First off, Bastion looks wonderful. The art style is very colorful and cartoonish, but fantastic. Very bright and beautiful and a joy to wander around in the world. The video trailer at the bottom should be just enough to give you the ides.

The game itself is an Action RPG. You play as a young kid that wakes up in a world where everything, and everyone is gone. The world is torn a part and you are alone. You get out of bed and begin to start searching only to find destruction. You grab yourself a giant hammer and begin to crush everything you see. All the while there is a voice narrating the journey and it is quite a good voice narration I must say.

Eventually you find yourself in the Bastion. The central hub for your character where you will upgrade your skills, your weapons, and other upgrades you have at your command. This is basically the hub for your RPG leveling elements in the game. You come here after defeating a level, or anytime and you are able to switch out your weapon loads, skills, or change around some of your level passive abilities. It’s not complicated, but you do have quite a few things you can upgrde. All this is quite simple and very low level from a planning standpoint. There are some thins you can do as a strategy with what you carry with you, or the potions you use for certain areas, but overall it’s not complicated and anyone could do it.

That brings us the combat when saying anyone can do it. Early on you have very few troubles. Enemies aren’t ‘easy”, but they are certainly easy for anyone with RPG, or gaming experience as they should be early on. As you get further into the game however, enemies certainly become stronger, but they added a neat little option to the game. You can find these “Idols” of gods that you can activate to increase difficulties. 10 in all, and they do things such as make enemies more aggressive, take more hits, or cause you more damage. The more you activate the more EXP, and drops. This can REALLY get tough if you activate enough of them. Especially in a special are an type world you will run into eventually that you need to go to if you want to get the best upgrades and EXP fast.

You fight with a melee weapon, and a ranged weapon (For some reason at first only can carry one of each, but for me eventually I had 2 ranged weapons equipped only). You also get to carry one skill with you that either relates to a carried weapon, or is a general “magic” skill. You have HP and you heal with potions. Your skills use another potion that is a black bottle. Once you use the stash of bottles (you start with 3) you must find more in the level in crates or enemy drops, or when you get back to the Bastion they will replenish. With the Leveling up you can add a special tonic to your shelves that gives you more power boosts, more HP, more bottles, etc. There are quite a few and can be changed in the Bastion at any time. This allows for a bit of strategy in how you defend/fight with enemies. The combat is very much action orientated. You shoot arrows/guns, or pound on things with a hammer, sword, etc. You have the ability to roll/dodge, and you even have a SHIELD you can carry that basically blocks everything thrown at you if used correctly (It’s not as easy as it sounds, and doesn’t make you even close to invincible. You may think you, are, but you will find out quickly when you die you weren’t).

AS you go through fighting through the levels you are searching for cores to piece your world back together, and to find other people that may have survived. All along you are meeting new people along the way and hearing about your adventures from a narrator during the fights. I mean the dude talks the whole way through the game as if he’s reading a story about your actions. It’s not annoying at all so don’t think that is what i meant. It’s not CONSTANTLY, but just enough to give you some good chuckles while playing, and to keep the atmosphere perfect for the game.

The story is simple, and the gameplay is simple. The art style is beautiful, and the narration is a joy to listen to. It’;s a very good action RPG. Very few flaws, if any. Length is probably around 10 hours or so if you take your time a bit maybe. It’s really not possible to take your time since when you beat a level there is not much reason to go back. It has a few challenge areas you probably need to complete if you want materidal to upgrade your weapons. You find materials and get cores so you can add buildings to the Bastion which if you don’t you an’t upgrade anything, or buy anything. This is quite a fun game and well worth the cheap priced I got it for of $5.09 on Steam which cost me about as much as an iphone case. It’s still only $14.99 full price I believe, which is worth it.

EDIT: Forgot to mention this in the gameplay, but it is VERY important info IMO. The game at default uses the keyboard/mouse control system. It does however offer the abilit to use a gamepad. Personally, I am using a PS3 controller with motioninjoy set to the 360 config. It is set up to work with a Microsft/360 controller by the way the buttons are displayed in game. HAven’t tried to configure it as a PS3 controller since almost none of the games work right if you do, but it is HIGHLY recommended that you use a controller. Wtihout a controller movement is rather limited and the combat becomes quite a bit more difficult.

I would say this game deserves about 8/10 as a final score. TOTALLY worth it if you get it on sale for Steam, and still worth it at the full price. It has a decent length main quest of over 10 hours, and it has replayability, but really only if you are interested in playing with a bit more challenge I would guess. Activating the idols makes it quite a different game experience. It has Steam Achievements as well which is another reason to keep playing obviously.

End of the day I think I spent only about $50 on 10 or so games. I think I may have picked up one dud, but I still played it for quite a while.

Fable III ($12.49)-The one dud. Cost the most of any games I bought and it is really just a tedious game with the same lame quests over and over again. It looks really nice, and you feel like it could be amazing, but it just gets so boring after a while.

Fable: The Lost Chapters ($1.49)-Beat this game so many times but figured I’d see the PC version and if it was any different. Controls kind of suck with a keyboard/mouse, but it’s still a great game and cheap as hell.

Terraria ($2.49)-PRobably 99% of Steam customers bought this during the sale. HAven’t played it yet.

Bastion ($5.09) -Throwback sort of RPG. Not real complicated, real time action combat. Weapons and skill upgrades. Great narration and beautiful art. Very nice game. Would highly recommend it.

Orange Box ($9.99 I think) -Already had most of this, but since I needed Episodes 1 & 2 for some mods I bought it again and gifted HL2. Mods are meh IMO. Didn’t really get a lot of enjoyment out of the major ones like MINERVA, SMOD, Garry’s, etc.

Mass Effect 2 ($4.99) -Nope…never played it before. Never played ME1 either. Played this more than all the others I bought combined though. Amazing game, and totally not what I expected. Thought it was going to have terrible combat and be some sort of all story game. It’s really a massive and amazing game all around.

Just Cause 2 ($4.99)-Already have this on PS3 as you can read here. Jsut wanted it for mods. Playing as a chick, and extra grappling cables. Worth it.

NOTE: BTW…I don’t have a 360 controller at the moment so I didn’t think I could play a lot of these games on PC since I didn’t think any good PS3 adapters worked. Fable 3, JC2, etc. (Keyboard is awesome for the rest including ME2). I looked around and found that MotioninJoy works awesome for PS3 controllers. I set it up with the 360 config for most of these games since they don’t show. Some you can use the native PS3 controls though. Fable III for instance shows all the 360 buttons in game so it gets a tad confusing, but you adjust if you play with both enough.

Amnesia: Dark Descent ($4.99) – Downloaded this a few times from a torrent, but it was always buggy and didn’t run properly. Haven’t played it yet, but I needed a survival horror game and this was the one people recommend most lately.

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All in all feel like I got some good value and a few awesome games I never would have bought otherwise.

Missed the Skyrim for $40 day. Already have Batman. Other than that nothing new I really wanted. Maybe Saint’s Row: The Third, but I’m just gonna buy that later on when it is cheap anyways.

The gameplay and combat in this game are kind of on the level of Ninja Gaiden, but with not as many moves. More like a Hybrid between that and say God of War. Unrealistic and over the top combat more or less.

This won’t be as long review as I normally because I don’t consider this game to have that many features that need to be addressed. Combat of this style doesn’t need to be detailed as much as something else like an RPG, or even something like Dark/Demon’s Souls as there aren’t that many varieties and enemies aren’t varied enough to give you a sense that you have to strategize much when fighting them. Same tactics apply to most of the enemies and you fight large swarms of them with counters and combo moves. buy morgan silver dollars

Batman of course comes with many gadgets which make fighting a bit more interesting and fun, but honestly after several hours I was pretty tired of fighting groups of enemies. IF you are into combo multipliers and fighting large groups of enemies with seamless combat you won’t be disappointed. I just don’t find the depth of that combat intriguing which is why I tend not to play these types of games specifically for it. I’m also not a fan of fighting games in general so you can kind of see where I am on this type of combat.

The world of Arkham City is small to medium sized, but really nothing huge. You traverse with your basic bat skills of gliding, using your bat grapple to increase speeds, dives to take out enemies in aerial assaults, and scale building with the grapple to quickly get to the top. It should never take you more than a minute r two to traverse from one side of the map to the other if that is your only goal. If you want to fight or search for side items obviously it will take longer.

The story is after Arkham Asylum in which Arkham City is closed off to house all the worst prisoners of Gotham, and a few political prisoners that probably shouldn’t even be there. The game gives you the Batman classic like Penguin, Joker, Two Face, and a few others that make short appearances.

The Riddler plays a prominent role as the master of side quests more or less. In fact this may be the most depth the game offers in retrospect. The Riddler has hidden a few hundred “trophies” around the city that unlock more side missions with him as well as getting to him in the end. HE’s not a main story character, but offers a ton of gameplay time. These trophies aren’t just search and pick up either. Each of them is tied to sort of a puzzle in which you need to figure out how to get to them. This can be very fun, and can offer a challenge to the brain to figure out just what you need to do to get your hands on them. I found this to be a very good addition to the game.

In addition to the trophies he also has some of his patented riddles in which you need to search the city for the clues he gives. Much easier than the trophies, and sort of poorly put together overall. Between the two you must find 400 total to finish off his quests. This probably consisted of at least 80% of my playtime overall.

There are other side-quests with minor characters and villains. Some tie in with the main story, but others are just side stories you don’t have to complete. Of course if you want to get 100% you must do them.

Getting Platinum in this game is serious business, and VERY time consuming. Besides all the side-quests and actual story mode you have other tasks required to get this. You have to get through New Game +, which is much more difficult than the standard playthrough. You start fully loaded with your gadgets and skills, but enemies are much tougher. Also, there are challenge rooms unlocked from the Riddler as well. Boy are there challenge rooms. Nearly 100 in all. Rooms where you have to fight swarms of enemies and get high scores to earn the 3 tokens for each room. I absolutely LOATHE challenge rooms in video games, and frankly this is likely the reason I will never Platinum this game. Like I said earlier this type of combat isn’t fun to me so having to do it for tens of hours over and over is just not gonna happen. IF you enjoy it, then this game is for you because there are so many of these rooms even the most hardcore challenge room player may say it is too much.

One of the greatest parts of this game, however are the enemies and their conversations you can overhear while roaming the city. Everywhere you go they talk about some hilarious things. Either their crew boss (ie. The Joker, Penguin, etc.), or just random weirdness about the city, or general hilarious worldy things. It is worth it to play the game again just so you can listen to these conversations. It offers a nice depth to the city and makes travelling around much less tedious.

While this may be a slightly negative review, this is a very good game. I’m just not a superhero, nor a Batman fanatic so I don’t give it a free excitement boost just for it. If you are a Batman, or superhero fan I would not hesitate to say that this may be the best superhero game ever made. Even if you aren’t a big fan it is still a good quality game with lots of playtime for those that have OCD and want to collect things. For combat challenge fans it’s also loaded with fighting.

Overall, I find the game to get tedious and repetitive over the long run, but it is well designed and fun overall. Many claim it to be the Game of the Year, and it has actually won the award in a few places. Mine was Dark Souls (click for 2 part review) obviously, but this is deserving to be in the conversation. Due to it being a bit repetitive for me I am going to give it a SOLID 8/10, but I’m sure many of you would rate it higher.

P.S. I forgot to mention that retail copies, for the PS3 at least contain the Catwoman DLC code. She was a GREAT addition and looks amazing. Adds another couple hours of gameplay as well so it’s a nice touch. The DLC for this game I think is a rip off since most are just cosmetic skins, or the ugh challenge rooms which we clearly didn’t need more of. It sounds like some single player quest content will be coming later, but considering that I think I know what it is based on I’m not that excited about it. If you play the game and saw some side-quests end you know what I mean.

Took me a bit longer than expected to write part 2, but I was eagerly awaiting the new Patch 1.05 to see what kind of changes were made. They were quite extensive so I would just direct you to this thread at GameFAQs.com if you are interested.

The patch really changed the game quite a bit. It nerfed a lot of equipment, changed how weapons scale to make the game more balanced, increased the amount of experience (souls) enemies drop, and greatly improved matchmaking for the online components.

While I could go more in depth on the single player experience I think I may have covered a bit too much in part 1. I mentioned most of the mechanics of the game as well as how to traverse this world. What I did not mention at all was the story…hmmmm…the story.

If you played Demon’s Souls you already know what you are in for in terms of story. This is not a CGI cutscene JRPG that will show you 10 minute scenes talking about all the characters. There might not even be 5 cutscenes in the entire game that I can recall. IF you were a fan of walkign 10 feet to see a cutscene in games like FFXIII and this is your top priority in a game look elsewhere. Immediately.

Like Demon’s Souls the story of Dark Souls is woven into the lore of the world. It is not spelled out for you. Sure there is a general overview of some objective your character is supposed to do, but honestly you will probably forget about this the second you get control of your player. These games do everything unique. Not just the online experience, but also the story. The history, the lore, and even direction comes from many places. You get some background info and slight direction from NPCs that you can actually talk to, but mostly, the lore and the background is found in the item descriptions themselves.

Every item you pick up, every weapon, armor, boss soul, etc. has a tale on it. It may not be in depth, but combining sets, searching out areas, and piecing things together weaves a very strange and interesting view of the lands you travel. Let’s just say that the story is yours to figure out and it won’t actually spell anything out for you. It’s more about the characters that inhabit the world than some grand story. When you pick up sword you read its description in your inventory and you have a piece of the lore. Some things build on others. Some have nothing to do with it. The items tell stories of the people that wield them, that they were made for, or who they worked for. This is about gameplay, not a simple story, but if you take the time to read all of your items you may be immersed in a complex and interesting world you didn’t know was even there.

Let’s get into the online component of the game. Many things are similar to Demon’s Souls here, but there are also a lot of additions. As long as you are playing online you can see messages that other players leave that offer help, or they are just trolling you for their own amusement. You can rank these messages up , or down. You also see the ghosts of other players in their worlds wandering around at times to make you feel less alone. Their bloodstains litter the grounds in areas and if you select them it will show you a brief clip of how they died to help you avoid the same fate.

As we talked about earlier, Humanity is one of the great needs to be able to interact in PvP battles, and many other things. If you are not in Human form you can play online all you want and never have to fear an invasion by another player. If you do play in Human form, however the world is a much scarier place. At anytime a player from another world can invade you and you must fight to your death. Winner gains souls (EXP) and more Humanity among other things. If you lose as the invaded you are sent back to your last bonfire, but you keep all your souls and Humanity (you do lose Human form, however). The Invader is just sent back to their own world with little loss. You can only be invaded in an area where you have not yet killed the boss.

There is a good reason to be in Human form if you are not really interested in being an invader. While being in human form still leaves you open to invasion it allows you to summon other players as phantoms to help you out. They can help dispatch invaders, but typically you will summon them to help you defeat an area boss.

You can help fight bosses for other players as well. In fact, this is probably a good time to bring up Covenants. It would take far too long to go into each one in detail, but I will give a basic background on them and their main purposes. For in depth info on these look at the Dark Souls Wiki

As I mentioned you can co-op to help other players beat invaders, or to help them through a level and defeat a boss. There are actually 3 covenants that are highly favorable to being a helper rather than an invader. The Way of White, Princess’s Guard, and Warrior’s of Sunlight (nicknamed Sunbros by most players now). These 3 covenants give you more dedicated access to co-op. All 3 make it easier to find another player to co-op with if they are in one of these covenants. So if you are looking to co-op you would do well to join one of these covenants.

There are 6 other covenants that you can join. Most of these are designed to be a PvP covenant. Where you are to invade, or “protect” your domains. Either that, or you are used to hunt down sinners, steal humanity, and even change their worlds to Darkness. There is way too much detail of these other 6 covenants to go into, but let’s just say that you can be in covenants that are serious about PvP, and you can be in a n00b covenant like the Forest Hunters and gangbang other bad players only once in a while finding out someone is Twinking (stayed low level and got a ton of good equipment to troll new players) in the area and you get demolished. They may make you rage and reach for your medication carts .

In addition to the PvP and co-op aspects of these covenants, they all have levels and rewards. Each rank up as you perform the required tasks, obtain items that those you defeat will drop, etc. You start at +0 and can go up to +3. Some covenants offer new spells, miracles, and even weapons you cannot get otherwise. One offers a shortcut if you offer up enough humanity. The Gravelord Covenant allows you to turn 3 other player’s worlds dark and have them come to your world and hunt you so they can fix their own worlds. There is even a covenant that can turn you into a DRAGONOID and can breath fire! Yeah this is kick ass.

Everyone may have been anticipating Skyrim this fall, and most casual players will insist that it is a greater game, but it has absolutely no comparison to this. Only the settings and themes are similar, but Dark Souls is focused on crisp gameplay and challenge, while Skyrim is your choice for a more casual world of exploration and NPC interaction. Both have large open worlds, but are almost nothing alike. Don’t fall into the trap of comparing them as similar games. They are two GREAT games and Dark Souls is for a more hardcore gamer than Skyrim is. If you want something that is more challenging than all the other crap in this casual gaming generation buy Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls. They are like nothing else this gen.

RECOMMENDATION: Must Buy 9.5/10. This is my GOTY. Just like Demon’s Souls was in 2009. We are blessed with a ton of amazing titles this winter, but I call this my favorite among them. Arkham City, Skyrim, Uncharted 3, and Dark Souls are ALL must buy games IMO, but Dark Souls is my GOTY by far.

Just to let you know. I have Platinum’d the game, and played through NG++, and played another NG so I have done it all and know this game like the back of my hand. This will be VERY in depth. I will make it into two posts actually I have so much to write. I will try to get both done quickly, but may be a few days before I finish part 2.

That being said, From Software is back at it again with the spiritual successor of Demon’s Souls with another go in Dark Souls. Instead of our fan favorite Atlus being the publisher, we got Namco Bandai (Bamco). This may not seem like much of a big deal, but it appears many think it is. Bamco isn’t exactly known for being loyal to customers once their games are delivered. Fans of Demon’s Souls felt a lot of love after release with regular events on holidays in which we got World Tendency shifts. Nothing spectacular, but it showed that they were keeping up with it. Not to mention that the servers they run have been extended well into 2012 so that people can continue to play online.

Let’s get the server situation and online aspects out of the way first when it comes to Dark Souls. If you played Demon’s Souls you know that this “series” is predominantly a single player game, BUT it mixes in a unique online experience that adds to your single player experience. People take it much further and turn it into online dueling and other things, but the game is designed to be a mostly single player game.

Demon’s Souls online was hosted by a universal server. Meaning that it was run from a central location for each region and everyone played on it. We were split between North America, Europe, etc., but we all played on the server of our region. Dark Souls on the other hand made a significant change here. It is now a P2P system. Many games use this and the benefit of it is that we can always connect online long after the game has gone into its imminent death. On the other hand, we are all stuck with having issues based on the internet connections of users we are connected to. More lag is an obvious issue, but connecting properly has been an early one.

Don’t fear though. A patch has been released that is supposed to improve matchmaking greatly, and is in use already in Japan. Personally, I have had little to no problems finding people to invade, or to summon to fight bosses. So…my experience has been rather good in regards to the online components of the game.

Since I said before that the online component is more of a compliment to the single player component it makes sense that I meld the online aspects into the full review of the single player side. First and foremost you don’t have to play online at all. You can play completely offline and finish the game 100%, AND you can get the Platinum trophy without ever setting foot into the online universe. This game is meant to be an amazing single player experience. Online is there for more fun, and in many cases much more frustration from players way better than you.

Combat is at teh forefront of this series. It is defined as an Action RPG, but the combat excels compared to most other action RPGs that you will play. There is a feeling of actually making contact with enemies, and you feel the weight of your armor, and the weight of your weapons. Swing speed, and contact with enemies is fully realized in the combat system. This is soemthing that is WAY beyond the combat of such games like Dragon Age, Skyrim, etc. (Skyrim, Dragon Age, etc. are nothing like Demon’s Souls. Totally different kinds of games and should really not be compared, but to give you an idea of how different they are I mention combat as that is the glaring difference. These other games focus more on interaction, exploration, and story. Dark Souls focuses on challenge and combat. and exploration in a massive world.) The combat in comparison to these types of RPGs is much more skill base while these are more or less set up for very casual gamers and have very little satisfaction when defeating an enemy or boss. In those games you do not “feel” the combat like in Dark Souls. IT takes skill to survive and it is far from cheap here. You will feel like you won based on your own skills rather than because the enemies are stupid, or you just cheesed them.

Dark Souls changed significantly in many areas compared to Demon’s Souls. While combat mechanics are very close, Dark Souls did add a few new twists to it. More attacks that can be made from rolling, running, and even an awesome falling attack that does massive damage when you drop down on an enemy’s head. Dark Souls also added jumping which comes into play not just to get to new places, but also as an attack option. All of these things are very nice additions to your arsenal.

The world of Dark Souls is immense and amazing. Unlike Demon’s Souls there is no central hub. Sorry Stockpile Thomas and Maiden fans these guys aren’t going to help you this time. You cannot warp back to a central hub and go through the archways to get to a new world. The entire world of Dark Souls is interconnected. It is brilliantly done. While you can get to many areas right off the bat, some areas are not connected to where you start. You must travel through other areas to get to them. There are tons of shortcuts that can be opened, you travel through one are, and you can skip entire areas to get to harder ones. There are even very challenging areas right by the beginning of the game you can wander into that you will likely not be able to handle. The game doesn’t hold your hand here. You really have no idea where to go, but talking to some random NPCs may give you some clues.

Can you get a breather at all? Of course. It would suck pretty hard if you couldn’t right? Instead of a central hp, or archstones to warp around you have Bonfires. Bonfires show up as sort of checkpoints all over the world. They must be lit at first. You need to find them in the area you wander to and you are allowed to rest at them. They aren’t always close, but they are spaced pretty well so you aren’t stuck traversing all the way a crossed the world to get back to where you were. I will go more in depth about Bonfire uses in a little bit.

I need to talk a little bit about some of the aspects of the player and how they travel through the world real quick here. In Demon’s Souls you were either in Soul Form, or you were in normal form. In Soul Form you lost a large portion of your HP, but you could not be invaded by other players online at all, nor could you summon others for help. In Dark Souls the world is run by Humanity. It is basically the souls of the undead. When you have used humanity you find yourself in Human form. This allows you to summon other players to help fight bosses, but also leaves you open to invasions. If you die, you go into Hollow form. Unlike soul form there aren’t any HP drawbacks. So you could go through the entire game in Hollow form online and have very little negative drawbacks for doing so. This should be good news for players that love to see ghosts wandering around, or to read messages from other player s and not fear being invaded constantly. They had you in mind here!

Humanity can be gained in many ways. There is a Humanity meter next to your HP bar that will glow white if you are in Human form already. Grayed out if you are Hollow. You can actually see up to a number of 99 in that meter up top and this is the Humanity you have collected from the world from many ways. Killing a phantom, a human enemy, defeating enough enemies, etc. This is “loose” humanity. You can pick up humanity as an actual item too that you won’t lose if you die. Enemies drop it, you find it as treasures, and a few other ways. This humanity is safe from your death. The “loose” humanity is not. IF you die it will be with all your souls in your bloodstain. Just like Demon’s Souls if you die you leave a bloodstain in the world with all the souls you lost. Dark Souls also keeps your loose humanity there too. If you get back to it before you die again you get them all back, BUT you do not get human form back. Humanity has other uses, but playing the game you will figure it out. Most notably it helps with item drops.

So how the hell do you sue this humanity? This is where we get back to discussing bonfires. At the bonfires you can do many, many things. At each bonfire it refills your health, spell castings, and your Estus flasks (what are those?). The Estus flask is your little potion to refill your health. When you first get to a bonfire you only get 5 Estus Flasks. Humanity changes that. First you need 1 humanity to go from Hollow to Human form if you aren’t already there. Then you can Kindle the fire with more humanity. Each fire can only be kindled once early on before you get a special item that allows you to kindle them all up to 3 times. Each kindle permanently increases the number of Estus flasks you receive by resting there by 5. So after one Kindle you will get 10 flasks every time you rest there. Maximum amount once you get the item to get higher is 20. No, you can’t visit 5 of your bonfires and end up with 99. The most you can get is 20 total, and only if a fire was kindled to give that many. For the early part of the game you never have more than 10. When you use them all they are gone until you rest at a bonfire again. This is how you heal. You can heal with Humanity as an item, or some other rare items, but Estus will be your usual method as the others are rare.

The Bonfire also allows you to store your items after you purchase the bottomless box from a Blacksmith. One you purchase a repair box you can repair your equipment there. Once you buy re-enforcement boxes for weapons and armor you can upgrade even those there! If you need to get it to another level, or class of weapon however you must find a blacksmith to “modify” it. Finally, once you get the Lord Vessel item from a later part of the game you can WARP to other bonfires. Not all, but enough to make life a lot easier on you.

Character building is a bit different this time. You still start the game with a character creation screen, pick a class with stats you like from the stats already assigned, and change their appearance to how you like. This hasn’t really upgraded much, but it is a little better.

Stats have also changed a small amount, and the way that magic is cast has also changed. Your game screen displays your HP and your stamina up at the top still, but MP has completely disappeared. Instead of MP players “Attune” spells that only have certain number of castings between resting. The stat of Attunement which allows you to equip every type of spell (Pyromancy, Miracles, and Magic) is now only there for increasign these slots. Rather than having to upgrade Intelligence for more Magic slots, or Faith for more Miracle slots, you do it wall at Attunement for all 3.

Another significant change is that there is no longer an Item Load. You can carry everything you ever find in the game with no regards to their weight. Eventually you can buy a Bottomless Box to store this stuff, and make it easier to navigate your inventory on the road, but you don’t ahve to as there is no penalty for carrying a ton of loot. Equip Load is still present, however. This is the weight of all the weapons, and armor you have equipped to use. In Demon’s Souls having less than 50% of your total equip load allowed you to roll at full speed. In Dark Souls you can still roll under 50%, but the max speed is under 25%. The closer you get to that 50% burden the slower you roll. Above it you can barely roll at all and are a sitting duck. We have many more options for equip load in this game, however to make speed faster so it is not as bad as it sounds. Over 25% isn’t bad, it’s just not as good as under 25%.

The list of stats are as follow:

Vitality-Level of HP
Attunement-Controls number of attunement slots (magic you can equip)
Endurance-Controls Equip Load and Stamina
Dexterity-Required to meet weapon requirements in some cases. Speeds up spell casting. Sacles DEX weapons.
Strength-Used for weapon requirements. Used for scaling STR Weapons (may be another passive ability we have not yet determined)
Resistance-This raises resistances and increases defenses more than the other stats do. They all increase defense every level, but this does more. It is the most useless stat and considered one not to be upgraded. Equivalent of to the value of “Luck” in Demon’s Souls.
Intelligence-This is used to cast sorceries. Magic Spells have minimums that must be met to be used. It also scales their damage as well as scaling of weapons that use INT scaling.
Faith-Does everything Intelligence does EXCEPT it works for MIRACLES and FTH based weapons instead.

You may have noticed that nothing mentions Pyromancy in the stats above. That is because Pyro spells aren’t boosted by stats. They are boosted by upgrading the Pyro Glove. This is much like a catalyst or a talisman, except it is for pyro casting. Any player can use Pyro spells. This makes for an interesting set of offensive and defensive skills for all players to enjoy even if they are going through the game as a pure melee build. Some of the spells are very useful. It has a spell called Iron Flesh that allows you to increase your defense incredibly high at the expense of slow movement. It has poison spray, and of course a large collection of fire spells on top of others. It is outclassed at higher levels by Magic typically, but only if you develop those stats. This gives you a much larger arsenal with minimal loss to your other stats.

Weapon equips are much like Demon’s Souls as well. You can equip a weapon in both hands, as well as equip 2 reserve weapons in both hands that you can toggle between. You can dual wield a couple battle axes, have a shield and sword, a greatsword with a catalyst to cast spells, etc.

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Weapons AND Armor are able to be upgraded this time. Finding Blacksmiths throughout the world allows you to not just upgrade along regular paths, but to change to many different weapon builds. Weapons upgrade in a similar way to Demon’s Souls, but it is simplified a bit. Each level only uses one size of stone rather than the 1-4 different sizes stones at a time compared to Demon’s Souls. The biggest change however is the addition of new upgrade paths. Most notably Lightning! An element that was completely absent in Demon’s Souls is in full force in Dark Souls. Weapons and magic can utilize this element. Weapons upgraded along this path are quite formidable, and have very low equip requirements to create them. They are basically the cream of the crop at low levels of your character build.

Scaling is done with the 4 stats of Strength, Dexterity, Faith, and Intelligence. Each of these stats is used for a certain type of weapon, but some weapon types scale with more than one just as Demon’s did. Before the upcoming patch scaling on most of these weapons was a bit unbalanced compared with lightning. At higher levels it is surpassed, but the new patch has upped the scaling of other weapon paths to make them much more of a threat and easier to outclass the lightning classes. Having characters built along a certain stat is still very much in the game here, and maybe even more than Demon’s Souls. We just don’t know everything about it yet to have the best builds figured out without the patch.

Armor upgrades along the same lines, but only down a straight path. Upgrading armor allows it to increase many defenses as well as resistances to poison, bleed, and even curse (very nasty. You do not want this to happen, but there are uses for it). Upgrading armor is quite helpful to give you higher defense on lower weight equipment. Defense isn’t exactly the most important part of armor, however.

That would be Poise. Poise is a stat that shows up on heavier armor. It allows you to take more hits, and swing through more hits before being stunned. It makes it so blocking with a shield or weapon will cost you less stamina. This is by far the most important stat on armor. Other than one ring, poise can only be gained by wearing armor. Unlike Demon’s Souls where many would wear a lot of lighter armor that had good defense, in Dark Souls the light armor has no poise. While it has defense, and it can help stop some damage, poise is by far more important. It is quite the challenge to maximize your poise, keep under 50% equip load, and still be able to move fairly quickly. This is why the Endurance stat is once again very important. Not just for stamina, but for the equip load. Higher poise means you can get hit more without causing you to be stunned. You can heal through attacks if it is high enough with an Estus flask. If you choose to go light, you better be nimble and not get hit.

That is enough for Part 1. Much more to cover. I will discuss some more of the single player and go in depth on the online features in Part 2. Including the addition of Covenants!

At the time I did not like it much. I thought it looked pretty decent, although I couldn’t get the settings right on a 1080i HDTV where it wasn’t jaggy as hell. No big deal. Then playing the game it became quite obvious that this wasn’t the GTA of the past.

First thing that probably popped out to most people was the driving mechanics. They were revamped a bit and felt much more difficult to get used to. At the time I hated it. I expected to jump right in and be able to drive like a beast.

Then we have the new wanted system where you have to “outrun” the cops instead of just going and standing in a alley for a few seconds. Besides that it seemed that the cops were much more of a nuisance in GTA IV than they had been before. This game was starting to be way too realistic.

Those two things alone I think put me off the game for quite a while. I didn’t really feel like I was having “fun” playing it. Never could you really just go off and just kill everyone around for 30 minutes and live through it. Then having cops pop up at the edge of the wanted circle it just got to a point where i was having little fun.

So…a few days with my new PS3 and this game I am somewhat disappointed and ready to throw this game into the composter. I go out and buy Fallout 3 and find it to be incredible. First impressions compared to GTA IV were off the charts. Nevermind that after 70 hours or so it became a glitchfest and chugging piece of crap. It was more free than GTA was it seemed and I didn’t have to spend 50% of my time running away from cops.

Fast forward about 2 years, nothing of interest available in the new game market for a couple months, and a 1080p HDTV this time. I decided to give GTA IV a try once more. This of course is after playing Red Dead Redemption several times already so I am much more familiar with the controls obviously. Easily picked it up and was good to go.

Something changed between when I first played GTA IV and now. A lot of the controls were actually closer to things that everything else this gen had incorporated. Things that are definitely different from the XBox and PS2 days.

This time I was in awe of the game. I didn’t think the game was bad the first time, but I wasn’t particularly impressed at all. After a couple years of playing everything from Bioshock to Just Cause 2 to Dead Space, I realized this game was a masterpiece.

I couldn’t believe I disliked this game before. Now I’m actually upset that I missed the prime when the multiplayer was jumping. The city in this game is by far the best in any game I have ever played. It may not have the best graphics of any city, but the “feeling” of the city is so perfect that I can’t honestly say there are many games I have played where I felt as immersed. Just take a cab ride and not skip it. The way everything on the streets look from the people to the lighting is outstanding.

Maybe this gen changed the way I look at games. Maybe the games like Fallout, Dragon Age, etc. gave me a new appreciation for how weak storytelling generally is. Maybe it just took getting used to the controls for this gen. Maybe it just took me to mature a little. I don’t know, but I have a new found respect for this game going back to it. It may be the only game that has ever changed my view so much with a replay years later. It is definitely not outdated either. It could come out today and still be a top game.

Originally I would ahve given this game probably an 8/10. Showing that I knew it was technically a good game, and well designed. Just wasn’t fun. Now? I’d probably say this is a 10/10 game. At worst a 9.5/10 since I almost never consider any game a 10/10.

So…if you were wanting the next GTA: San Andreas and didn’t really give this game the chance it deserved the first time try it out again with a couple years experience of this gen. It really is an amazing game.

While there are a lot of other big name action games coming out such as Uncharted 3, Gears 3, Resistance 3, etc., but at the end of the day the best games coming seem to be some sort of Action RPG, or just plain RPGs. The only real choice for me, however is whether to give Skyrim a whirl on a console for the first time, or just plain go out and buy a new PC to run it better.

Dark Souls and Skyrim though are the two and only games I have on my wishlist at the moment. I pre-ordered Dark Souls from Amazon about 2 months ago when they had the free upgrade to the Collector’s Edition ($89.99) which comes with a fancy box, game guide, soundtrack, and some other nerd stuff like art books.

Skyrim I am still deciding what version I want, and may wait until after release since I will be playing Dark Souls anyways. The other issue with Bethesda games is that after playing Fallout: New Vegas I have very little trust in their ability to put out a finely tuned product. Certainly the early pre-patch data will be engulfed in glitches so waiting a month or so may be the way to go. It has a new engine this time though so we may be getting something that is just much better and made for the current generation rather than a rehash like the Fallout games were from the Oblivion engine.

Dark Souls

What can I say about Demon’s Souls at this point that hasn’t been said? It was by far the biggest, and frankly best surprise for this gen in gaming in my opinion. To this point I may say it is my favorite game this generation still. Being a unique experience in the current high graphics, easy to play, casual gamer era, it was a breath of fresh air. Dark Souls is promised to be even more difficult than Demon’s Souls, although it is not considered a “sequel”. More of a “spiritual Successor” as Demon’s Souls was to the King’s Field series. Regardless it is pretty much a sequel if you were a fan in the gameply and style areas.

The world is supposed to be more open than Demon’s Souls with no internal hub and areas separated. If you can see mountains int he distance you can walk to them according to the developers. You will be saving at fires that you will be able to place. The online factor I am not quite sure of the overall specifics although we have seen several players chilling around a fire beacon.

Gameplay looks very similar to Demon’s Souls and the movements are very close from the gameply I have seen, and you can see in the video below. Definite changes of course, but I say that Demon’s Souls was so good that you didn’t have to do a lot anyways except clean it up a little. Some of the animations, targeting, etc.

Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

I didn’t buy ES IV: Oblivion until almost a year after it was released on PC. I did buy it on the PC, however so I was able to enjoy the array of amazing player mods that were released unlike our console brothers who only played there. Word is that the consoles will allow mods for Skyrim this time! Something that was a huge factor in whether I would buy it for the PC, or PS3/360. Now I am in a bit of a dilemma, although the PC version will force me to buy a new PC so it may not be that much of a dilemma .

The video below shows a vast world. We have seen a fight with a giant dragon in video clips where it is said this is actual combat, although I believe that it is more of a cutscene with a finishing animation than actually fighting for what we keep being shown. Still it looks awesome and different and more intense than any Oblivion battle ever was.

They have changed all the leveling and character building once again. Getting rid of things like acrobatics and the other annoying and useless skill s that we would upgrade by leaving our man swimming in a pond for 2 hours just to get their speed and stamina up. That is of course you didn’t have a PC version where you could just hit “`” and cheat in the console. Hopefully this game doesn’t make it as tedious and boring to improve skills and not make us want to cheat every time we play.

Nothing more fun than these games IMO. Huge open worlds, with tons of random quests out and about. Weapon searches, and best of all player mods. These are the kind of games that save you money. You don’t need anything else for months after buying these enormous games. About the only games I will be buying after this comes out are the bathroom variety for my iPod Touch, or your ipod nano 8g.

Killzone Cover Art U.S.

Not sure why I started with bad TV shows rather than video games. TV has so little to watch in recent years with all the reality bits that I rarely watch more than a few shows a year. Video games on the other hand…I have been a gamer for nearly 20 years. Owning most consoles of any note. Except for handhelds of course. Those are for kids and ferners. Closest to a handheld I am going to get is my phone.

As for Killzone (the very first one), and really you can probably make some of these claims for all 3 of them, the game was a huge piece of mediocrity. Like all 3 of them, the first was marketed excessively. Everyone knew about it, and expected something totally new and amazing. In fact, it may be the first game that the PS2 produced that was claimed to be the true “Halo Killer” of the time. Something that clearly it was not, and in hindsight I don’t even think it was a good game.

When I bought this I think I was at the store looking to buy ANY game, like I often do when I am bored. While I tend to drop by the greatest hits, or the old classics bins on these days, if I won some extra cash playing poker the night before I may just plop down for a full priced game I hadn’t look into much. Full priced games I almost always know what I want and know if they are going to be good before I buy them. If I buy a game on release day, which I do for most I really want, I already know it is going to be worth it. RARELY have I been duped. Once in a great while I will buy a new full priced game at random when nothing at all is out of serious interest. This of course is usually based on a random idiot salesperson’s opinion on what is a good game. Typically that doesn’t actually include them having played it at all, but just what they “heard”. Killzone this angsty teen “heard” that it was Playstation’s answer to Halo from the XBox. Yeah…I don’t think so.

It’s not like I am even a big fan of Halo. I actually think it was one of the games that helped the downfall of actual challenging and fun shooters. Making every online player believe that the easier it is the better it is. Replacing skill with a high quantity of morons that think they actually have skill. Well..enough of that rant, just old gamer syndrome coming out. Can’t wait for Dark Souls.

So this game called Killzone. It was a futuristic shooter where you run in a group called the I.S.A. against these mutated humans called Helghast. The story is pretty forgettable as you can now see as I don’t care to go into it. More or less the game was supposed to look pretty and have a lot of awesome first-person shooter gameplay.

Let’s just say that this game got ranked by people that don’t know how to rate video games and should find another career like selling Wholesale Insurance. Some were harsh on it, but there were quite a few good reviews back then saying it was pretty, which if you are a serious gamer, you know is one of the least important factors in how good a game is. (See: Final Fantasy XIII). Metacritic has settled in the 60s/100 somewhere I believe so in the long run the game got it’s fair due as to how mediocre it really was.

The game was just plain mediocre. The online was even more mediocre. With the amount of hype the game had, and the next 2 in the series have had in the marketing department, everyone just expected much more. These games look good, but they are just plain boring as all hell. In Killzone you fight I swear maybe 2-3 different enemies the entire campaign. The dialogue is pathetic, and the stereotypical characters are even worse.

The funny thing is that even with how boring this game was, when Killzone 2 was released people were just as excited for it as they were the first. I didn’t even bother buying it, although I did download the demo on the PS3 when it was released. It was once again quite pretty. Had some OK gameplay, but it certainly didn’t sell me on the idea of buying it. IT was a game that I would wait on after being burned by the hype of Killzone 1. In the end I never heard anything about it that made me want to buy it, and when KZ3 came along I didn’t even notice it.

Overall, this is a series of extreme hype, and no payoff. Doing nothing special, or anything great that makes it stand above any of the other generic shooters out there other than sound and graphics. If a game has nothing going for it in the fun department, and relies only on looks and sound it should be considered a waste of money, and that is what I considered Killzone 2 hours after I had purchased it.

ApocalyPS3 pales in comparison to the Great CollaPS3 of 2011 that we are enduring now. It has been almost two weeks now since we have been able to access the PSN and play games online, or get into the Playstation Store. So if anyone needed to delete any game data and redownload a DLC, or even a purchased game, they are out of luck for quite a significant amount of time.

Those aren’t really serious concerns over the long-term, however. Besides not having access, the hackers have reportedly stolen a lot of customer information from the PSN. According to Sony, they have not taken out credit card info (that they are aware of), but they have taken personal information such as names, addresses, and our PSN login info. They have no reports of identity theft, or credit card fraud yet so it appears we might be safe there. Of course this is why they think it hasn’t been stolen it seems to me. They claim they have all that data encrypted, and even if it were stolen they don’t have our security PINs, nor our expiration dates.

Suffice to say, that info about your PSN login info could be a concern for you. If you use the same password as you use there for things such as your e-mail you are going to want to go a head and CHANGE it just in case. You don’t want them knowing that you use post workout supplements now do you?

Sony says that the PSN should be up “within the week”, and they will be giving us some free stuff as compensation. The free stuff doesn’t seem to be sufficient it seems for most people that care about this. According to CNET this is what they promise (you can also read angry comments from PSN users):

The company today explained how it would try to make it up to customers. Sony will provide free identity theft protection service and “will consider” helping customers who have to be issued new credit cards. Sony will also be offering free selected downloads, as well as 30 days of free PlayStation Plus service. Music Unlimited subscribers will also get free service for 30 days.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20058731-260.html#ixzz1LAKir1LY

I almost went out and bought Little Big Planet 2, but realized that Dead Space 2 was coming out a few days later and I think I made the right call by waiting. Obviously the two games couldn’t be further a part in genres, but I can like more than one thing right? I decided to wait for LBP2 to fix itself up a little first and get it later when it had a bunch more stuff available. So…I went with another of my favorite early games in this gen of consoles, Dead Space.

One of the things I loved about the first Dead Space was that it was pretty technically sound. Sure it had some money glitches here and there, but overall it was very well made. In fact I would say that it is literally the first game I bought for the PS3 that didn’t have a patch to download the day I got it. Dead Space 2 is just as tight and runs like a champ.

Now, if you played Dead Space you have a good idea what to expect. You are in space fighting Necromorphs created by The Marker as our hero Isaac Clark, and you basically have to find your way to safety. Isaac Clark returns in Dead Space 2 as our hero 3 years after the events of Dead Space 1. Unlike Dead Space 1, where you did all kinds of backtracking and fetch quests, I believe that Dead Space 2 feels much better like you are always going forward.

Dead Space 2 is located on the Saturn moon of Titan at the station called Sprawl. You are no longer just inside of a spacecraft with little to no variety in environments. Sprawl has a nice variety of areas including a creepy school a bit like F.E.A.R. 2 had, you spend time out in space of course, Unitoligist recruiting center, and another very great location that is a spoiler so I will not mention it. Overall, I felt that the environments were much more colorful, and fun to explore than Dead Space 1.

Graphically, the game improved slightly. Isaac looks a lot better than he did before. Nicole on the other hand looks like a completely different person. Some say much worse, but she has more features to her model than she did before even if she looks different. Character models have improved in DS2 for sure. Environments feel somewhat familiar, but as I said there is much more variety, and graphics have improved overall. Graphics are very good and quite satisfactory. Many things floating around in the air like blood, bubbles, and anything else looks good, but sometimes cartoony.

The gameplay has not changed a lot, but what it did improve was very well done. You really won’t notice it much and it will feel the same, but there are some changes that make the game more fun to play. There is no HUD once again like DS1. Weapons have the ammo display on it. Health and stasis levels on the back of your suit. Same awesome menu design.

One change you may not notice is the map is gone. Instead you hold down the R3 button rather than just clicking it to show the trail and you can have the line switch between objective, shop, bench, and save point. You won’t miss the map at all. It’s a nice new change I think.

Kinesis, first and foremost, has taken a much bigger role in Dead Space 2. You can certainly get by without using it as a weapon on the lower difficulties, but on the higher ones you will need to utilize it.

With the same upgrading system at benches to your equipment you will notice the edition of Kinesis Damage on your RIG. Unlike DS1 your Kinesis distance is maxed out already, but you can increase its damage as part of the RIG. This helps a lot when you decide you are ready to become a Kinesis master and clear rooms with one bullet like I found great joy in.

How would you do this? The Necromorph blades in this can be detached from dead Necros and shot back at other ones for severe damage. Additional spears, mop handles, and all kinds of other spear-like objects can be shot at them as well. This is a very important aspect to harder difficulties to conserve ammo.

Even a larger variety of weapons and RIGs are available in DS2. The list of standard weapons (Excluding any DLC available in pre-order, or Collector’s edition) include some old favorites like th e Force Gun, Ripper, Line Gun, Contact Beam, Flamethrower, and of course the master of them all the Plasma Cutter. Many of the weapons have “Special” abilities at the end of their upgrade path. The Plasma Cutter for instance adds a “Enemy on fire” attribute, although not as cool as it sounds. Contact Beam adds stasis to its alt-fire which is nice. Of course you probably know that the Contact Beam is just to swoop ammo to sell since it costs too much to use constantly.

New editions include some pretty cool weapons. The Seeker Rifle has an alt-fire zoom that allows you to zoom in, but it is not in a scope. This zoom gives you more damage from the weapon at the expense of vision. The Javelin Gun is basically a gun that does the same thing as using Kinesis to toss spears, but in gun form. Ammo is different than random crap laying around obviously so no “junk ammo” gun here. The alt-fire has a “shock” ability to nearby enemies and is pretty awesome. The special adds an explosion to the shock. The Detonater is a mine gun that is a very awesome gun and very powerful. So you have a pretty vast array of weapons and it may be tough to choose (I used the Plasma Cutter only all the way through Zealot mode my first time).

Suits have many more variations this time around. Some unlockable by beating the game, others in DLC packs, and of course those found in game with schematics. Most suits have additional properties that they didn’t have in DS1. One has the ability to get a 10% discount in shops, one has 10% damage increase for the flame thrower, another has 15% bonus to health packs, etc. The best IMO is the Advanced suit that gives you a 50% reduction in stasis recharge time (that’s right it recharges this time!)

Since I just mentioned it, Stasis is a pretty big deal in DS2. While you could get by in battle fairly easily in DS1 without using it much, in DS2 it becomes necessary to stay alive many times. The great thing though is that Stasis will recharge in DS2. Before you think this makes the game easy, I’m here to say that on harder levels you won’t care about this at all. It isn’t exactly fast either. I believe it takes at least a minute to recharge 1 slot. You can upgrade the module up to 4 slots in this.

Stasis may be the most important weapon in this game. Upgraded for number of shots (up to 4 per filled gauge), Recharge speed, and duration. Why is it so crucial this time around? For one thing enemies come in bigger groups than DS1. They also seem to move even faster, and there are some very pesky Necromorphs that move in on you so fast that Stasis my save you from being overwhelmed. It is also awesome for freezing a Necro and picking up a blade, or spear and shooting it right through them for an ammo free kill!

What you really want to know though is if it has scares right? We aren’t here to order strawberries now are we? Well..this is always a bit of a personal thing since those of us that have a lot of experience in survival horror/action games tend to be a bit desensitized. Others still feel the scares. Personally, this game gave me a handful of good jump scares. Similar to DS1. The sound is just as creepy and there are quite a few jump scare moments.

The creepiness of the game can be a bit lighter for Dead Space vets I’m sure, but it does a pretty good job of trying to get you now and then. Necros certainly jump on you closer than I remember in DS1, and they hide a little better in the darkness. There are some creepy stalker enemies that even hide behind crates and look out at you while they hide. Creepy.

Isaac has quite a few crazy ass hallucinations in this one brought on by the Marker I definitely won’t spoil these for you, but let’s just say that they are satisfactorily creepy in a Japanese ghost movie sort of way.

In my personal opinion this game is MORE intense than Dead Space 1. In DS1 you had the game broken into chapters and you had these “breaks” in between when you got to the tram station. Then you saved and waited for the next chapter to load. In Dead Space 2, there are no loading screens unless you die. Each chapter runs smoothly into the next one with just a small onscreen text announcing the next one. It makes the game much more immersive to me, and it also makes it so you really don’t feel like you have a really safe place other than certain areas like where there is a save point, shop, and benches.

The game feels much more fast-paced as well. Enemies feel faster in some instances. They come more often and in larger groups. You are never just going back and forth other than a few instances so every area is relatively new to you as you progress. It makes feeling safe a little bit more difficult as you aren’t familiar with a room.

Let’s talk difficulty. As a Dead Space vet I knew I was going to take on the highest difficulty for the first round. In this case it is called Zealot. Below that are Survivor, Normal, and Casual. The differences in the level difficulties are health and ammo drops from enemies, the damage they deal, and the damage it takes to kill them. An additional Hardcore level is unlocked after completing the game once (more on that later)

I started the game on Zealot. The real deal here is that Zealot is the hardest difficulty in the game for everything except what I will describe when I discuss hardcore. It is more difficult than hardcore even for the enemies. This is where you earn your badge of awesome Dead Space 2 player more or less I believe, although hardcore has its own difficulty added.

I did my own personal “One Gun” run on Zealot and I can confirm that you can beat this game with nothing but the Plasma Cutter. Unfortunately there is no Trophy/Achievement for “One Gun” this time around, but I felt the need to play it this way the first time because that was how I played DS1 the first time. Of course I started on Normal for DS1 so this was a significant upgrade in challenge. Zealot is a legit challenge in my opinion, and I would suggest you play this difficulty the first time with the Plasma Cutter to get the full impact out of the game. You just can’t get this challenge fully if you start on an easier level and then play Zealot. You know where everything is. It also really helps you get proficient using Kinesis A LOT and it saves you a ton of Nodes for upgrading.

Now onto Hardcore. The difficulty that is a shout out to old school survival horror players. You see Hardcore uses the settings for enemies from the Surivor difficulty, and it combines the Zealot level ammo drop rates. Enemies are certainly easier to defeat if you played Zealot already. It feels quite a bit easier for you. So what’s the catch? Oh ho! YOU CAN ONLY SAVE 3 TIMES THROUGH THE ENTIRE GAME! That’s right. Not a typo. You can make 3 saves for the entire 15 chapters of Dead Space 2. There are NO CHECKPOINTS IF YOU DIE. You go back to your last save. So if you try not to save until Chapter 6 and die. Guess what? New Game. This is not for the faint of heart, but dammit friends they gave us a real challenge this time and I applaud them heartily for it.

Quick bit about the story since I guess I skipped over it all. Isaac wakes up 3 years after the last game in a straight jacket. He and anyone that has been exposed to the Marker are being experimented on and questioned. Trying to find out secrets. Of course all hell breaks loose and off we go to find the way out. Your enemies here are Unitoligists, EarthGOV, and the Necros. There is a great bit of info on Unitology in this game and you actually visit a recruiting center and church in the game. Story I would say is good, but DS1 was better. Not disappointing, but just not as new.

Couple other tidbits about the game that are more convenience things than anything else. On the main single player menu there is a nice video called “Previously on Dead Space” that is a good watch before you start the game. Also, on the main menu is a “New Game+” listing that unlocks after beating the game once. Makes sure to move your right stick around on the menus to see some hidden messages. Another convenience is that you have an in game trophy list on the start menu while you play. It keeps track of even the ones that require several instances for a very easy way to track your trophies (ie. 0/2500 limbs dismembered).

Of course I must mention briefly that the Playstation 3 Limited Edition contains the free game, Dead Space: Extraction originally made for the Nintendo Wii. This is only available for a limited time as it is in the first shipment although it can be purchased in the PS Store I believe. It is compatible with Move and the Dual Shock 3 controllers. It also has its own set of trophies available separate from the main game. A good bonus.

Before my conclusion something very important must be addressed for people thinking of waiting to buy a used version, or renting the game. Dead Space 2 comes with a card that has an online access code in the box. This code is only good for one username (others on your console can use it). When you first go online the game asks for this code, and it is required for you to play the online multiplayer. Yup…you buy this used and you are screwed. You ahve to BUY an online access code from EA for $10! They do offer a 2 day free-trial for you if you rent, but still it pretty much forces a purchase if you want to play online a lot. So…keep this in mind when going out and buying this game. Good news is that there are NO ONLINE TROPHIES for this game so you can get the Platinum simply through the single player game.

Bottom Line: I think Dead Space 2 is a better game than Dead Space 1. It is more immersive. More intense. It is more diverse. While I think the story of DS1 is likely better, and the original DS experience certainly can never be the same, they did an amazing job at making this a unique experience. The addition of harder enemies, new weapons, use of the module skills in gameplay, and the insane Hardcore difficulty requirements makes it better for me. This is one hell of a game.

FINAL SCORE for single player game ONLY: 9/10 MUST BUY

For anyone interested, Dead Space: Aftermath is available on Youtube in full right now so get it while it is still up. Watch it over there in HD. This is a prequel to Dead Space 2 and adds a bit to the story. Fair warning that it is pretty cheesy, and not the best movie ever, but worth a watch for fans.

DEAD SPACE 2 TRAILER: