Dark souls  8/10

This is a game that brings back the wonderful difficulty of games past. In some aspects I wish they would make games like this more often. Now the game is sold on its difficulty but that is not its only important feature, it is really good looking, and a lot of fun to play as well.

You start, like so many fantasy games, exiting from a cell. It turns out that in this world the dead just will not stay dead and so you, an undead, have been imprisoned in the North. I choose a deprived class because I enjoy customizing myself. There are 9 other classes to choose from all with strengths and weaknesses but the deprived class starts at level six and all its stats are evenly at 11 so it could be considered to be the best out of the box class except that it gets no starting armor and its only weapon is a slow swinging club. But with all your stats higher you can handle getting hit until you can buy armor or get it off an enemy so do not worry.

A lot of the beginning of this game just lets you guess as to what you should do and what the story is. Little clues are inscribed in the floor by developers and best of all other players to help you go on. The first boss is easy if your used to dodge rolling and I killed it in seconds. Once I searched through the entire asylum that I could after getting frustrated by an item I could not reach I left by way of crow.

After that the game gets harder but also leaves you with plenty of spots to farm souls/exp and areas to grind for items. The secret here is to play it like an old school rpg and raise your level by staying in the same area and farming until you are high enough to get through areas without receiving any real damage. This may sound like cheating but if you reach a boss without any healing items and a broken sword your pretty much screwed to begin with. Also pay attention to your endurance stat as that may be one of the most important in the game, defining how fast you can move in different varieties of armor. I cranked mine up because I like heavy armor and now can move almost like I am wearing nothing. Warning this game has 792 levels and 8 play throughs before you are done, so me being at level 53 after 2 days is literally nothing.


Gameplay: 9/10
This game is a lot of fun and rather than just relying on stats takes a lot of skill to play. It does not matter if your in the best gear at a high level if you make a mistake in a low level area you will be killed. The bosses give very few clues and most you can make up your own strategies for which gives it a lot of replay value. The added ability to quest with a friend and to be able to see other players as ghosts in an area is really interesting and fun. Though you may mistake other players for foes and sometimes they will be by invading your area. Some areas are too hard though not because you are not skilled enough but just because they are simply unfair to the player and nothing you can do will change that.

Story 7/10
The lore and background in the game is amazing but the story is only ok. I love the ideas with the undead and the interesting character designs but... you barely get any story until you get passed 1/3 of the game and what you get than just is not really that great. The world is fantastic the story w

Graphics: 7/10
The game is really good looking but has nothing you have not seen before. Also there are discrepancies in strange places. Such as the arrows, the arrows are weird seemingly texture less arrow shaped models. Some of the environments fall where other parts of the game are beautiful and some parts are so dark it does not even matter. Personally I enjoy the reflections on my own armor which are really nice though the chain mail is a little too shiny. 

Sound 8/10
Some of what you will hear will make your hair curl other things like the grass crunching freakishly loudly under your feet will just confuse you. You see sound is an integral part of this game, if you can hear yourself than the enemy can hear you. Clinking plate mail is crazy loud and if your not careful will call the level to you. Same with breaking boxes. I really enjoy the sound mechanic in this game. The music is nice and subtle but switches at break neck speed once you meet a boss. It is weird how loud it gets in boss fights, I actually had to turn down the sound for them.

Replay 7/10
With all the classes and strategies this game has a lot of replay value but at some point you have to ask yourself... do you really want to go through that again.