a whole other realm of incompatibility.

It was either slow in the gaming news department the last couple of days or everyone really was blown away by the new Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword videos making the rounds. This coincides with recent first-hand impressions Nintendo afforded Western journalists that were kept out of Nintendo's September 13th press conference. And it seemed to have changed Skyward Sword's fortunes.

Systemic Control

HIGH The game is a stealth throwback in the best way possible.

LOW The decidedly dated-looking character models.

WTF I want to punch narrative NPCs!

Bastion is a game with marvelous art, a wonderful soundtrack, and solid mechanics, but it was not sold to the public on the strength of these aspects. Rather, it was sold on its storytelling system, in which a narrator responds to what the main character (called only the Kid) is doing. In the game, however, the narrator actually does relatively little of this, and Bastion's plot is thinly realized, offering little insight into its characters and their motivations.

So, it's no secret that I am a big fan of Monster Hunter. Although the series does have issues (being inscrutable to newcomers or running the best version on the missing-a-second-analog-nub-and-no-true-online PSP to name just two) I am a true believer in the franchise and I think it has much to offer. Sadly, it's only been able to carve out a very small niche for itself here in the United States, but there's now an opportunity—maybe—to help change that.