An interesting tale from my first 6 hours of Dark Souls
People that know me know video games are a big part of my life. I play a lot of games and enjoy punishing myself (and maximizing achievement hunting) by playing many of them on their hardest difficulty level: even though I hardly deserve to play there. Perhaps I just enjoy watching myself die... Who know?
Due to this perverse pleasure, I have been anxiously awaiting Dark Souls after being deprived Demon Souls as an Xbox user. It does not fail to disappoint as I get to see my deaths a thousand fold over any other game. What is surprising about Dark Souls is how it challenges all traditional thoughts of gaming, and flaunts of the old traditions at you. It barely contains any information about itself: in its manual, in its HUD or menu, nothing. Its as if you truly woke up in this foreign world with only your wits, and everything out there exists only to knock it the hell out of your skull. And this is how I began my first 6 hours of play...
The game starts like any other might: a cutscene, a cell, a corpse and a key then followed by a long corridor riddle with tutorial this and that's. At the end a seemly place of haven: a nice campfire and a large wooden door. I take a rest, ready my only weapon - little more than a broken sword hilt - and then pass through the door. Beyond I find a long, open room filled with jars but little else.
Hanging to the old convention of video games, I begin the fun of busting jars. I realized later Dark Souls does not give the typical reward from this destruction, but alas its still fun. I begin on the right of the room and noticed a ghost running around (Dark Souls representation of other players in other worlds). Immediately after a large demon plunges from the broken ceiling of the room, and kills me in a single blow. After my heart settles a moment, I laugh and remind myself I was expecting a hard game.
What followings is a painful string of moments that dragged my soul through several painful rungs of frustration, sorrow and crushingly utter defeat. I pummeled myself at this demon hundreds of times. I remade characters, altered strategies, searched on line for tactics and nearly drove myself mad trying to beat this thing. I could find no alternate paths except to this room, this altar of death manned by this huge, fat demon who swatted me like a fly.
To make matter worse, my wife would look over my trials and burst into laughter. My best tactic was to get directly behind and under this demon which filled the entire screen with this monstrous, flabby demon butt. However, this tactic rewarded me to getting his health down to 3/4ths and seemed the only path to ridding the world of this horrible creature. So a hundred more times I ran this gambit until tears streamed down my face and I felt utter soul crushing defeat. I am not one to give up, but I saw no fairness in me facing up against this demon with a broken weapon.
So 6 hours in and only a few feet into the game, I deepened my Google searches to find only one site (this was on the release day) that mentioned this fight. I watched the video as the demon dropped and the guy ran past it into a small door in the corner to get away. I began laughing harder than I ever had before.
I believe the developer placed that pretty room with all those jars and a big demon knowing the traditional gamer would become fall into old habits and smash all things large and small. However, the proper tactic was to run away and find your way out. I was so distracted by the thought of this being a tutorial for fighting, since it was the first real enemy, but no sir - this was a far more humbling lesson: in Dark Souls running should always be your first choice.
There are a lot of good things to say about Dark Souls, but this is the thing that is hardest to explain. This game challenges typical game mechanics which have taught us how to play games. I have learned my lesson and now understand enough about this world to survive (barely). I think most of the difficulty comes down to this: don't trust your preconceptions of how to play this game. Be careful and cherish life: because even death and dying are a large part of the game.
People that know me know video games are a big part of my life. I play a lot of games and enjoy punishing myself (and maximizing achievement hunting) by playing many of them on their hardest difficulty level: even though I hardly deserve to play there. Perhaps I just enjoy watching myself die... Who know?
Due to this perverse pleasure, I have been anxiously awaiting Dark Souls after being deprived Demon Souls as an Xbox user. It does not fail to disappoint as I get to see my deaths a thousand fold over any other game. What is surprising about Dark Souls is how it challenges all traditional thoughts of gaming, and flaunts of the old traditions at you. It barely contains any information about itself: in its manual, in its HUD or menu, nothing. Its as if you truly woke up in this foreign world with only your wits, and everything out there exists only to knock it the hell out of your skull. And this is how I began my first 6 hours of play...
The game starts like any other might: a cutscene, a cell, a corpse and a key then followed by a long corridor riddle with tutorial this and that's. At the end a seemly place of haven: a nice campfire and a large wooden door. I take a rest, ready my only weapon - little more than a broken sword hilt - and then pass through the door. Beyond I find a long, open room filled with jars but little else.
Hanging to the old convention of video games, I begin the fun of busting jars. I realized later Dark Souls does not give the typical reward from this destruction, but alas its still fun. I begin on the right of the room and noticed a ghost running around (Dark Souls representation of other players in other worlds). Immediately after a large demon plunges from the broken ceiling of the room, and kills me in a single blow. After my heart settles a moment, I laugh and remind myself I was expecting a hard game.
What followings is a painful string of moments that dragged my soul through several painful rungs of frustration, sorrow and crushingly utter defeat. I pummeled myself at this demon hundreds of times. I remade characters, altered strategies, searched on line for tactics and nearly drove myself mad trying to beat this thing. I could find no alternate paths except to this room, this altar of death manned by this huge, fat demon who swatted me like a fly.
To make matter worse, my wife would look over my trials and burst into laughter. My best tactic was to get directly behind and under this demon which filled the entire screen with this monstrous, flabby demon butt. However, this tactic rewarded me to getting his health down to 3/4ths and seemed the only path to ridding the world of this horrible creature. So a hundred more times I ran this gambit until tears streamed down my face and I felt utter soul crushing defeat. I am not one to give up, but I saw no fairness in me facing up against this demon with a broken weapon.
So 6 hours in and only a few feet into the game, I deepened my Google searches to find only one site (this was on the release day) that mentioned this fight. I watched the video as the demon dropped and the guy ran past it into a small door in the corner to get away. I began laughing harder than I ever had before.
I believe the developer placed that pretty room with all those jars and a big demon knowing the traditional gamer would become fall into old habits and smash all things large and small. However, the proper tactic was to run away and find your way out. I was so distracted by the thought of this being a tutorial for fighting, since it was the first real enemy, but no sir - this was a far more humbling lesson: in Dark Souls running should always be your first choice.
There are a lot of good things to say about Dark Souls, but this is the thing that is hardest to explain. This game challenges typical game mechanics which have taught us how to play games. I have learned my lesson and now understand enough about this world to survive (barely). I think most of the difficulty comes down to this: don't trust your preconceptions of how to play this game. Be careful and cherish life: because even death and dying are a large part of the game.
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