Reyturner

Literally nothing. Stop implying that something might say "Dark Souls" more than Jethro Tull.

You have to infer a lot in Dark Souls.

:tup:

I'm a big Shadowrun dork from the 90s. Returns gets the flavor of SR pretty well but it lacks the Ocean's Eleven style heist planning and legwork and teambuilding that was such a big part of the experience for me (granted, mileage variance is normal when talking about pen and paper games). Does the DLC have any of that?

Podcasts and Quick Looks have pretty much replaced written reviews for me as consumer advice (other than Tom Chick, but only because I'm tired of getting ear cancer from Three Moves Ahead). Video Games Hot Dog, Giant Bombcast and Idle Thumbs rarely steer me wrong. The Spoony Experiment has been giving the Ultima series and Richard Garriot the Red Letter Media treatment (with an unfortunate dash of nerd rage filler but its basically fine) for about 5 years now.

I'm impressed that you got through the DLC area so quickly. That place was a brick wall for me for weeks.

The female undead merchant in the aquaduct between Firelink and the Depths has them as well (I don't think she used too though).

Mechanically, I think it makes it a pain to get to the giant blacksmith.

There's the other three Lord Souls to get and the optional but excellent DLC (which wasn't DLC on PC but is the best content in the game after S&O). You could theoretically finish it in 45 minutes. It'll probably take you 12 hours.

I think I'm just going to "do it wrong" and experiment and generalize on my first run. I expect I'm going to be playing a lot of DkS2...

Baldur Side Sword. Put on the gold serpent ring and get one from the knights. Actually, if you can swing it, Sun Bro-ing in a full Baldur set would be cool there (merchant at the top of Sen's has the armor but the sword and shield are only drops).

"Don't" shoot her with an arrow.

This is the part I'm most looking forward too. I feel like I know how to think about 'Souls. Time to find out if it's true

Hoplite on Android. It suffers from the common puzzle game issue of taking too long to get difficult once your competent. 80% of your sessions are spent on the trivial stages. Difficulty settings would go a long way to keeping it fresh.

Also recently finished episode 1. I can see why people rave about this game. Occasionally the designers dip their quills a little too deeply in whacky well but that's a minor nit to pick.

Ray "The Singularity" Kurzweil now works at Google.

That's what annualized franchises are.Edit: added quote for clarity. Hadn't F5'd in a while.

I know That's my point. Because of the nature of the studio system, guys who started out making games with a team of 20 on the 90s have found themselves responsible for managing hundreds of people now. It isn't surprising that so many old school devs have gone back to running smaller teams or that Levine would want to.

Well, my point is that if a big name director wants too, he can make a little art house movie and not get flack for all the jobs his selfishness has cost. Projects, even big projects, have a waxing and waning need for staff and half the reason games never seem to be finished is a desire to justify not letting people go. Now, I'm not saying the games industry SHOULD be like movies, just that someone who is a creative first can end up trapped by their own success and unable to do what they want to do without throwing the lives of hundreds into disarray. A lot of other big names have been "lucky" enough not to be put in this situation (usually, their studios get bought and ruined by someone else, they don't need to do it themselves). Giving up on what you want to be doing for the sake of others isn't fun. All I'm saying is that I empathize with Ken Levine, even if I wouldn't have made the same choice he did.

Bioshock et al. Gameplay is only ok, and I've never been one to push through boring games for the sake of stories or world building* *MGS (which I can't justify, I've just given up trying) and Planescape Torment notwithstanding.

Mother. Fucking. Dark Souls *. *No I didn't beat Manus or Kalameet but I saw credits roll so it counts

Games is a weird industry. While comparing movies to games as a medium is controversial, comparing the process of bringing either to completion is apt. The difference is that Spielberg isn't expected to roll the entire cast and crew onto the next thing immediately, or have multiple films going simultaneously to avoid having to let people go. I honestly don't blame Levine for looking back at his time making previous gen games and looking out at what making next gen games will require and saying "no thanks". Most of his contemporaries are either out or working on passion projects. Who can blame him for wanting something for himself. If Levine is starting a new thing in 2K with 15 people from IG, they are probably the central nervous system of the studio anyways. I'm guessing his choice of team was part of how 2K convinced him to stay, and he probably knew what that would mean. But those people can probably be ranked in the top 1% of the industry (and no, not THAT 1%). Can you imagine passing that up because of how it would look on Kotaku for a week? I'll bet it probably twisted him up, you can read his anxious guilt in his send off, and his awkward Twitter boosting is probably part of that guilt. He's a creative in the autumn of his career who doesn't want to spend the rest of it as a suit. His decision impacts a lot of people, but a big part of the reason it does is the nature of the industry itself. You can angry at his choice to not crucify himself upon spreadsheets and meetings and marketing demographics for the sake of his staff, but I don't think you can be shocked by it.