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--- sb:recommended:playstation3 [2015/09/28 16:26]
gatotsu2501
+++ sb:recommended:playstation3 [2015/10/10 02:03]
the_blueberry_hill Dark Souls page link
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 Sony promised that the PS3 would have a 10-year lifespan, only to announce the non-backwards-compatible PS4 after less than seven. Promises, promises.
-^ Is whoever wrote this really that bitter? It's still getting lots of high-profile releases into 2014 (//Metal Gear//, //EDF//, //Dark Souls//), which is much better than the last several console traditions. The first few years were a trainwreck and I wouldn't even count them on the scorecard, but if you assess in terms of a regular five-or-so-year console lifespan from 2009-2014, I think it's done just fine.
+^ Is whoever wrote this really that bitter? It's still getting lots of high-profile releases into 2014 (//Metal Gear//, //EDF//, //[[game:Dark Souls]]//), which is much better than the last several console traditions. The first few years were a trainwreck and I wouldn't even count them on the scorecard, but if you assess in terms of a regular five-or-so-year console lifespan from 2009-2014, I think it's done just fine.
 ===== Recommended =====
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     * gatotsu2501: Rough and unpolished shooter with some really neat ideas and excellent presentation - the voice acting is some of the best I've heard in video games, the environments are beautiful, twisted and haunting, and there are some truly unforgettable event sequences thrown in there. The 360 version looks better and runs smoother.
-  ***//Dark Souls//** (also on: 360, PC) - [[http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=32130|forum thread]] [[http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=36306|forum thread]] [[http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=35471|forum thread]]
+  ***//[[game:Dark Souls]]//** (also on: 360, PC) - [[http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=32130|forum thread]] [[http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=36306|forum thread]] [[http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=35471|forum thread]]
     * Youpi: //Dark Souls// makes me wish the internet didn't exist so I could only get my information about it from the other kids trying to sort out the useful strategies from the ludicrous playground rumors.
     * Adilegian: When I got to the first boss, that guardian drake thing of the crypt, I thought, "Oh, haha [[company:from_software|From]], this is where I die and get taken somewhere or something. You can't fool me!" And then I just died!
       * Adilegian: Holy crap this game is hard.
     * TXTSWORD: I would certainly not say it's perfect --- there are valid complaints... but the positives so far outweigh any problems that I just can't bring myself to care too much. A lot of their ideas were so ambitious that there are bound to be problems and to me this only shows great promise for the future of the souls games. More refinement on solid ideas and probably more ambitious ideas that maybe don't work perfectly but so fucking what. It's progress and it's daring and it's brilliant.\\ Last weekend I decided I'd //Dark Souls//'d out after making 3 new character to completion in less than 2 weeks time. I made it almost a week before I started Generic Knight and I've had as much fun as I've ever had. I'm sitting on several more character ideas I'll want to make. Sometimes I'm freshly aware and appreciative of how bizarre and wondrous the world design is and how interesting and gorgeous the environments are. I'm so appreciative of a game that isn't trying to be "bad ass". I mean reading((http://www.edge-online.com/features/dark-matters-0/2/)) [[people:hidetaka_miyazaki|the game's producer]] talking about his refusal to include gratuitous blood and gore seems so refreshing. It's not so much the exact subject --- blood and gore --- as the mindset. It's a sort of desire for refinement, for quality, for a cohesive and unique vision and direction. For having principals. It's as if the game has respect for itself and refuses to lower itself to people who want a hard ass protagonist spouting one liners (as an example). It's the kind of thing I'm not used to seeing and I don't think it's occurred to me just how deeply I appreciate and respect that. It's kind of difficult for me to articulate, and for that I'm sorry.
-    * spectralsound: Both //Souls// games are amazing even if only for the fact that they're content with keeping quiet about some things, and leaving it up to the player to determine what that character's history is or what his motives are or where he's going. It's honestly about a much of a selling point for me as the gameplay is, especially in this era of //[[game:tes_v|Skyrim]]//s and //[[game:mass_effect_series|Mass Effect]]//s, where every random villager or space tourist has this dense backstory that is presented to you in text dumps with such frequency that it becomes suffocating. Playing //Dark Souls// after playing those games feels like zen meditation.
+    * spectralsound: Both //[[game:souls_series|Souls]]// games are amazing even if only for the fact that they're content with keeping quiet about some things, and leaving it up to the player to determine what that character's history is or what his motives are or where he's going. It's honestly about a much of a selling point for me as the gameplay is, especially in this era of //[[game:tes_v|Skyrim]]//s and //[[game:mass_effect_series|Mass Effect]]//s, where every random villager or space tourist has this dense backstory that is presented to you in text dumps with such frequency that it becomes suffocating. Playing //Dark Souls// after playing those games feels like zen meditation.
     * remote: //Dark Souls// is a bit more ambitious than its predecessor and is thus more engrossing (or just as engrossing, but perhaps with greater longevity) despite a couple of late areas that feel like big ideas with disappointingly very little to be seen or explored. I can't really bring myself to say that //[[game:demons_souls|Demon's Souls]]// was hands-down the better game, but "more graceful" might be an apt enough way of putting it. It feels more elegant and complete in its simplicity, whereas //Dark Souls// has left me wanting more, driving me to keep playing and experimenting with covenants, new characters/classes, PVP and co-op, narrative aspects I have not yet discovered, etc. I'm definitely consumed by it as well.
-    * Tulpa: Tulpa: I think one of the most aesthetically appealing things about Dark Souls, especially compared to other fantasy games, is the way it taps into a mythopoeic style of fantasy as opposed to an ersatz medievalism+monsters.\\ Within //Dark Souls//, the player character interacts with gods and demons from the very start and fights to change the cosmology of the world instead of wandering around a traditional and ultimately unsatisfying fantasy setting that feels like pop culture medieval earth plus orcs.
+    * Tulpa: Tulpa: I think one of the most aesthetically appealing things about //Dark Souls//, especially compared to other fantasy games, is the way it taps into a mythopoeic style of fantasy as opposed to an ersatz medievalism+monsters.\\ Within //Dark Souls//, the player character interacts with gods and demons from the very start and fights to change the cosmology of the world instead of wandering around a traditional and ultimately unsatisfying fantasy setting that feels like pop culture medieval earth plus orcs.
-    * diplo: The intensity and duration of interest surrounding Dark Souls shows that it satisfied some aesthetic and/or interactive need that titles seemingly haven't satisfied very often. Of course, it's much easier to see the game's fumbles today than back in 2011 (it's a very improvable videogame) -- even so, those several-hundred hours I invested don't feel misguided or of-the-moment. Personally the most important and enjoyable game I've played in years, and one of the most successful attempts by a game to turn the often ignored morbidity of videogames into a central, explicable theme. Its level design does a bunch of special things, one being that you'll often preemptively see landmarks and networks which you go on to explore one way or another, lending the sequences of exploration a visually prophetic air. Rare and excellent.
+    * diplo: The intensity and duration of interest surrounding //Dark Souls// shows that it satisfied some aesthetic and/or interactive need that titles seemingly haven't satisfied very often. Of course, it's much easier to see the game's fumbles today than back in 2011 (it's a very improvable videogame) -- even so, those several-hundred hours I invested don't feel misguided or of-the-moment. Personally the most important and enjoyable game I've played in years, and one of the most successful attempts by a game to turn the often ignored morbidity of videogames into a central, explicable theme. Its level design does a bunch of special things, one being that you'll often preemptively see landmarks and networks which you go on to explore one way or another, lending the sequences of exploration a visually prophetic air. Rare and excellent.
   ***//Dark Souls II//** (also on: 360, PC, PS4, XB1)
-    * CubaLibre: it adds some mechanical improvements at the expense of thematic depth. In other words they improved the stuff that I didn't really think needed improving at the expense of the one thing //D'Souls// did better than anyone. It's still a good game, it's just not a great game. You play it through once and you don't feel a whole lot of pull to experience it again.
+    * CubaLibre: it adds some mechanical improvements at the expense of thematic depth. In other words they improved the stuff that I didn't really think needed improving at the expense of the one thing //[[game:dark_souls|D'Souls]]// did better than anyone. It's still a good game, it's just not a great game. You play it through once and you don't feel a whole lot of pull to experience it again.
-    * mauve: //DS2// is one step forwards two steps backwards. It does some things really well (the aforementioned mechanical issues, which are unfortunately marred by ridiculous hitbox issues and perhaps an over-nerf of sprinting), but the overall world is simply not as compelling and the level design has fewer moments of greatness. And soul memory is off-putting to playing characters for long periods of time, as you can't simply designate a cut-off point for your character anymore without becoming wildly outclassed in multiplayer.\\ It's still a good game. It's just, well, it's not the //Dark Souls 2// of //Dark Souls//, it's the //Dark Souls 2// of //Dark Souls 2//. It's doing its own thing, and overall it is not as good for it.
+    * mauve: //DS2// is one step forwards two steps backwards. It does some things really well (the aforementioned mechanical issues, which are unfortunately marred by ridiculous hitbox issues and perhaps an over-nerf of sprinting), but the overall world is simply not as compelling and the level design has fewer moments of greatness. And soul memory is off-putting to playing characters for long periods of time, as you can't simply designate a cut-off point for your character anymore without becoming wildly outclassed in multiplayer.\\ It's still a good game. It's just, well, it's not the //Dark Souls 2// of //[[game:Dark Souls]]//, it's the //Dark Souls 2// of //Dark Souls 2//. It's doing its own thing, and overall it is not as good for it.
   ***//Deadly Premonition: Director's Cut//** (also on: 360, PC) - [[http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=26281|forum thread]]
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     * Rudie: I still think extremely highly of this game even if it made me sigh a few times.  The bosses aren't as challenging as they could have been, and the New Game + is just numbers are higher.  You absolutely must play it as it is still a stellar game.
     * ChairTax: This game was easily my favorite game from this console generation and it's no hyperbole to say that it completely reshaped how and why I play videogames.
-    * diplo: By now, in 2014, it's been hugely overshadowed by Dark Souls (and the upcoming sequel), but it's hardly irrelevant. In fact, at times I find it preferable to Dark Souls. Environments are often dark and frightening, the challenge is tenser (no poise, dying puts you at the start of a world, co-op is a bit more strict), architecture has a bluntness tied to the appearance of early European castles that really drives home a feeling of labyrinthine monumentality, carry-weight matters, and in general the atmosphere has an air of desperation and failure that I find more appealing than the one in Dark Souls. Its greatest issues are probably the obtuse weapon-upgrading system, the too-vague-to-be-fully-enjoyed World Tendency aspect, a lack of heft to character physics, and a boss that's just too much to deal with on your own as a busy adult if you're doing NG+ and beyond.
+    * diplo: By now, in 2014, it's been hugely overshadowed by //[[game:Dark Souls]]// (and the upcoming sequel), but it's hardly irrelevant. In fact, at times I find it preferable to //Dark Souls//. Environments are often dark and frightening, the challenge is tenser (no poise, dying puts you at the start of a world, co-op is a bit more strict), architecture has a bluntness tied to the appearance of early European castles that really drives home a feeling of labyrinthine monumentality, carry-weight matters, and in general the atmosphere has an air of desperation and failure that I find more appealing than the one in //Dark Souls//. Its greatest issues are probably the obtuse weapon-upgrading system, the too-vague-to-be-fully-enjoyed World Tendency aspect, a lack of heft to character physics, and a boss that's just too much to deal with on your own as a busy adult if you're doing NG+ and beyond.
   ***//Devil May Cry 4//** (also on: 360, PC, PS4, XB1)