Part uhhh of a recurring (?) series of words about games I bought on Steam when they were on sale. Today: Prison Architect, available in pre-release Alpha version for half-price at the time I picked it up.
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Games! You like games, right! Well, how about architecture? Who doesn't like making buildings! And prisons, you like prisons? Um. Games!
Prison Architect is the latest project by floating-brain-in-a-jar games developers Introversion Software, who previously made one of my all-time favourite games: DEFCON, the lo-fi, high stakes game of nuking your friends into oblivion and back. DEFCON was a game of bluffing, planning, and hair-trigger timing, aiming to get your precious missiles launched into your opponents' soft underbellies before they could repeat the trick on your delicate civilian populations. DEFCON put you in charge of one continent in an escalating global nuclear confrontation. At each of the game's five DEFCON stages, more of the game's choices were revealed: at the lowest level, players place their installations and fleets. In the second, radars get turned on and players can start eyeing each other warily. In the third stage, conventional weapons - fighters, bombers and fleets - are unlocked and the jockeying for position began. Four is the calm before the plunge - and what a plunge. At DEFCON five, all hell is unleashed as the nuclear weapons are unlocked. From there, only one objective remained: do as much damage as possible while protecting your own populations. Points are scored per million of population wiped out. It's... that kind of game. It was amazingly atmospheric; the action played out on a Dr. Strangelove war-room style map, each side represented by glowing cities and stylised military installations. Nuclear detonations appeared as bright blips on the map; the ensuing fallout spread over the continents with a poisonous green glow. Accompanying this was a beautifully evocative soundtrack of soft, ethereal music and the faint sounds of a tense command bunker - squeaking chairs, radio chatter, and coughing. It's as grim and pointed as games come, and it's superb fun to play with good friends.
So Prison Architect comes with a fine pedigree, which is probably the only reason I decided to take a punt (at a reduced price) on a game which is currently in a pre-release state. It's at least as pointed as DEFCON: the player must design and run a prison for a profit. The perfectly harrowing tutorial - which has the player constructing an execution chamber to carry out the punishment of a murderer whose crimes are recounting in lurid, heartbreaking - sets the tone of proceedings fairly clearly. Your charges, guards and sundry employees may appear as cheerful little blob-people, but a light-hearted romp this is not.
Gameplay consists of defining buildings, assigning workers, managing resources, and juggling the demands of your prisoners for things like security, privacy, clean clothes and something to do with the necessities of ensuring they're adequately punished (or rehabilitated) and, most importantly from your standpoint, ensuring as few of them escape, or overdose, or shiv one another in the showers, or riot, or...
It's a little hard to get to grips with. Buildings aren't exactly intuitive: you need to define a zone of foundations, add in entrances, and then start subdividing the interior into offices, cells, kitchens, what have you. You have to do this on a tight budget, and the game doesn't make entirely clear from the outset exactly how it is one gets ones hands on more money. It turns out that the player can apply for grants, which come with objectives for handy pointers to progress, and, of course, you make money from the prisoners themselves; the higher their risk level, the more reward.
So once you do get to grips with making sure you've got plenty of buildings, walls, guards and so on, and your first few jumpsuited charges are buzzing around from cells to showers to kitchens to the yard to back to their cells, the basic puzzle of the game is revealed. You need money to hold prisoners; you need prisoners to get money. You can rehabilitate them, but that takes a lot of cash. Otherwise, you can try and milk your inmates for all they're worth by having them churn out products for sale, or else to undercut your other employees and reduce your wage bill by putting them to work in the kitchens and cleaning cabinets - but to do so you'll need to train them, which costs money, so you'll need more prisoners (who need more cells and more facilities) or to make cuts elsewhere, so think hard. And then there's the unintended consequences of good deeds: you can run drug-rehabilitation programmes or put your inmates to work to cut their chance of reoffending, but you'll soon fund that some of them are taking the opportunity to steal supplies, sometimes with deadly consequences. You can try and put a stop to an absurd volume of illicit spoon-smuggling from the canteen, but guess what? Metal detectors, the electrical wiring to power them, and the workmen to install them, all cost money! Balancing all this is a pleasing challenge, at first; you feel trapped by your tight budget and, while you may well start out with the best intentions for your inmates, the need to always secure the necessary income forces you into more and more cynical decisions. I made my cells smaller so I could squeeze in more prisoners; I kept them suppressed and compliant by deploying armed guards and dogs. I researched tax-avoidance strategies using an accountant. And so on. It's a beautifully cynical game.
But. That word "game" is contentious, because, actually, there isn't much game here yet. After a while I worked out the systems enough to build a prison which, while not particularly aesthetically pleasing, ran like a pretty well-oiled machine. I'd researched everything there was to research. There were no problems. Everything just... worked. At that point, the game's dead. You can watch your charges mill around, day after day, but there's nothing to do except add in more and more inmates for more and more money and - at this point - there isn't enough to spend it on, or enough to go wrong to force your hand.
Maybe this will be fixed in the final release. I certainly hope that many of the bugs will be. At the moment there are some severe pathfinding problems which mean workers, prisoners, guards, or some comically unlikely pileup of all three can get lost or stuck. The queueing of tasks follows some whimsical formula incomprehensible to man or beast. The game is still a little ugly; the research screen especially is uninspiring, and many prisoners are lacking in art or coherent descriptions; furthermore, while the flavour text on their past offences feels like it should give them more personality and force you to care about them more, it doesn't. There's too many blob-convicts, too many names, and they're all milling around all the time, so it's hard to really develop any attachment. Their actions and proclivities don't seem to be based on their criminal background, either.
Prison Architect is, at the moment, a distracting toy with an absorbing financial balancing act at its core, but not enough to keep you playing. There isn't, as yet, a game. You can build prisons and share them to your heart's content, but, honestly, unless you really like that sort of thing - and if you do, what the fuck is wrong with you? - I'd give it a miss until it's got more of a direction.
Showing posts with label Reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reviews. Show all posts
Sunday, 29 June 2014
Wednesday, 25 June 2014
Witch, Witcher, Witchmost
Part something of a semi-regular series of words about games I bought because Steam had them on sale! This time: The Witcher 2, which I think cost like £3.
The Witcher 2 is a rambunctious monster-hunting adventure through a preposterous medieval fantasy world inhabited variously by A. crusty dirt-farmers with silly regional accents and upsetting stains on their breeches, B. impossibly-endowed sorceresses with cold stares, thick eyeliner and low-cut dresses or C. blood-curdling monsters from the Dark of the Depths, who are also sometimes B. An action-RPG with a set character - Geralt, the titular Witcher, a dark, brooding antihero straight out of central casting - the game is notable primarily for its interesting gameplay structure and an amusing story shot through with dark-grey morality.
You, Geralt, are a monster hunter with a bad (and entirely narratively suspect) case of amnesia. Also, you might have died once; it's not really clear. The game does an excellent job of making sure the player shares in Geralt's confusion with the in-media-res prologue. Amnesia is a hack's tool for story-writing, but here it's carried off with such aplomb - and it's used so well, as the player feels they're discovering (or rediscovering, if you played the previous game) the world along with Geralt. You'll meet characters who've known you for years, or so they say - how far can you trust them? How far do you think you can take them for a ride? Many of these choices are left up to the player. You have a limited amount of control over Geralt's character and decisions - you have some wiggle-room on what strategies to take in conversations, but none of the options presented feel out of line with the sort of character Geralt is clearly meant to be. He's not a bad man, not a cruel man, but he is a hardened professional and outcast who works in a very dangerous and expensive line of business. Be kind to peasants if you want, but magic swords don't pay for themselves. I usually like more freedom in choosing my character and their portrayal, but Geralt anchors the tone of the game very well. Although he's not particularly original (and neither is the world he inhabits), he's well-executed and interesting enough to separate the game from a lot of action-RPG fare alone.
The standout feature, however, is the structure of many of the game's quests. Most RPG quest design sticks to a well-tested "go here, do this, bring evidence back here" quest mechanic, and I won't pretend that's not well in evidence here. Where the game shines, however, is in integrating the quest mechanics with the goals and methods of the character you're playing, and the tone and themes of the story. You have to hunt monsters, but the reason people will pay you to do it is that hunting monsters is extremely difficult. This doesn't just mean that they're tough enemies, but that there are methods and tactics you'll need to research and adopt in order to win. You could just wander into the cave with a sword, but you'd probably die. No, what the game wants you to do is to play like a professional monster hunter: research your enemies by fighting them off the beaten track, or better yet, by reading about them in a book. Then, gather ingredients for the potions and items (traps, bombs, swords, armour) that will swing the odds in your favour. Learn to make the right items, do so, and then you might be set. This process is my favourite part of the game, and when the game trusts itself enough to let you complete these processes, either organically in side-quests or with objectives in the quest-log on the main chain, it's always satisfying to do so, especially when this long drawn-out process is leading up to a boss. The game loses some of its shine, however, when it falls back on the more traditional "talk to this guy, now that guy, then back to the first guy" structure, mostly in the second act. It's a disappointment, because tying the character, their motives and expertise so closely into the core game mechanics is something that RPGs should be doing much more often.
Combat itself is based on a relatively simple and intuitive system of combo-chaining using two attacks; light and heavy. It bears some similarities to the Batman: Arkham Whatever series with the ability to acrobatically flit between enemies; also that you're almost always outnumbered. You can also block and dodge, and, with the right timing, execute riposte attacks for extra damage. It's intuitive and satisfying without really being anything new or outstanding. A lot of the time, especially with tougher enemies, it becomes a matter of slogging it out and outlasting them rather than any especial skill.
There are problems: the Grim Yet Curiously Sexy Darkness of the Imagined Past setting is overdone, silly and uncomfortably male-gazey (although there's nothing as bad as the previous game's pinup cards); it's clear that the writers' aim at Gritty Fantasy is still too-often dragging them into puerility. The story, while good, is also confusing as hell sometimes and rewards close attention. The array of craftable potions and items was sometimes a little too overwhelming for me, with marginal distinctions at best between a few of them. Fighting human enemies, as you will for big chunks of the game, is nowhere near as interesting as the varied cast of ghosts and ghouls, mostly because there's little to research or prepare and they have few interesting attacks. The game tries to compensate in the most dismal way possible by simply making you take on huge groups all at once. The quest tracker is buggy and navigation difficult; it's easy to get lost in some of the more open areas.
Still, though, I had fun. It's a good game, especially for the price I paid.
The Witcher 2 is a rambunctious monster-hunting adventure through a preposterous medieval fantasy world inhabited variously by A. crusty dirt-farmers with silly regional accents and upsetting stains on their breeches, B. impossibly-endowed sorceresses with cold stares, thick eyeliner and low-cut dresses or C. blood-curdling monsters from the Dark of the Depths, who are also sometimes B. An action-RPG with a set character - Geralt, the titular Witcher, a dark, brooding antihero straight out of central casting - the game is notable primarily for its interesting gameplay structure and an amusing story shot through with dark-grey morality.
You, Geralt, are a monster hunter with a bad (and entirely narratively suspect) case of amnesia. Also, you might have died once; it's not really clear. The game does an excellent job of making sure the player shares in Geralt's confusion with the in-media-res prologue. Amnesia is a hack's tool for story-writing, but here it's carried off with such aplomb - and it's used so well, as the player feels they're discovering (or rediscovering, if you played the previous game) the world along with Geralt. You'll meet characters who've known you for years, or so they say - how far can you trust them? How far do you think you can take them for a ride? Many of these choices are left up to the player. You have a limited amount of control over Geralt's character and decisions - you have some wiggle-room on what strategies to take in conversations, but none of the options presented feel out of line with the sort of character Geralt is clearly meant to be. He's not a bad man, not a cruel man, but he is a hardened professional and outcast who works in a very dangerous and expensive line of business. Be kind to peasants if you want, but magic swords don't pay for themselves. I usually like more freedom in choosing my character and their portrayal, but Geralt anchors the tone of the game very well. Although he's not particularly original (and neither is the world he inhabits), he's well-executed and interesting enough to separate the game from a lot of action-RPG fare alone.
The standout feature, however, is the structure of many of the game's quests. Most RPG quest design sticks to a well-tested "go here, do this, bring evidence back here" quest mechanic, and I won't pretend that's not well in evidence here. Where the game shines, however, is in integrating the quest mechanics with the goals and methods of the character you're playing, and the tone and themes of the story. You have to hunt monsters, but the reason people will pay you to do it is that hunting monsters is extremely difficult. This doesn't just mean that they're tough enemies, but that there are methods and tactics you'll need to research and adopt in order to win. You could just wander into the cave with a sword, but you'd probably die. No, what the game wants you to do is to play like a professional monster hunter: research your enemies by fighting them off the beaten track, or better yet, by reading about them in a book. Then, gather ingredients for the potions and items (traps, bombs, swords, armour) that will swing the odds in your favour. Learn to make the right items, do so, and then you might be set. This process is my favourite part of the game, and when the game trusts itself enough to let you complete these processes, either organically in side-quests or with objectives in the quest-log on the main chain, it's always satisfying to do so, especially when this long drawn-out process is leading up to a boss. The game loses some of its shine, however, when it falls back on the more traditional "talk to this guy, now that guy, then back to the first guy" structure, mostly in the second act. It's a disappointment, because tying the character, their motives and expertise so closely into the core game mechanics is something that RPGs should be doing much more often.
Combat itself is based on a relatively simple and intuitive system of combo-chaining using two attacks; light and heavy. It bears some similarities to the Batman: Arkham Whatever series with the ability to acrobatically flit between enemies; also that you're almost always outnumbered. You can also block and dodge, and, with the right timing, execute riposte attacks for extra damage. It's intuitive and satisfying without really being anything new or outstanding. A lot of the time, especially with tougher enemies, it becomes a matter of slogging it out and outlasting them rather than any especial skill.
There are problems: the Grim Yet Curiously Sexy Darkness of the Imagined Past setting is overdone, silly and uncomfortably male-gazey (although there's nothing as bad as the previous game's pinup cards); it's clear that the writers' aim at Gritty Fantasy is still too-often dragging them into puerility. The story, while good, is also confusing as hell sometimes and rewards close attention. The array of craftable potions and items was sometimes a little too overwhelming for me, with marginal distinctions at best between a few of them. Fighting human enemies, as you will for big chunks of the game, is nowhere near as interesting as the varied cast of ghosts and ghouls, mostly because there's little to research or prepare and they have few interesting attacks. The game tries to compensate in the most dismal way possible by simply making you take on huge groups all at once. The quest tracker is buggy and navigation difficult; it's easy to get lost in some of the more open areas.
Still, though, I had fun. It's a good game, especially for the price I paid.
Monday, 19 May 2014
Brozilla
Godzilla is the heartwarming tale of a taciturn Japanese scientist (Ra's Al Ghul) and his forlorn pursuit of the only woman he's ever loved, a hundred-foot tall lizard. At all turns he is foiled by the bumbling, unlikeable dude-bro dipshits of The World's Greatest Nation and their Blessed Armed Forces (themselves), who stomp about the place chest-bumping, high-fiving, and generally making up their own dialogue as they go along. They're given a grim approximation of a human face by Rear Admiral Brigadier Colonel Field Marshal Lt. Chip SpeedDial (Macklemore) who gurns his way through a succession of scenes, most of which are poorly lit and incoherent, because reasons. Chip is a man of action, clearly, but one of the good ones - you see, he's not in Real Army, the Army that kills people, but is instead in bomb disposal. That's okay then. He wants nothing more than to return home to the loving arms of his wholesome, Aryan wife (a plank of wood carved into the vague likeness of Amanda Seyfried) and his emotionless child (a brick with googly eyes and a wig). To call this Chip SpeedDial's motivation, however, would be to overdo it. He simply happens, like rain or the wind. He's there. Now he's over here.
Chip SpeedDial can't have the nice things he assumedly wants, though, because of Mothras, and also because his dad, Walter White (Hal from Malcolm in the Middle) had to kill his wife one day in the middle of the Fukushima Daichi disaster, because of Mothras. On his birthday. Walter is only in the movie for about half an hour, and he still manages to chew more scenery than Godzilla. He might just have pulled this whole thing together with sheer force of campy will, but then they zip up the body bag and we're left with the acting (?) talents (?) of Chip and friends.
Nothing happens for about an hour, then Mothra decides to show up. Mothra kills some people whose names and faces you don't know, destroys some buildings in Definitely Japan, then flies off. Eventually, Lady Mothra appears and destroys Las Vegas, to raucous cheers from the viewers. Mothra and Lady Mothra toddle off to try and do what couples do best. Godzilla shows up, is introduced with appropriate gravitas (none), and then swims to America, where all things need to happen because the American movie-going public still can't be trusted to give a shit about dead Japanese people. While making this journey he's apparently under escort. Does the US Navy have Godzillas now? Who knows! He's not really explained, which is actually nice in an era of over-explanation and relentless backstory-churn. His name's on the movie. You don't need to explain Godzilla.
Nothing proceeds to happen for a bit longer. The movie almost shows some fighting, then decides that'd be far too much like something you'd paid to see, and cuts away. When we do finally get the final confrontation, it follows the standard daikaiju formula. Godzilla almost gets beaten. Oh no! But there's a twist, as Chip SpeedDial resourcefully torches all of Lady Mothra's unborn kids, causing the giant monster genuine, visible anguish in the movie's one authentically emotional moment. Then Godzilla hits his Limit Break, vomits fire down her neck and tears off her head. Hooray! U-S-A! U-S-A!
Oh, yeah, there's something about a nuke with a charmingly old-timey clockwork detonator on there, because Mothras can cause electromagnetic pulses somehow. Which is ironic, because the one device in the movie that can definitely cause that sort of effect is... well, never mind. Eventually it goes off, despite the actually-not-really-trying-all-that-hard efforts of Chip SpeedDial and the Howling Commandos, so the US military establishment gets to achieve its long-dreamed-of goal of nuking 'Frisco.
The movie doesn't trust its monsters enough to have them carry the action, which is probably a safe bet, because although Godzilla himself is charmingly ropey, the Mothras look like they were sketched on the back of a napkin then idly coloured in with a grey marker. Small elements of design interest - like Lady Mothra's glowing, egg-filled womb - are too slight and too brief to add up to anything memorable. In place of the cool monsters you're here to see, you get more Chip SpeedDial, more identikit dude-bro soldiers and more execrable dialogue. Example: Ra's Al Ghul has been saying, to Col. Hap Happablap's face, that nuking the creatures won't work. It won't work, and it's monstrous. Look, here's my dad's watch from Hiroshima, says Ra's. Nukes are bad. Don't do it.
In the very next scene, Col. Hap says "I need to know two things from you - will this work?" I forget the other one.
Pacific Rim was great because it took all the daikaiju nonsense, admitted it was nonsense, and went hell-bent to be the best nonsense it could possibly be. It's a campy, silly monster movie made by people who really wanted to make a campy, silly monster movie. More than that, it's supported by good performances by real actors (and also Charlie Hunnam) playing characters you might actually give a single iota of a shit about. It's anti-militaristic. It's about personal connections, cooperation, and comradeship in the face of hopeless odds. It wasn't afraid to show its hand with the monsters and the robots - indeed, it positively revelled in them - and at no point did it take itself too seriously. Del Toro did everything Godzilla should be, but better, and he probably wasn't even really trying.
In the end, Godzilla himself walks into the welcoming embrace of the cold ocean, there to be swallowed by the vasty depths. Ra's Al Ghul, heartbroken, fires his agent.
Chip SpeedDial can't have the nice things he assumedly wants, though, because of Mothras, and also because his dad, Walter White (Hal from Malcolm in the Middle) had to kill his wife one day in the middle of the Fukushima Daichi disaster, because of Mothras. On his birthday. Walter is only in the movie for about half an hour, and he still manages to chew more scenery than Godzilla. He might just have pulled this whole thing together with sheer force of campy will, but then they zip up the body bag and we're left with the acting (?) talents (?) of Chip and friends.
Nothing happens for about an hour, then Mothra decides to show up. Mothra kills some people whose names and faces you don't know, destroys some buildings in Definitely Japan, then flies off. Eventually, Lady Mothra appears and destroys Las Vegas, to raucous cheers from the viewers. Mothra and Lady Mothra toddle off to try and do what couples do best. Godzilla shows up, is introduced with appropriate gravitas (none), and then swims to America, where all things need to happen because the American movie-going public still can't be trusted to give a shit about dead Japanese people. While making this journey he's apparently under escort. Does the US Navy have Godzillas now? Who knows! He's not really explained, which is actually nice in an era of over-explanation and relentless backstory-churn. His name's on the movie. You don't need to explain Godzilla.
Nothing proceeds to happen for a bit longer. The movie almost shows some fighting, then decides that'd be far too much like something you'd paid to see, and cuts away. When we do finally get the final confrontation, it follows the standard daikaiju formula. Godzilla almost gets beaten. Oh no! But there's a twist, as Chip SpeedDial resourcefully torches all of Lady Mothra's unborn kids, causing the giant monster genuine, visible anguish in the movie's one authentically emotional moment. Then Godzilla hits his Limit Break, vomits fire down her neck and tears off her head. Hooray! U-S-A! U-S-A!
Oh, yeah, there's something about a nuke with a charmingly old-timey clockwork detonator on there, because Mothras can cause electromagnetic pulses somehow. Which is ironic, because the one device in the movie that can definitely cause that sort of effect is... well, never mind. Eventually it goes off, despite the actually-not-really-trying-all-that-hard efforts of Chip SpeedDial and the Howling Commandos, so the US military establishment gets to achieve its long-dreamed-of goal of nuking 'Frisco.
The movie doesn't trust its monsters enough to have them carry the action, which is probably a safe bet, because although Godzilla himself is charmingly ropey, the Mothras look like they were sketched on the back of a napkin then idly coloured in with a grey marker. Small elements of design interest - like Lady Mothra's glowing, egg-filled womb - are too slight and too brief to add up to anything memorable. In place of the cool monsters you're here to see, you get more Chip SpeedDial, more identikit dude-bro soldiers and more execrable dialogue. Example: Ra's Al Ghul has been saying, to Col. Hap Happablap's face, that nuking the creatures won't work. It won't work, and it's monstrous. Look, here's my dad's watch from Hiroshima, says Ra's. Nukes are bad. Don't do it.
In the very next scene, Col. Hap says "I need to know two things from you - will this work?" I forget the other one.
Pacific Rim was great because it took all the daikaiju nonsense, admitted it was nonsense, and went hell-bent to be the best nonsense it could possibly be. It's a campy, silly monster movie made by people who really wanted to make a campy, silly monster movie. More than that, it's supported by good performances by real actors (and also Charlie Hunnam) playing characters you might actually give a single iota of a shit about. It's anti-militaristic. It's about personal connections, cooperation, and comradeship in the face of hopeless odds. It wasn't afraid to show its hand with the monsters and the robots - indeed, it positively revelled in them - and at no point did it take itself too seriously. Del Toro did everything Godzilla should be, but better, and he probably wasn't even really trying.
In the end, Godzilla himself walks into the welcoming embrace of the cold ocean, there to be swallowed by the vasty depths. Ra's Al Ghul, heartbroken, fires his agent.
Sunday, 4 May 2014
The Hollow Crown: Dark Souls 2
Full disclosure: I'd not played the first one (or the real first one, Demon's Souls, or the real first one, the King's Field series), although I've watched some playthroughs (some more bizarre than others), and enough people whose opinions I like and respect had raved about how good it was that I became excited for the sequel. That was odd, because it's not really the sort of game I play these days. Action-RPGs aren't my thing, as a rule. I like pause buttons. What got me hooked in, however, was the idea that the game would deliver some of the experiences that I most enjoyed about the games I played growing up: the fun of exploring a world full of secrets and wonders; learning new systems and persevering through new challenges to get through that world; and most of all, the extent to which this was a game which seemed designed to be enjoyed as a shared experience. It's meant to be talked about, in the way we used to as kids - have you found that secret area? Have you beaten that boss? Here's something you can do, let me show you - and it's in this sphere, in the rekindling of that joy of playing games and jabbering about them, that Dark Souls 2 shines.
Like everyone and their maiden aunt says, it's challenging, although the claims of the series' insane difficulty always seem overblown to me. I finished it in a par time, with a keyboard and mouse, and I'm not really very good at games. "Difficult" isn't really the right word. There's nothing you can't do, no information the game is holding back (even among the ludicrous lists of numbers that make up character stats). Instead, it's relentless. You work out how to kill one enemy, do so, pump your fist, and then run into the next one. You Died. Rinse and repeat. But the genius of Dark Souls 2 is that it embraces this process so fully, and executes it so well, that you're very rarely left feeling frustrated, even in the face of multiple, stupid failures. There are only two sections which annoyed me - these are, I think, becoming notorious among those who've played the game, involving a bumrush by multiple enemies - and normally, even when I was flailing wildly and unsuccessfully, I was happy to respawn and come back for another go. And when you do succeed, it's joyous. You did something. You worked it out. Well done! Then you misjudge a roll and fall down a hole. You Died. Fuck's sake.
That sense of challenge rather than grinding difficulty is helped by the online functions - if you're genuinely stuck, or can't be bothered trying a boss another ten times, you can usually find someone else online to help you with that section, although your mileage may vary with the amount of "help" some summoned players are providing.
The sense of exploration probably isn't as good as in the predecessor - it rarely feels like a truly open-world game (although Dark Souls was fudging it), more a system of broadly interconnected dungeons, and the ability to warp from bonfires from the off short-circuits one of Dark Souls' apparent joys: the inclusion of gruelling backtracking as a core experience. That said, these design choices do help make the game feel just that bit more welcoming, and I don't feel like it diminished the experience. Traversing many of the game's areas - most of which are well- and interestingly-designed, with one notable exception involving sand - is a challenge in itself, and there's plenty for the intrepid explorer to find, from hidden rooms to secret routes, to ways to cut out some of the game's more maddening bosses entirely.
And there's those bosses. I don't think the designs quite hold up to some of the previous game's more outré nonsense - no illusory butterflies, giant wolves clutching swords in their mouths, or Ceaseless Discharge (heh) here, but they do cohere more strongly along a theme of Nightmare Medieval Fantasy (viewed through a Japanese lens) than the predecessor's bosses do. There's plenty of variety among them, and most walk the line between tough as nails but doable and cheap, bullshit nonsense successfully. If I had a problem, it's that a couple of the fights actually felt way easier than I was expecting. Still, though, most of these fights are memorable, and the one or two which utilised area and exploration mechanics before or during the fight will stick with me for a while. Pay close attention to your surroundings, and always remember you have a torch for a reason, kids. You... do have a torch, right?
As well as the thrill of beating challenges, you're kept wanting to progress by the art and the storytelling, both of which combine wonderfully to create a compelling sense of mystery. Each new area uncovered and boss beaten leads you further down the rabbit-hole of just what the hell happened in the cursed realm of Drangleic. Although it's sparse, the way the game tells its story is itself a triumph. You're never bludgeoned on the head with it, and, indeed, so little is outright said that piecing together the narrative is an enjoyable task in itself. This nuance and subtlety, by which as much is said with imagery, symbolism and music as with dialogue, is refreshingly at odds with the way big-budget videogames often try and Do Story. Nobody in Dark Souls 2 is telling you "we gotta" do something. You're not catapulted from area to area in a storm of bad action clichés. Instead, the sun is gently setting over the clifftops of the ruined town of Majula, while a soft vocal wails over the wind-rustled grass. Seek the King, you're told. It's the only way.
Still no idea what the tiny evil pigs are doing there, mind.
Dark Souls 2 gave me everything I wanted: challenge, beautiful visuals, a real sense of achievement, and long conversations about what to do here, how to beat this, and what some of the game's mysteries actually meant. It's a bizarre, compelling adventure which keeps taunting and goading you on into one more go, just another try. You'll fail, over and over, but when you succeed, it's as thrilling as anything a videogame can deliver. It's my favourite game of recent years.
Like everyone and their maiden aunt says, it's challenging, although the claims of the series' insane difficulty always seem overblown to me. I finished it in a par time, with a keyboard and mouse, and I'm not really very good at games. "Difficult" isn't really the right word. There's nothing you can't do, no information the game is holding back (even among the ludicrous lists of numbers that make up character stats). Instead, it's relentless. You work out how to kill one enemy, do so, pump your fist, and then run into the next one. You Died. Rinse and repeat. But the genius of Dark Souls 2 is that it embraces this process so fully, and executes it so well, that you're very rarely left feeling frustrated, even in the face of multiple, stupid failures. There are only two sections which annoyed me - these are, I think, becoming notorious among those who've played the game, involving a bumrush by multiple enemies - and normally, even when I was flailing wildly and unsuccessfully, I was happy to respawn and come back for another go. And when you do succeed, it's joyous. You did something. You worked it out. Well done! Then you misjudge a roll and fall down a hole. You Died. Fuck's sake.
That sense of challenge rather than grinding difficulty is helped by the online functions - if you're genuinely stuck, or can't be bothered trying a boss another ten times, you can usually find someone else online to help you with that section, although your mileage may vary with the amount of "help" some summoned players are providing.
The sense of exploration probably isn't as good as in the predecessor - it rarely feels like a truly open-world game (although Dark Souls was fudging it), more a system of broadly interconnected dungeons, and the ability to warp from bonfires from the off short-circuits one of Dark Souls' apparent joys: the inclusion of gruelling backtracking as a core experience. That said, these design choices do help make the game feel just that bit more welcoming, and I don't feel like it diminished the experience. Traversing many of the game's areas - most of which are well- and interestingly-designed, with one notable exception involving sand - is a challenge in itself, and there's plenty for the intrepid explorer to find, from hidden rooms to secret routes, to ways to cut out some of the game's more maddening bosses entirely.
And there's those bosses. I don't think the designs quite hold up to some of the previous game's more outré nonsense - no illusory butterflies, giant wolves clutching swords in their mouths, or Ceaseless Discharge (heh) here, but they do cohere more strongly along a theme of Nightmare Medieval Fantasy (viewed through a Japanese lens) than the predecessor's bosses do. There's plenty of variety among them, and most walk the line between tough as nails but doable and cheap, bullshit nonsense successfully. If I had a problem, it's that a couple of the fights actually felt way easier than I was expecting. Still, though, most of these fights are memorable, and the one or two which utilised area and exploration mechanics before or during the fight will stick with me for a while. Pay close attention to your surroundings, and always remember you have a torch for a reason, kids. You... do have a torch, right?
As well as the thrill of beating challenges, you're kept wanting to progress by the art and the storytelling, both of which combine wonderfully to create a compelling sense of mystery. Each new area uncovered and boss beaten leads you further down the rabbit-hole of just what the hell happened in the cursed realm of Drangleic. Although it's sparse, the way the game tells its story is itself a triumph. You're never bludgeoned on the head with it, and, indeed, so little is outright said that piecing together the narrative is an enjoyable task in itself. This nuance and subtlety, by which as much is said with imagery, symbolism and music as with dialogue, is refreshingly at odds with the way big-budget videogames often try and Do Story. Nobody in Dark Souls 2 is telling you "we gotta" do something. You're not catapulted from area to area in a storm of bad action clichés. Instead, the sun is gently setting over the clifftops of the ruined town of Majula, while a soft vocal wails over the wind-rustled grass. Seek the King, you're told. It's the only way.
Still no idea what the tiny evil pigs are doing there, mind.
Dark Souls 2 gave me everything I wanted: challenge, beautiful visuals, a real sense of achievement, and long conversations about what to do here, how to beat this, and what some of the game's mysteries actually meant. It's a bizarre, compelling adventure which keeps taunting and goading you on into one more go, just another try. You'll fail, over and over, but when you succeed, it's as thrilling as anything a videogame can deliver. It's my favourite game of recent years.
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