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I feel the need to have a bit of rant today about a couple of things, one good, the other not so much.
I’ve been meaning to write an article about this for a while now... Demon’s Souls! For those who have not heard about this game (and that probably encompasses everyone, since it’s fairly obscure at the moment), Demon’s Souls is an absolutely fantastic hardcore third person RPG for the Playstation 3 by the Japanese game company From Software. Demon’s Souls is not currently available in Europe, in fact, From Software were only originally going to release it in Asia, but they have recently found an American publisher to release the game around Christmas 09.
If you know anything about From Software or have played any of their previous games, (Armored Core, Tenchu Z, Ninja Blade), if you like hardcore RPG games, I urge you not to be put off by the fact From Software are responsible for some absolutely criminal game releases, because this time they’ve struck gold. Demon’s Souls (despite the apostrophe arguably being in the wrong place) is almost certainly in my top 5 favourite games of all time, and I’ve played a fair few games in my time.
 
So what’s it all about? Well it’s about souls, collecting a crapload of them. You play the part of a warrior harvesting souls from the corpses of the monsters you kill on your travels - with the greater goal of destroying all the boss monster demons to extract Demon Souls, hence the name. It sounds fairly simple but Demon’s Souls implements some innovative ideas that absolutely blew me away. I’ll take you through a hand full of these.
First of all, the difficulty curve - if you’re reading this thinking, “yeah I’m a total gamer, I play my console at least once a week for an hour”, don’t even consider this game it’s not for you or the faint of heart. It’s absolutely punishing and cruel at times. I’d go as far as to say it takes a metal bar to your face, and then kicks you in the nuts before you hit the ground! It’s truly gruelling and yet remains incredibly rewarding. It teaches you how to play the game from the outset by beating the living crap out of you over and over again.
You see that picture there, click it! It's a picture of the box art for the game, you see how dead you appear to be on the box? Well, let's just say they've portrayed the game very well in the merchandising.
This style of game will totally put anyone without an element of persistence in their personality off straight away. My guess is most casual gamers will probably put the game down within 30 minutes, which is probably why the game wasn’t going to get a release outside of Asia until recently. Personally, this style of game design and difficulty is my favourite, I hate being lead by the hand through the game, knowing it’s actually only a matter of time, not skill until I watch the credits roll. Games are slowly slipping into the “interactive movie” abyss these days and even some of the old skool hardcore gamers have forgotten how hard and rewarding the games of their youth were (go buy MegaMan 9!).
Secondly, the online interactions are perfection. Demon’s Souls doesn’t have a direct multiplayer game mode, it plays in either online or offline mode. In online mode you inhabit your own self encapsulating realm. At any point while you are in human form, you can be invaded by other players controlling a black phantom. You can be in the middle of huge brawl and your world is invaded by another player. Bear in mind how hard I’ve said this game is, when you make progress, you’re already on the edge of your seat, when you’re making progress and you’re invaded - you’re clenching your buttcheeks struggling not to cack yourself! The black phantom’s goal is to find you and mess you up! It sounds incredibly harsh, but is implemented so seamlessly that it works better than you can probably imagine from my waffling on about it.
Additional to this you can also summon other players seamlessly into your own world to help you fight bosses and can help you make inroads on some of the more difficult levels.
And finally, players can leave messages across the game world that appear in your own game, these can range from tips and help to strange messages about “white sticky stuff”, to downright evil messages about stepping off ledges to find treasure that doesn’t exist. Fun! If you leave a useful message yourself (maybe for a piece of hidden treasure or a wall that can be destroyed), and someone else finds and rates your message, your character gets all of his/her health back. Neat!
I’ve talked mostly about the game design, none of this says anything about the general stuff you see in reviews: graphics, sound, yadda yadda, suffice to say it’s a beautiful looking game, with a heap of atmosphere and almost universally loving reviews. I didn’t want to get into the usual gubbins reviewers go into, so I’ll leave it at that. If you have a PS3 get yourself an import copy of the Chinese version (as it’s the only version with English translations), if you don’t own a PS3 it’s worth picking one up for games like this, that just won’t make it to the PC or 360!
If you want a bit more information, have a nose at the reviews on meta-critic.
One last thing I wanted to rant about. Microsoft’s new proposed XBox 360 advertising policy that’s going to be coming to a console near you very soon.
If you don’t know anything about this. Microsoft are implementing Silverlight for the 360, which means flash style ads on your dashboard. Marvelous! Just what XBox Live was missing, annoying adverts!
Microsoft have responded to the huge cry of outrage with this piece of drivel. But it doesn’t change any of the obvious facts.
Microsoft already delivers perfectly adequate adverts for the content on Live. About 95% of the pop-boxes on the dashboard are for purchasable media on live. Despite what many may think, this is advertising! And it is advertising well placed and that which most people are happy with, as it supports the platform, and alerts you of new games and movies. I’m happy with that.
What I’m not happy with is mobile phone adverts, music adverts, portable device adverts, microwave oven adverts or any other type of product that I cannot directly purchase on Live ever appearing in that space! It’s utterly retarded, first of all I can’t follow any of those links like I can on my PC, which basically makes them only half effective at the risk of pissing off existing users. Secondly, it’s a console! I turn it on to play GAMES! Mark my words, you’ll be playing Halo 4, you’ll jump into a warthog and a box will slide over the game asking you if you want to buy cheap car insurance! JUST SAY NO!!!
Ok by my own admission, that’s me scaremongering a bit as I’ve not actually seen what they plan for Europe, but I’m a gold member, I’ve paid Microsoft £40 to use the service for a year (and the same twice before, making that £120 overall so far), I paid Sony NOTHING for the same service, I deserve never to see an advert on Live for as long as I pay that fee!
The SECOND I see an advert for a product I cannot purchase on live that subscription is getting cancelled, permanently. So I really hope Microsoft’s advertising dollars make up for the bad will they are going to cause through this.
If you want to see the kind of adverts they are proposing, have a nose at this article over at DailyRadar
Rob Hutchinson (Null City Dev and Admin)
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