eot

Yeah, I've never thought procedual generation to be a good solution to the content generation problem. It's good for adding unpredictability to systems driven games or just replayable games in general. It works in those kinds of games because the randomness adds a twist to already interesting mechanics, it's there to support the game, not to be the game. Random content in itself is rarely interesting though, I don't want to look at random planets/animals/whatever and I don't really want to explore them either.

You don't have to fight either of those two right away. You definitely can but it's meant to be a real challenge. The guy in the bottom of the tower is only accessible to you because you have the master key, so most players would fight him later. If you think you can take him though then definitely do it! Firebombs not at all cheesy compared to some of the other ways to beat him, which I won't go into. Another thing you could try though is backstabbing. Make sure you're below 25% equip load so you dodge fast (as he'll 1-shot you anyway), dodge right when he swings and get behind him while he recovers, you need to have your shield down to backstab. It's actually the best way to beat the Black Knight too, if you lure him to a more open area you can just keep circle strafing to the right of him and when he attacks you can get behind him (block the attack!). Don't spend too much time trying this, but the guy in the tower is also fairly easy to parry compared to a lot of enemies, but if you miss you're dead. Buy the Buckler from the merchant in the Burg, run down to the guy and get right up in his face. When he swings and his club has come over his shoulder and is pointing slightly forward is about when you want to parry. Backstabs are a better idea practice them on regular hollows

Haha, no sorry, I didn't mean it literally. That was a dumb sentence

Glad to see another convert Item progression in Dark Souls is a bit strange. You won't find better weapons as you go, you'll just find different ones. Any starting weapon is good enough to beat the game with as long as you upgrade it. The main reason to use one weapon over another is because of the moveset, how fast it swings, what the range is and what the animations are. For example, long weapons without thrusting attacks can be tricky to use in tight corridors because they keep hitting the walls. Experiment with different weapons and see what you like, a lot of them feel very differently from one another. Shields though, you will find better ones. Generally you want one with 100% physical damage reduction yes, but there are a few notable ones with less that are still worth using. If it's 95% it doesn't make a huge difference to be honest. There are a few shields that have extra long parry windows, some that reduce status effect buildup when blocking etc. The most important stat for shields though is stability, it's governs how much stamina it takes to block. Armor doesn't matter quite as much. The damage reduction you get from the defence stats help, but unless you're going back to old areas where enemies to puny damage it's only going to negate a fraction of the incoming damage. Bleed / poison / toxic / curse resist matters more in practice but it's more situational. The most important stat is poise, which determines how easily you're staggered. It's like a hidden stamina bar that regenerates very quickly, so consecutive hits build up. Light armor never has any poise, but it weighs less so you can roll faster. Equip burden isn't affected by what's in your inventory, it's only what you have equiped. The breakpoints are 25%, 50% and 100% (can't roll). You get movement and stamina regeneration penalties the heavier you are (weapon weight matters too, even in secondary slots!). Finally, upgrading equipment is more important than leveling up. Or I should say, upgrading weapon > upgrading shield > leveling up > upgrading armor. You won't have access to a blacksmith right away though, so just level initially. Weapon damage scales with your stats, it's the letter grades you see under "ParamBonus". S>A>B etc. Elemental upgrade paths remove stat scaling, which is good if you don't want to put points into strength/dex, but it's less potential max damage. The first damage column btw is raw weapon damage and the second column the damage bonus from stats. So if you're putting points into strength, get some nice weapons that scale with it there are a ton of cool strength based weapons in the game. Though I would say, focus on endurance > vit > strength/dex. Endurance is life and stamina regenerates faster if you lower your shield.

Dark Souls is weird that way. I was stuck on the Gargoyles for hours but beat Capra and Quelaag on my first try, whereas for some people it's the complete opposite.

He's pretty tough, but for me Manus was way harder SL1. So many attacks with similar tells. Anyway, that's damn well done badhat. If you want a tip for the next two fights:

Nito was pretty hard for me as SL1. The giant skeletons are in the back part of the cavern, if you don't go over there they won't aggro. If you have an active light source (like the sunlight maggot) he will tend to spam his annoying underground sword attack (you can dodge it via the scream though). He doesn't like light. I think the way I beat him was to put on full havel's and just use pyromancy, his AoE attack will kill the small skeletons for a while. You just have to survive long enough for him to walk to you (since if you walk to him the big guys show up). I think the AoE is magic damage, so the crest shield probably helps.

The guy's name is actually Jon Snow? I was expecting something else.

There's some AoE stuff, but not the kind you're thinking of. You'll have to go to pyromancies for that (note: pyromancies do not scale with int, you have to upgrade the pyro glove which you can't get yet). However, even as a spellcaster it'd serve you well to have a backup weapon. There are some weapons / upgrade paths that scale with the intelligence stat and there are also some quite powerful weapon buff spells you can apply. There are also enemies with high magic resist, so having a weapon for those is a good.

Oh definitely, the world design is truly remarkable. Even very late in the game I had some "oh shit!" moments when I realized where some places were in relation to eachother. For me it's kind of the ultimate 3D Super Metroid even though it's different in many ways. I actually think it's as good for its time as SM was, but maybe I'm crazy. Also, it's on sale for $6 on Steam!

I'll give you a hint:

Those were not their words, I think they had some reservations about early access in general. I won't try to sum up their discussion but they bring up a lot of point both for and against.

I beat The Swapper which was amazing in almost every way. It looks gorgeous, the progression feels just right (the amount of stuff you have unlocked at any time), it's got a great mood, the story is kind of intriguing (not quite up to the rest of the game but better than I expected) and most of the puzzles are great. There's actually only one puzzle I didn't like, but I could've done with a few more head scratchers. It's somewhere between the triviality of Portal 2's puzzles and Braid's challenging ones which is a good balance, it's just that sometimes it feels like you can just burn through puzzle rooms. Still one of the best games I've played this year, certainly the best one I've played that released this year.

Zack sounds a lot like JP, it's a almost eerie. Also, a permadeath stealth game, that's what DayZ was a lot of the time. I think the reason it doesn't completely suck there is because it's PvP, what happens after you get detected is more interesting than in most stealth games and it's not just a binary state change. If someone spots you they might not be hostile, they might stalk you for an hour to find your camp, they could spot you at 5m or at 500m, it's easy to lose track of someone, other than at close range it's hard to actually hit someone. The game leaves so much room for a situation to unfold. I haven't seen anything like that in a singleplayer stealth game.

Indeed. Since Skyrim was mentioned, that is one of the biggest problems I had with that game. It felt like the trueman show, everything you see is just a show put on to make you think there's an actual world around you. What I wanted out of that game was more simulation, systems that exist for their own sake. This a bit off topic, but another problem I have with Skyrim (and Bethesda games) is that their worlds aren't very thought through, they don't have any internal consistency and don't stand up to scrutiny. This is a land of winter, why isn't that reflected in the culture? I see people running around in t-shirts in a blizzard. There's a really great guy on youtube who talked about this and compared Fallout 3 and Fallout NV just by asking the question "what do they eat?", I thought it was quite brilliant: Anyway, Dark Souls. I think the vagueness of the storytelling is appropriate. It's true that it's not something you enjoy in the moment, but that just means it's different. For me it still adds value on repeat playthroughs, so it's not something that just exists outside the game. And honestly, the lore probably wouldn't be that interesting if it were explicit. The only piece of omniscent narration in the game is the opening cutscene and I rolled my eyes at that. It's poorly delivered and storytelling is as much about the delivery as the actual story. Piecing together the story myself through tiny clues is a form of delivery that does work though. I like that I can have my own interpretation of the story. I think what makes it work is how committed to it they are. There aren't any audio diaries or written notes, all the text and dialogue (even the item descriptions) is written from the perspective of a person who probably has an agenda. They show so much restraint in what they're willing to not tell you.

I like Jake's completely casual reference to Dark Castle like more than five people know what that game is

There's a lot of stuff on youtube if you want to understand the story/lore better, like plot summary. Be sure to watch this as well

It's pretty cryptic but you can make more sense of it later. Frampt asks you to

Archers?

I started one that I've not finished. I've done all the regular bosses aside from the DLC which I'm partway through and I just haven't had time to play. Seath in particular I don't remember being that hard, if you managed to get past O&S then the worst is already over. For bosses I tend to use the Grass Crest Shield on my back for more stamina and just 2-hand my weapon, it's not like blocking does you any good. You can buy lots of Green Blossoms too, or put on the Cloranthy Ring. Personally I don't think it's worth it. What I prefer to do is wear Crown of Dusk, as well as the Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring for more spell damage. For a lot of bosses I also use Power Within. If you've got the Sanctus shield from killing Leeroy you can do a trick where you get yourself cursed, put on the Lingering Dragoncrest Ring, Red Tearstone Ring, get yourself to below 20% Health and cast Power Within. The healing + regeneration will almost cancel out so you can survive with all those buffs for as long as it takes to kill most bosses, provided you don't get hit. Your damage output will be insane, so you don't have to get very many hits in. Also, if you've never done the DLC before I don't recommend doing it for the first time on an SL1 character. It's the hardest bosses in the game and I imagine learning their patters will be extremely frustrating when you die almost right away.

When I've seen people who don't play games play Portal they've been so overwhelmed by and focused on the mechanics and puzzles that they couldn't pay any attention to what Glados was saying, so that whole aspect on the game was lost on them. I've seen the same thing happen to people who are slightly more familiar with games too, if they're in a firefight in Mass Effect or something they won't notice any dialogue / instructions because they're so focused on the fight. Personally I think I'd recommend World of Goo to someone unfamiliar with games, but maybe that one's also too hard.

Please, please, please don't have a given voice in only one year. Maybe I'm just weird but it's like torture to me, will have to listen to this on speakers.

This might not be for everyone But this one is