Demon's Souls

[ImpostorZim]

I'm a gamer who's absolutely used to games and I found a game like Devil May Cry to be enjoyable. It sounds kind of masochistic but the truth is I can only get off (figuratively speaking) after being spanked and thrown around a few times. A challenge isn't a bad thing, but that still doesn't change the fact that more games need to come with various difficulty settings. Hell, Persona 4 is an RPG and it had an Easy and Expert setting so there really isn't any excuse.

 

[Dewayne]

Honesty. It's the key to any good discussion, if more game reviews/discussions could just embrace what you have just done here, the industry would be taken a lot more seriously. While the delusion that games are better if they're "Hardcore" because you die a lot and you get really frustrated over the loss of progress, eventually leading to a greater sense of accomplishment, is fairly and disturbingly popular among fan bases I found it even more unsettling that it was so prevalent in the professional reviews of Demon's Souls. This game is fun, it has a very satisfying one on one combat system, but it's lack of a cohesive story, ineffective targeting and camera system, static level design, hopelessly stupid AI and surprising lack of variety or substance in it's much lauded online implementations and in just about every aspect of the game, can't be ignored. This game is average, it's perceived difficulty and length are artificial and hopefully this whole thing will blow over soon.

 

[Helba1984]

Yahtzee, I just lost even more respect for you because of this.

Your post was "Backpedaling, backpedaling, backpedaling, (insult viewers, epithets), backpedaling, (lie about checkpoint length), backpedaling, (insult game for having one standard level of difficulty and about 15 classes that completely change the game and you've only played one), (make excuses for not actually trying to beat game based on review length, when Kotaku specifically delayed their review until their reviewer beat the game in order to provide a more accurate review), backpedaling, end."

You want something you could actually complain about, checkpoint-wise, Yahtzee?

Play BAROQUE.

The game is not as unkind as you continue to insist it is; I posted a point-by-point rebuttal to your claims which you fail to recognize (other than backpedaling on the points which were obvious). But the Shortcut system in the game is exactly like a checkpoint, other than that it cannnot be quick-save abused, so it actually forces you to play the goddamn game.

Also, I don't think the complaints of casual gamers should weigh in on a game like this, because it's obviously not targeting them. that part of your post was just fluff to justify more backpedaling.

Edit:

If you happen to want an accurate review, rather than a comedy routine with smarminess, click here:

Spoiler: Here.

http://kotaku.com/5424389/demons-souls-review-souls-asylum

 

[DubMan]

I really dig how everybody who is giving Yahtzee shit about not wanting to stomach mindless repetition perfectly bites his criticism of just wanting to prove their gaming superiority.

"THE CHECKPOINTS WEREN'T THAT FAR APART, CHRIST YOU'RE A FUCKING TOSSER, L2P!"

How this is an issue baffles me; "learning the pattern" does not provide ontological satisfaction, finding meaning in a relatable artistic medium does.

On a side note, Kotaku labeling this game as a "new breed of survival horror" because of the fact that you could die at any point is backwards and pretentious. This is precisely what Yahtzee was talking about - the fear of having to waste your time redoing a half hour of game play is the exact opposite of the kind of horror that Silent Hill represents. If I actually died in Silent Hill as many times as I would in Demon's Souls, it wouldn't have half the gravity it does. Not having to play temporarily is a relief for me in Silent Hill - doing so in DS is fucking obnoxious.

 

[Nomanslander]

Ok?

So I guess Yahtzee doesn't like the checkpoint system.

The game is still awesome.

The truth is what the game really tests is a persons patience, and not in the bad way. I know there are a lot of players that want nothing to do but quickly beat a level and move onto the next one.

As for me I don't mind playing a level a dozen times for the sake of mastering it.

And it doesn't require me to be beating my head up against a wall to do so, I'd only feel that way if I was one of those that wanted simply to rush through the game.

I want a game that has replay value, and the harder a game tends to be, the more replay value it tends to have.

Still I can understand Yahtzee's critic and the simple fact DS just isn't a game for him....and no I don't think the problem is he's just a pussy....=P

 

[Helba1984]

rofl. Ah, egocentrism. when you mix two (or more) different kinds, the explosion rivals what I imagine matter/antimatter interaction must be like.

FWIW, I've noticed that my level of tolerance is about 10-15 minutes between save points. Any more than that and a failure results in a substantial impact on the time I can allot to my personal recreation on any given day... and that time is very precious to me.

While I don't necessarily prefer the 'no-punishment-for-dying' game mechanic (BioShock, for example), I find it far more tolerable than the overly harsh punishment variety. Why? Because I'll still try to not die-- but maybe that's just me. Never even once did I do a berzerker charge on a Big Daddy in BioShock over and over next to a VitaChamber because, while I knew I could've, I wouldn't have felt like I really succeeded in beating the game if I had used that sleazy tactic.

That is called self-control, and I much prefer it over games that take the choice away from you and inflict a substantial time penalty-- particularly those that have 'unavoidable insta-kill' mechanics in them... it's very simple: out of my day, I get about 2 hours to have fun. 30 minutes between checkpoints means that if I screw up 3 times, I have spent 2 hours being frustrated, and no time left for relaxation or entertainment.

I'm sorry; that's just not recreation to me, and it's not the sort of gamble I like to engage in.


All that being said, I'll probably take a spin at DS over at my friend's house. He really enjoys it, and he usually isn't quite as good a gamer as I am, so maybe Yahtzee is being a bit hyperbolic... (but that doesn't mean his point completely lacks validity however.)

As I said, 30 minutes is an exaggeration. He seems to think that only nexus teleport points count as checkpoints, when there is a shortcut (if you explore the goddamn level instead of just trying to Rambo through to the end within 10 minutes of starting that prevents you from needing to repeat the first area, followed by a second that takes you almost directly to the area which opens the boss door.

Just about every level has those, you just have to find them and use them.

The shortcut system is just a way to prevent people from abusing quick-saves. That's it. That's all.

 

[Zersy]

I am amazed how well Yahtzee, punctuates his articles.

Makes me feel smarter for reading them but dumber for knowing I don't do as well as this.

 

[Alakaizer]

I don't think Yahtzee has played Ratchet: Deadlocked. That one had the player choose a difficulty level right off the bat and started out with four difficulty levels, opening the fifth level after beating the game once through. Unfortunately, the highest difficulty level wasn't so hard, since you kept all health, weapons and money from the first iteration. Still, they did do exactly what he asked for.

 

[eels05]

If Shattered memories gets banned here I'll lose the small scrap of confidence I had in the classification board to at least make 'semi' consistant decisions.

 

[Valiance]

"But the time I have for playing games for a review is limited. When I'm killed and have to start over from half an hour ago, that's about an hour of wasted time. That's what made me angry about Demon's Souls. Every single time I pushed a little bit further, some new, dirty trick would be pulled and I'd have to re-play through the same dirty tricks that led up to it. And I'd get angrier and more hasty each time, increasing the likelihood of being killed by one of the earlier traps I thought I'd mastered."

Word of advice: Never, ever play Supaplex.

Ever.

This occurred to me constantly with every level that was remotely difficult in the game, to the point of extreme frustration and it taking me 2 or 2 and a half hours to complete a level whose implementation takes a total of 6 minutes when I perform everything well.

 

[kahlzun]

simply spamming him or sending hatemail will not help the issue, we've got to ensure that we send rational, well-thought out messages, or he'll just use us as examples of 'rabid gamers' that have been 'poisoned by the M-rating'.

 

[Rayansaki]

Extra Punctuation: Demon's Souls

The problem with Demon's Souls isn't that it's hard, but that it purposefully wastes player's time.

Read Full Article

ahaha, I am, in fact, quite proud of my letter:

Subject: Legal Question on Acquiring Public-Affairs Permit

Greetings Mr. Atkinson,

I was wondering what the legal process would be for reserving a large area on public property in order to hold a community event. This year, the C.F.L.D.C will be hosting a rousing book-burning on the lawn of city hall. Coincidentally we will also be going through several works of world literature and drawing giant black Xes on anything that might make someone feel uncomfortable. We will then proceed to censor all other great works of cinema and video gaming and make sure that all incidences of violence, sex, or creativity are replaced by unicorns and rainbows. After all, how would children know about violence if we never TELL them? This is why times in the past pre-videogaming were so idyllic (Ah, to live again in the halcyon days of the dark ages, world wars, and near-nuclear annihilation!) This has clearly been shown to drastically reduce all manner of violent crime and deviant behavior in society (please ignore all those fancy "Scientists" and "Statisticians" in their ivory towers whose libertine "Scientific Methods" of study have found no such link whatsoever and claimed the media is merely scapegoating as a way of avoiding any analysis of serious sociological issues.) I applaud your continued resistance against public opinion and the concept of free speech. It is good to see that someone at least cares about the messages we pass on to our children

Sincerely,

- Walter A. Silveira
Chairman of the C.F.L.D.C (Censorship and Fascist Luddite Douchebags Committee)

P.S. Don't you just LOVE the game Yahtzee?

I'm proud of mine aswell:

To: [email protected]
From: Dr. William Eggbert
Subject: In-Depth and thorough assessment on adult-only rating
Message:

It's needed.

 

[dfcrackhead]

The Escapist Community Vs. Atkinson. The showdown of the century...It's about time Australia got into a war

 

[Pillypill]

Is that his real emial? if so i would be happy to send a complaint garnished with swear words to him.

I just completed demon souls, it was crap. =[

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

Posting Atkinson's e-mail adress - an act of epicness.
Niiice.
The article itself was really good, though.
Th

 

[curryinc]

just well, disappointed. Go back to his review on Explosion Man. There is a part where is gets upset at the game offering to allow him to skip a level and he responds "You will not beat me." That was the gamer I thought Yahtzee was. The gamer that rises to a challenge and gets a great sense of accomplishment from beating that challenge. He is just not the person I thought he was and thats a little disheartening.

LOL you can't be serious

that is one of the saddest, most loserish things i've ever read

 

[Telekinesis]

Yahtzee just comes off as a giant baby if you ask me.

It seems he was butthurt about the game kicking his ass, and felt his manliness was mocked or something, because his death "wasn't funny", unlike in IWBTG.

As for the checkpoints/difficulty system bitching... Grow a pair. I'm not gonna go all reviewer-ish on him, but come on. That's the point of the game.
That's like saying "hhurrr durr mega man 9 is TOO HARD give it a checkpoint every screen and an easy difficulty system so that I can say I beat the game and get to the AWESOMEEEE ENDING"

 

[The Deadpool]

Because it was only one short segment. It was a total of about maybe 5 minutes of gameplay that I had to repeat until I did it perfectly and was allowed to pass.

But that's just my point. You went through hours of gameplay without dying, and then this one 5 minute segment is repeated an obscene amount of time... How many? 5? 10? Half hour to an hour of constantly dying and retrying in the same spot, redoing the same moves, watching the same attacks, until the game brown beats into your head what it wants you to do.

Is that truly the superior way?

Yes, I did live in fear of death-- via suspension of disbelief.

There's a difference between suspension of disbelief (which btw, means accepting the in game reality as your own for a short period of time. Of course the in game reality accepts that your character CAN'T DIE) and forcing yourself to feel fear at will without any reason.

Hey, if you can control your emotions like that, awesome for you, but it says nothing for the quality of game design. Fact is Bioshock (and MANY other games) give you NOTHING to fear. You can talk about how you got scared anyways to your hearts content, and it won't change that.

so don't feel like I'm flaming you, ok?

Don't sweat it. No disclaimers needed here.

The following is absolutely, unimpeachably true: virtually any animal can be trained to accomplish a series of tasks if the trainers spend enough time and effort. Therefore, the 'mechanic' you are all defending is simply a measure of endurance... in this case, endurance of punishment for failure.

Are you sure you're arguing AGAINST me? Isn't the usual chekpoint filled, try the same 5 minute segment over and over again for an hour game the one that measure your endurance? Isn't "you messed up this, do it again and again and again" the way one trains a simple animal how to do a task? When you trrain a dog to go through a circuit, you don't train him to do the whole course at once. You train each step one by one first, make sure he gets it right.

You'll have an easier time training a dog to play Bioshock (where if you move foward and push the shooot button for a long enough time, you WILL win eventually) than training a child to play Demon's Souls.

Fact is, anyone who's played the game can attest to this, you DON'T die as often as you do in games like God of War. The difference is the deaths MATTER here. You fear them, you do your best to dodge them, and when you die in a place, you make damn well sure you don't do it again.

It is rare that one dies in the same spot more than once. Thus the game teaches you without repetition...

on each independant iteration, how can you truly differentiate between the person who skillfully overcame the obstacles, and the person who happened to be lucky enough to hit the right button (infinite monkeys, infinite typewriters aside)? If you can't, what are you really proving? That you're probably better than everyone else?

Who's proving anything to anyone?

Although if you wanna know the difference, it's simple. You play, say, Call of Duty, and you can get past 80% of the game normally, and the last 20% by the infinite monkeys and infinite typewriters method of gameplay. And plenty of people HAVE. I doubt anyone's passed a single stage of Demon's Souls without getting genuinely better. I doubt anyone's passes a stage based entirely on luck.

I'm not talking about, as a player, proving myself anyone's better. I'm talking about as GAME DESIGN, having player victory based solely on player skill is superior to having it based on luck and willingness to try the same 5 minute segment over and over again until the dice line up.

Despite popular belief, I'm a busy man. I work 40 hour weeks on top of some semblance of a social life my girlfriend insists on us having. I also have little patience for repetition. I'd rather walk for an hour than sit in trafic for an hour. So repeating the same 5 minute piece of a game over and over again until the AI feels like being nice, or I luck out enough last minute dodges is not my style.

The truth is that the 'long time between savepoints' is a cheap way for game developers to make their product appear to last longer, but ultimately, it's the same mechanic at work while you play Solitare, for fuck's sake! "Eventually, you'll get it right." I find no satisifaction in that.

The more I read, the more I'm convinced you never played the game. On ym first playthrough, I had to redo maybe half the stages. And even those maybe one or two were redone more than twice.

It's not about repetition like people seem to think.

The game's harsh punishment for death is offset by death being easily avoidable for someone with care and patience. Hand-eye coordination helps, but not running blindly around the corner will keep you alive far more often than quick dodging will...

 

[Sentient6]

Ooo, posting his email was a dirty move. Nice one.

 

[Riobux]

I think the problem with an 18 rating in games, is the same problem with the AO (or is it A?) rating in America. Stores will refuse out-right to stock the product because of fears that it may be sold to people who are under-aged.

Instead of an age rating, instead of slapping higher and higher age ratings and guessing "well, this will solve it", maybe we need to stick to Film ratings but state on the front cover what is in the game? Maybe instead of mothers going out, picking up a game little Johnny at home wants so much (oh never-mind reading everything through), they acknowledge fully without having to read the back that the game contains sex, violence and so on. Maybe small ratings of the excessiveness of each of the "nasty things"? Or maybe I'm just over-complicating it, who knows?

Personally though, we need to stop sitting on our high-horse. Computer games aren't going to turn children into violent creatures who stalk the night kicking cats, unless people's parents forget to teach their children this important lesson. However, at least personally, parents are becoming more and more laid back in their discipline. I'm not saying go force children to their rooms without food or water with nothing to do for not saying grace at a meal. However, if a child acts out at school or at home at all, maybe smashes something or tells a teacher to die in a fire, then discipline needs to be up-held. Just sending the child to their room to play games with hopes that they'll change and be a good child in the future isn't the way to do it. It was never the way to do it ever.

The way I see it is there are two parts for someone to become anti-social. The "reasoning" and the "inspiration". Now, for the reasoning to occur, there needs to be no moral boundaries stopping them. However, since parents don't know how to discipline their kids, this isn't happening. The other one is inspiration. Now, stopping inspiration is harder than you think. You'd need to cut out all media and maybe you stand half a chance, and you don't need to be a professor of sociology or psychology to know that it's borderline impossible without causing major mental stagnation and development problems.