Review by: Jason McMaster

In the game of golf, for those who don’t play, is a game in which you play against the course. There are other people playing on the course and, sometimes, they factor in to your game, but they aren’t playing with you. Each swing counts towards your round and doesn’t affect anyone else. If you play poorly, you can only blame yourself. Golf can be a very lonely and frustrating game. There’s another side, though. Some of your shots will be excellent, and the feeling of elation that accompanies those moments is intoxicating. You can struggle all day long but it’s that one great shot that sticks with you and brings you back. In this way, Dark Souls is like a round of golf.

Dark Souls, much like its predecessor Demon’s Souls, is a punishing game. There is no hand-holding involved at any point unless you count basic text introduction to the controls. On the other hand, it can be rewarding. Current games are very eager to usher you in to the next big part of the story, blowing up tons of set pieces and damaging your hearing in the process. Not Dark Souls. It doesn’t do bombast.

Repetition and timing are rewarded greatly as is memorization and the ability to adapt. You don’t rush through Dark Souls. You crawl through, sweating and paranoid, trying to make it to a bonfire before your inevitable next death. It’s a game of inches – of seconds and timing – that greatly rewards your successes but severely punishes your failures. There’s no wiggle room in the world of the undead. Thankfully, just like Demon's Souls, other players can leave tips for you to discover or general messages of foreboding doom around a corner. Much of the old game's brilliant multiplayer has remained in place.

You start off in an undead prison with a broken weapon. That’s it. You don’t have any idea what’s going on or where to go. Much like the profound sense of loss you face during the game, you get used to this feeling and become well acquainted with it during your Dark Soul career. Eventually, you make it out of the prison and into the game proper. Think of the first level as the newbie area - the angriest newbie area in all of gaming. After leaving the asylum and heading up to a peak, a giant bird picks you up and drops you at a circular clearing with a bonfire and a NPC. This is where your true adventure begins.

You find out from the exceptionally glib NPC (Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls are both full of these) that there’s a legend about an undead. You also find out that there are two bells, one up and one down from where you are currently, and that if you ring them, something special happens. You don’t know what happens or where these bells are, mind you, but it’s special. Hey, welcome to Dark Souls.

The atmosphere is in part what made Demon’s Souls such a brilliant game and the same feeling is at work here. Large draw distances coupled with breathtaking vistas help comprise the feeling of all-out loneliness. The design and feel of the areas are haunting – always leaving you wondering what’s through that next door. Though there are NPCs, they mostly want nothing to do with you and they’ll rarely help, reinforcing the feeling of helplessness that has been finely crafted by the From Software team. The game is wide open and there are no safe zones.