Setting The Scene

From the opening cut scene onwards, Dark Souls sets up a moody, almost poetic background to its particular breed of gameplay, which blends RPG elements with an extemely tight combat system and subtle online interactions. Having been unceremoniously thrown into an Undead Asylum, your characters’ first taste of combat comes against an Asylum Demon that is bigger than a house, and night on impossible to beat, given that your only weapon is a broken sword. This encounter gives rise to Rule Number 1 in Dark Souls: if something seems too tough to beat, best run away and try again later.

As the game progresses over the first few hours, Dark Souls drip feeds information to the player, but never enough to make you feel completely aware of your situation. In terms of storyline, information is gleaned from a small number of cut scenes, along with brief interactions with various NPCs, inhabiting the often dreamlike world that has been lovingly crafted around you. This feeling of inhabiting a dream lends Dark Souls an ethereal quality, which is heightened by the hugely inventive level and character design, which often left me staring in awe and horror, sometimes in equal measure.

Prepare To Die

Whilst Demon’s Souls, and now Dark Souls, both carry a reputation for having an exceedingly high difficulty level, this is not the whole picture, by any means. Whilst you will find that you die a heck of a lot in Dark Souls, the game tries to use this as a learning experience, rather than a stick to beat you with. As with real life though, some lessons are harder than others. Particularly painful are the deaths that occur when the stakes are highest, but by the same token, the incredible rush of emotion that occurs at a moment of success is that much sweeter, given the effort it has taken to achieve.

The Keys to Success

Levelling up in Dark Souls is paramount to success, as are the procurement of better armour, rings and weapons, which can help you succeed against what often seem to be impossible odds. The souls acquired from dead enemies can be used to develop your character in any way you see fit, and the weapons that you carry can be crafted further, with the use of Titanite, into items of incredible destructive power. As you progress through the game, you will come to realise quite how important a good arsenal of weapons is, as the game throws tougher and tougher enemies at you, along with some of the most daunting boss battles ever seen in a video game.

Boss battles are an absolutely core part of the Dark Souls experience, and each boss encounter has one thing in common – when you first meet them, you will doubt your ability to triumph. But triumph you will, given the right tools and the right approach, and sometimes the help of a fellow adventurer, using the online functionality of the game.

Online support in Dark Souls is beautifully integrated into the game world, and never feels like it is jarring you from what is essentially a solitary, and at times lonely, experience. Lay down a white soapstone message and you can offer your help to fellow travellers, ghosting into their game as a white phantom, providing assistance in beating a level, or taking down a boss.

Conversely, lay down an red soapstone, or a cracked orb, and you will find yourself invading another player, looking to strip them of their humanity and souls. Between these two extremes lie a messaging system, which can offer either help or misinformation to other players, and a covenant system that opens a whole world of possibilities for online interactions.

A True World

Dark Souls is a game that encourages the player to think, explore and experiment for themselves. Thankfully, the world that has been created is an absolute joy to travel through, and the way that the game opens new areas and shortcuts as you progress is done with incredible attention to detail.

The draw distances in the game are huge, with threats yet to come often sighted on a distant battlement, or in the depths of a poisonous swamp. Coupled with the permanence of your movements and actions, and the fact that you will barely see a loading screen in your time with the game, you can begin to feel like you are experiencing a living, breathing environment.

In terms of game length, Dark Souls offers players a substantial campaign, with the further possibility of side quests, online interactions, crafting and covenant membership that can take it to well over 100 hours for the first playthrough. Personally, I completed the game in just over 70 hours, having explored a lot of the optional areas, and carried out a little bit of voluntary work for the good folks of the forest covenant.

For those players looking to invest even more time in the game, it is actually designed to be played through on multiple occasions, by entering New Game Plus.

In NG+, you get to keep most of your equipment and your character level, but will find that the difficulty level has been significantly increased. Perfect for anyone chasing achievements or trophies.

In Summary

Dark Souls is a worthy successor to Demon’s Souls. It offers a unique and powerful approach to the RPG genre, that provides a level of challenge unseen in many other modern games. If you want to sit back and be part of an interactive movie spectacle, then this is probably not the game for you. If, on the other hand, you want to immerse yourself in a deeply personal adventure, set in a beautifully crafted fantasy world, that can shock and surprise like nothing else released this year, then you should give Dark Souls your time. You won’t regret it.

A group of us were led through a live demo of Risen 2 the other week. It’s an open world game filled with oddball piratey characters such as Jaffar, a gnome who has learned to speak English from pirates and is therefore prone to using salty phrases like “Jaffar is cleverest bastard, no? Fuck, yes!” You play the same unnamed hero from the first Risen game, returned from battle and disillusioned with his less-than-stellar reception from the Inquisition military with whom he serves.

As you progress through the game you’ll meet people from different factions all over the world. Allying yourself with one person or another will open and close different quest lines. Skills are gained by hanging out with certain characters as well – spend time with a brute bouncer outside the pirate pub and you’ll be able to learn perks that make you tougher and more resilient in combat. Hang out with the rogues and you’ll learn how to pickpocket and sneak. The final type of skills you can learn is focused on weapon types – bonuses to slashing, piercing and other forms of damage.

I spoke to Daniel Oberlerchner, Senior Brand Manager at Deep Silver about how the developers reacted to criticisms of the first game. “In Risen 1, people felt really isolated. Characters in the game popped into the story, you made a few quests with them and then they popped out. You never saw them again. In Risen 2 we made sure you have a movable base.

“When you play Mass Effect – the Normandy – it’s a similar concept where you have characters around you who are making a journey with you and then giving you feedback,” he told me. “Sometimes you already know what you’re doing but it’s interesting to have someone from another faction shining some light on your actions and giving insights on how he or she feels about what you’re doing.”

It’s a nice idea that we’ve seen in BioWare’s Dragon Age as well. I do hope that some of these party member reactions will have a more interesting impact than in Mass Effect 2, where the loyalty mission payoff turned out to be “like me or you die”.

During the demo we were shown a number of sub-missions to support the main section objective of getting onto a ship. I really like that you can choose different ways to complete the sub-missions and – crucially – the game doesn’t do that awful “Oh, my friend always managed to sneak into the club for free. I saw him going down THAT BACK ALLEY OVER THERE” style of ‘hint’ that permeated Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Instead, we were told to break a guy out of jail and that this guard over here has the key. Sure, we could pickpocket the guard. Or maybe blow open the door. Or try something else. The final execution of this in-game freedom remains to be seen but I’m glad that you’re left to explore and try creative solutions on your own.

As well as combat skill trees, mission choices and factions, the game world will feature weather effects, day/night cycles and plenty of support skills like blacksmithing. Basically, if you see an NPC doing it, you can probably do it too. It’s up to you how immersed you want to be in pirate world of Risen 2.

Screenshots

Trailer

Risen 2 will be coming to Xbox 360, PS3 and PC in 2012

Powered by the new Mass Effect 3 engine and featuring 6 hours of bonus missions (that DLC that Xbox 360 owners had to pay for separately!) it is looking like a very tasty proposition. Exactly what improvements using the Mass Effect 3 engine brings to the game is unclear at the moment, possibly some extra shine to the shiny spaceships maybe?

Although you can play as a male or female Commander Shepard you wouldn’t know that listening to the trailer’s voice over:

One man might be all that stands between humanity and the greatest threat of our brief existence.

Replace the word “man” with “person” and it would sound much better. Although it is hardly surprising that Commander Shepard is portrayed as a man in Mass Effect 2 given the gender based marketing that we are seeing and have seen before with the Mass Effect cover art.

Mass Effect 2 is released on the PlayStation 3 on the 21st Jan 2011 and is out now on Xbox 360.

The Sims 3: Pirate Edition Barnacle Bay looks fabulous! As I’m sure you all know, I’m a sucker for the Sims games. They are the ultimate RPGs, even though sometimes I feel silly working my Sim out in the gym every day when I know damn well I should be going there myself. >.< The Sims + Pirates? I am so there!

Barnacle Bay is available now from the Sims 3 store for only 1650 sim points. (That’s £11.55 in real money)

Age Rating:

12 (BBFC)

What is it?

A Bioware RPG witha futuristic space-colony setting and third-person-cover combat

It is fun?

Hell, yes.

Is it worth the money?

(£39.99)

Yes, yes, yes. At £1 per hour, it’s very good value for money.

Why?

I love western-style RPGs. I love sci-fi settings. And I love taking cover during combat. I love Mass Effect. This game is almost made for me :)

There are flaws. I talked about Mass Effect’s dialogue issue back in December. The inventory interface is quite possibly the worst I’ve ever seen, as is the party selection menu. Still, I had so much fun playing the game itself that I don’t really care.

The Good:

• Purpose – You have actual goals throughout the game that aren’t simply “shoot everything in sight”. Sure, that’s generally the means to your end, but at least there’s a purpose behind it.
• Combat – The combat system is great. It’s like Gears of War but less frustrating. Gears feels like you’re wearing a huge chunk of magnetic armour and everything else is made of iron. Mass Effect gives you more control when running and it’s far easier to go around things.
• Breadth – You have a giant world to explore. This isn’t a sandbox game but you can spend hours just exploring the Citadel and pick up lots of side-quests
• A useful journal! Longtime readers will know, I’m a bit fanatic about RPG journals. This one does the job, though could have done with listing the target locations more prominently. Iinstead, you’re forced to open up every single item repeatedly, to find the nearby missions.
• Force powers Biotics – These mysterious powers are great fun. There’s a little something for everyone – healing, direct damage, disabling, shields, sharpshooting… I love it. None of them look quite as spectacular as KOTOR2′s Force Storm, but the combination of Lift and an assault-rifle-wielding teammate looks impressively violent.
• Advancement – I’m not sure if BioWare did a sneaky enemies-level-up-with-you but if they did, it was very subtle and much more satisfying than Oblivion. In Oblivion as you got more powerful, it never felt that way because even the lowliest grass-dwelling bandit mysteriously sprouted glass armour and would kick your sorry ass unless you specialised in combat. In Mass Effect, you can do the majority of the game in any order and it’s always challenging, but you still get the feeling of becoming more powerful.

The Bad:

• The interface and dialogue system. The interface will need a whole post to explain, so I’ll save that for another time. Just trust me, it’s rubbish.
• Uncharted worlds – These are fun to start with. The first time you get dropped on an uncharted world, it’s a breathtakingly beautiful scene. The next hundred and fifty seven times start to grate. Ultimately, the uncharted worlds all feel the same – drive around from way point to way point, drive in circles shooting something, fall off a mountain, find building, kill everyone, search back room (or for variety, upstairs back room), play unlocking mini-game, The End. But it’s the only way to get that level 50 achievement so, for some insane reason, I did them all. There’s no way I’m going for level 60 on another playthrough.
• Repetition – The endless combat in corridors for the main quest does get a little samey after a while.
• Achievements – If you collect gamerpoints compulsively, Mass Effect will swallow you for days. Assuming that you play as efficiently as possible, you’ll have to play the game all the way through twice and the middle four planets at least once more with different allies. Considering it took me around 40 hours to hit level 50 with almost all the sidequests, that’s something in the region of 80-100 hours to get all the gamerpoints. I’d advise you to rent Avatar: The Burning Earth instead, but you probably already did.
• Tower of Hanoi – Has BioWare ever made an RPG that didn’t feature the Tower of Hanoi? I’ve been solving this puzzle for at least 15 years now. I know it was in KOTOR and I’m sure I saw it in another BioWare game. Here’s a compromise; show us the puzzle and have a character ask what it is. If we answer Tower (or Towers) of Hanoi we get a free pass, okay?

In summary:

It’s a brilliant space-shooter RPG. Mass Effect would get my vote for Game of The Year 2007.

Mysteriously HUD-Free Screenshots

So what do you get for your points:

• ~90mins of game play
• 1 new achievement (worth 50 gamerpoints)
• 1 new uncharted world
• 1 new alien race – The Batarians
• Millions of innocent citizens to save

However, in order to access this new content (planet) Commander Shepherd must be in command of the Normandy spaceship. For this you will need a save game either a couple of hours from the start (or end) of the game. I know Weefz usually has about a bazillion different saves on every game she plays (if the game allows it), so she’ll be fine. I expect that future content packs will also have the same prerequisite; a (working) spaceship.

Look out for Weefz’s forthcoming review of Mass Effect.

Do you think the current market emphasis on MMORPGs is destroying the CRPG genre?

It’s definitely taking a bite out of the pie, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say destroying. I think it will re-stabilize in the future and we’ll see more balance than what we are seeing right now. It’s all about entertainment value. if we don’t create more value on the traditional side, well, perhaps we deserve to be destroyed.

– A conversation with Chris Taylor of Gas-Powered Games – Matt Barton

I fully agree. I think a lot of people who currently play World of Warcraft and other MMOs just wouldn’t bother with an offline version. An awful lot of players (particularly the guys) aren’t there for the immersive game world or the storyline. They’re in it for the sense of progress (ding!) and the social scene.

CRPGs give you neither.

Okay, that’s not entirely true. Let me explain: So far, there have been two types of Western computer-based RPG. On the one hand you have games like Diablo and Dungeon Siege – the hack-and-slashers. On the other is the story-driven world-builders – games like Neverwinter Nights and Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.

The first group are certainly under threat from MMORPGs, if they haven’t already been killed off. The appeal of hack-and-slash RPGs lies in the sense of achievement you get through killing mobs to gain stats and levels. MMORPGS do this extremely well, with the added bonus of bragging rights. Nobody cares that you hit level the experience cap in Baldur’s Gate. If you tell people you have a level 70 Tauren Shaman you get an appreciative “Ooooo” in pretty much any gaming circle. Inside the game world you don’t even need to tell them – you can just strut about knowing that everyone can see how much better you are. A standalone RPG simply can’t compete.

Lucky for Bioware, achievers only make up a tenth of MMORPG players.

The rest are in it for social reasons, for immersing themselves in the gameworld or for a mixture of all three motivations. Standalone CRPGs can’t compete as a tool for making new friends. That’s another 10% of MMORPGers who wouldn’t touch a CRPG with a pole. Still, what with online play, non-MMORPGs can still be every bit as good when it comes to playing with your existing friends. The place they really beat MMOs is on immersiveness.

Sure, MMOs have that persistent world. In my mind, that’s their weakness. You spend all that time killing wolves and escorting Deathstalkers and not 5 minutes later the buggers have gone and trapped themselves in the farmhouse again! Complete immersion-killer. RPG servers do their bit to address outside influences but places still remain largely unchanged by your actions.

Unlike MMORPGs, standalone CRPGs don’t need to be everything to everyone. They can just be. When you do something in an offline CRPG, it stays done. You get a real sense of progression as you play. Add to that a purpose-filled storyline that isn’t padded out with days of grind and you’ve got a winner. We all want to save the world. A standalone game universe will let you do that.

There’s plenty of place for MMOs and CRPGs. It’s time that standalone games started playing to their strengths.