April72013
Brotherhood Rekindled - Revisiting Dark Souls Growing up I spent more hours playing games at my friend’s house than I ever did at home. I would ride home with him after school and we would fire up whatever piece of garbage we had rented for the N64. Eventually my Mom would finally get off work and come pick me up, and as much as I would try, gaming just wasn’t the same by myself. I don’t think I’ve ever shared that with him. So, time went on and we both grew up. I found myself attending college and dating the girl of my dreams, but my friend’s life turned out to be more of a struggle. His family had always been unstable, but as the years progressed things just got worse for him. Abusive families have a way of keeping people down, and victims often blame themselves for what’s going on around them. It’s hard to tell someone that their own family is a toxic environment, so most of the time you just sidestep the issue. Eventually me and my friend stopped talking regularly. He was so busy with the absurd situation he was living with that everything else fell by the wayside, and I wasn’t sure how to approach him anymore. I still live close to him, and from time to time I’ll give him a call and try to talk like I don’t spend every week worried about him. Sometimes we’ll talk about how badly he needs to get out of there, but it’s hard to gain any ground in that conversation when you don’t want to sound pushy, or like you know what’s best for them. I had always imagined we would start our own company someday, or invent some stupid gadget, but life has a way of turning the tables on you I suppose. Recently I’ve gotten back in touch with him, and was a little happy to hear that things at home seemed a little better, or at the very least a bit more stable. We started talking like old friends do, like not a second had passed since the last time we spoke, and I mentioned I was playing Dark Souls. To my excitement, a friend who is currently living with him had a PS3 and a copy of the game, so I tried to schedule a time for us to play. The time rolled around and he wasn’t responding to my messages, and I figured he had just flaked out. I wasn’t surprised, he does this kind of thing a lot. He might be planning to come hang out right when some fight breaks out, or someone stumbles in drunk and yelling. I tried again the second night, and I actually managed to get him on Skype and Dark Souls at the same time. After several minutes fiddling with placing summon symbols and arguing over the exact rules of summoning, I was a white phantom in his world. Minutes into playing we were laughing hysterically, conquering enemies, and strategizing around every corner. We both started as deprived, meaning we were basically naked. He had barely played before now, and I was by no means an expert, but we were having the time of our lives battling through the Undead Parish and tackling Gargoyles. He’s always preferred atypical hero characters with big swords, big muscles, and a filing cabinet full of soliloquies about honor and justice. I’ve always preferred ugly, battle-scarred old warriors who’ve forgotten the difference between right and wrong. In the game this translated to him wrapping himself in a full set of black leather armor and carrying the Uchigatana, while I stomped around mostly naked, absurdly overweight, and wearing the rather hideous Gargoyle Helm. As time went on and one night morphed into three nights of playing Dark Souls, I found myself feeling something I thought I had lost. I was playing games with my oldest friend, and it felt like fourth grade all over again. We have to fight to make progress, but when we do it’s a sweet victory. His life is in no way miraculously fixed by us playing a game together, but it’s given both of us a way to be close again. Aristotle used to say that tragedy puts viewers into a state of catharsis, a sort of emotional cleansing, and watching our two emaciated corpses scrape, claw, and struggle their way through death and dismemberment in Dark Souls has most definitely emotionally cleansed both of us. We’ve recently made it to Blighttown, and we’ve started experiencing something new the game has to offer: dread. We’ve both been this far before and remember how much of a frustrating slog it can be, but with teamwork and an ample dose of hilarious antics we seem to be making solid forward progress. I’m not sure what the future holds for our two characters, or how much longer he’s going to be able to continue playing on a regular basis. After we finish playing together our lives may once again drift apart, but the game has given us just a little more time together. With any luck we can overcome the hurdles of both the game and our lives, but only time will tell if a black knight waits around the corner for either of us.

Brotherhood Rekindled - Revisiting Dark Souls

Growing up I spent more hours playing games at my friend’s house than I ever did at home. I would ride home with him after school and we would fire up whatever piece of garbage we had rented for the N64. Eventually my Mom would finally get off work and come pick me up, and as much as I would try, gaming just wasn’t the same by myself. I don’t think I’ve ever shared that with him.

So, time went on and we both grew up. I found myself attending college and dating the girl of my dreams, but my friend’s life turned out to be more of a struggle. His family had always been unstable, but as the years progressed things just got worse for him. Abusive families have a way of keeping people down, and victims often blame themselves for what’s going on around them. It’s hard to tell someone that their own family is a toxic environment, so most of the time you just sidestep the issue. Eventually me and my friend stopped talking regularly. He was so busy with the absurd situation he was living with that everything else fell by the wayside, and I wasn’t sure how to approach him anymore.

I still live close to him, and from time to time I’ll give him a call and try to talk like I don’t spend every week worried about him. Sometimes we’ll talk about how badly he needs to get out of there, but it’s hard to gain any ground in that conversation when you don’t want to sound pushy, or like you know what’s best for them. I had always imagined we would start our own company someday, or invent some stupid gadget, but life has a way of turning the tables on you I suppose.

Recently I’ve gotten back in touch with him, and was a little happy to hear that things at home seemed a little better, or at the very least a bit more stable. We started talking like old friends do, like not a second had passed since the last time we spoke, and I mentioned I was playing Dark Souls. To my excitement, a friend who is currently living with him had a PS3 and a copy of the game, so I tried to schedule a time for us to play.

The time rolled around and he wasn’t responding to my messages, and I figured he had just flaked out. I wasn’t surprised, he does this kind of thing a lot. He might be planning to come hang out right when some fight breaks out, or someone stumbles in drunk and yelling. I tried again the second night, and I actually managed to get him on Skype and Dark Souls at the same time. After several minutes fiddling with placing summon symbols and arguing over the exact rules of summoning, I was a white phantom in his world.

Minutes into playing we were laughing hysterically, conquering enemies, and strategizing around every corner. We both started as deprived, meaning we were basically naked. He had barely played before now, and I was by no means an expert, but we were having the time of our lives battling through the Undead Parish and tackling Gargoyles.

He’s always preferred atypical hero characters with big swords, big muscles, and a filing cabinet full of soliloquies about honor and justice. I’ve always preferred ugly, battle-scarred old warriors who’ve forgotten the difference between right and wrong. In the game this translated to him wrapping himself in a full set of black leather armor and carrying the Uchigatana, while I stomped around mostly naked, absurdly overweight, and wearing the rather hideous Gargoyle Helm.

As time went on and one night morphed into three nights of playing Dark Souls, I found myself feeling something I thought I had lost. I was playing games with my oldest friend, and it felt like fourth grade all over again. We have to fight to make progress, but when we do it’s a sweet victory. His life is in no way miraculously fixed by us playing a game together, but it’s given both of us a way to be close again. Aristotle used to say that tragedy puts viewers into a state of catharsis, a sort of emotional cleansing, and watching our two emaciated corpses scrape, claw, and struggle their way through death and dismemberment in Dark Souls has most definitely emotionally cleansed both of us.

We’ve recently made it to Blighttown, and we’ve started experiencing something new the game has to offer: dread. We’ve both been this far before and remember how much of a frustrating slog it can be, but with teamwork and an ample dose of hilarious antics we seem to be making solid forward progress.

I’m not sure what the future holds for our two characters, or how much longer he’s going to be able to continue playing on a regular basis. After we finish playing together our lives may once again drift apart, but the game has given us just a little more time together. With any luck we can overcome the hurdles of both the game and our lives, but only time will tell if a black knight waits around the corner for either of us.

dark souls demons souls ps3 psn gaming editorial 

May312012
Video games are hard. At least, they used to be. The end screen on a game was a hard fought battle, you against the toughest, most unfair creatures and puzzles the designer could think to throw at you. You had to buy books, read magazines, and scour the playground for tips to beat many of them and even then that wasn’t always enough. In addition to those resources you needed an iron thumb and the reflexes to match.A couple of floppy disks or a gray cartridge were all you needed for an entire weekend, and by the time it was over you either stood triumphant over the final boss or you watched your parents slip the game back into the return slot at your local video store along with your hopes and dreams. Times were hard, but gamers were harder, and they fought on through glitches and esoteric quest dialog. Maps were hand drawn on graph paper and taped on walls over computer monitors. And most of all, if there was an easy mode, you never used it.Easy mode. That’s what you put on when your kid brother wants to play, but not you, you’re a real gamer. Yeah, it might make the game easier, but it takes out all the integrity. Does beating the game on easy mode even count? Well, unfortunately, it often does not. Don’t think for a second that shelling out over fifty dollars for a game means that you’re entitled to beat it, quite the contrary.All facetiousness aside, gaming was a hard earned right in its formative years. Now I’m getting older and easy mode is probably one of the biggest reasons that I’ve been able to continue gaming throughout adulthood. I have a job and school to contend with, so honing my lightning reflexes or memorizing patterns just to beat a game I’m playing aren’t things I generally have a lot of time for. I want to get through the narrative and have a fun time doing it, and grinding levels it not something that I find incredibly fun anymore. The taboo surrounding easy modes still goes on in gaming culture, and it’s something saturated in male bravado and hypermsaculinity. It seems to me that a lot of people are more concerned with how “hardcore” they look when playing a game than they are with having a good time and enjoying the experience. Granted, there isn’t anything wrong with someone who wants to practice the same stage in a game for hundreds of hours and upload perfect speed runs. It’s precisely this kind of dedication that makes gaming great. No, I’m talking about the guy that spends his days playing a single game and trolling the forums looking to belittle anyone who hasn’t spent thousands of hours developing the same mastery of the game that he has. In this day of dynamic difficulties, increasingly impressive AI, and radically diverse play styles, you should be allowed to play easy mode without feeling like you’re doing it wrong. There is a certain amount of accomplishment that comes from completing a challenging task, but at a certain point it just feels like bashing your head against a brick wall. Difficulty is a hard thing to nail down. Developers and testers spend months, even years with some games, so it’s hard for them to tell what level of difficulty would be appropriate for a new player. My girlfriend of four years recently started getting into playing games a bit, and simple things like moving in a 3D space and shoulder buttons still give her trouble. This keeps her from playing the bulk of major games on her Vita that she recently purchased. She seeks out games that are easy enough, and that don’t punish gamers who complete the game on normal. On that same note I always hesitate when purchasing something that is considered difficult. The more recent example is Dark Souls, a game that I adore. Dark Souls is one of those games that comes along once a generation, and despite the fact that it ignores many years of gameplay innovations, it becomes a hit. The atmosphere and esoteric storyline drew then, as expected, spit and me in me back out. The difficulty was part of the appeal, but in the end it prevented me from finishing the game. After about sixty hours I moved on to other titles that were piling up, and I still look back on Dark Souls wishing I had the time and manual dexterity to go back and finish it. My point here is that I loved the game, and if there was an easy mode then I might have been able to finish it instead of just giving up. No, it might not have been as satisfying as defeating the game’s challenge, but I would have felt better having had a more complete experience. So to anyone out there that still hesitates on the difficulty selection screen: take the leap, no one’s watching. Bump it down a notch, sit back, and have a good time. It’s easy to forget that games should be enjoyed, and they aren’t always tweaked perfectly to your particular skill level. It’s time that the easy mode taboo is broken, and we all move on to greener pastures.

Video games are hard. At least, they used to be. The end screen on a game was a hard fought battle, you against the toughest, most unfair creatures and puzzles the designer could think to throw at you. You had to buy books, read magazines, and scour the playground for tips to beat many of them and even then that wasn’t always enough. In addition to those resources you needed an iron thumb and the reflexes to match.

A couple of floppy disks or a gray cartridge were all you needed for an entire weekend, and by the time it was over you either stood triumphant over the final boss or you watched your parents slip the game back into the return slot at your local video store along with your hopes and dreams. Times were hard, but gamers were harder, and they fought on through glitches and esoteric quest dialog. Maps were hand drawn on graph paper and taped on walls over computer monitors. And most of all, if there was an easy mode, you never used it.

Easy mode. That’s what you put on when your kid brother wants to play, but not you, you’re a real gamer. Yeah, it might make the game easier, but it takes out all the integrity. Does beating the game on easy mode even count? Well, unfortunately, it often does not. Don’t think for a second that shelling out over fifty dollars for a game means that you’re entitled to beat it, quite the contrary.

All facetiousness aside, gaming was a hard earned right in its formative years. Now I’m getting older and easy mode is probably one of the biggest reasons that I’ve been able to continue gaming throughout adulthood. I have a job and school to contend with, so honing my lightning reflexes or memorizing patterns just to beat a game I’m playing aren’t things I generally have a lot of time for. I want to get through the narrative and have a fun time doing it, and grinding levels it not something that I find incredibly fun anymore. The taboo surrounding easy modes still goes on in gaming culture, and it’s something saturated in male bravado and hypermsaculinity.

It seems to me that a lot of people are more concerned with how “hardcore” they look when playing a game than they are with having a good time and enjoying the experience. Granted, there isn’t anything wrong with someone who wants to practice the same stage in a game for hundreds of hours and upload perfect speed runs. It’s precisely this kind of dedication that makes gaming great. No, I’m talking about the guy that spends his days playing a single game and trolling the forums looking to belittle anyone who hasn’t spent thousands of hours developing the same mastery of the game that he has.

In this day of dynamic difficulties, increasingly impressive AI, and radically diverse play styles, you should be allowed to play easy mode without feeling like you’re doing it wrong. There is a certain amount of accomplishment that comes from completing a challenging task, but at a certain point it just feels like bashing your head against a brick wall. Difficulty is a hard thing to nail down. Developers and testers spend months, even years with some games, so it’s hard for them to tell what level of difficulty would be appropriate for a new player.

My girlfriend of four years recently started getting into playing games a bit, and simple things like moving in a 3D space and shoulder buttons still give her trouble. This keeps her from playing the bulk of major games on her Vita that she recently purchased. She seeks out games that are easy enough, and that don’t punish gamers who complete the game on normal. On that same note I always hesitate when purchasing something that is considered difficult. The more recent example is Dark Souls, a game that I adore.

Dark Souls is one of those games that comes along once a generation, and despite the fact that it ignores many years of gameplay innovations, it becomes a hit. The atmosphere and esoteric storyline drew then, as expected, spit and me in me back out. The difficulty was part of the appeal, but in the end it prevented me from finishing the game. After about sixty hours I moved on to other titles that were piling up, and I still look back on Dark Souls wishing I had the time and manual dexterity to go back and finish it. My point here is that I loved the game, and if there was an easy mode then I might have been able to finish it instead of just giving up. No, it might not have been as satisfying as defeating the game’s challenge, but I would have felt better having had a more complete experience.

So to anyone out there that still hesitates on the difficulty selection screen: take the leap, no one’s watching. Bump it down a notch, sit back, and have a good time. It’s easy to forget that games should be enjoyed, and they aren’t always tweaked perfectly to your particular skill level. It’s time that the easy mode taboo is broken, and we all move on to greener pastures.

gaming games difficult games editorial dark souls easy mode 

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