"I had a dream of my wife. She was dead. But it was all right."

Those words have haunted me over the years. The final bittersweet farewell by Max Payne at the end of his long journey into the night, and my personal favourite ending of all time.

It was the pitch perfect conclusion to Max's deeply troubled story. Potent. Not a happy ending, but not quite sad either. Real is the word I'd use. For all the bullets, bodies, and betrayals, Max's final reward isn't getting the girl, or the thrill of revenge, but what he needs the most – closure.

He gets to move on with his life and come to grips as best as he can with his past.

Even when the credits rolled and Remedy promised further adventures for Max, I was ok with just letting the series rest. Make no mistake, I'm a huge fan of Max Payne. I love the gameplay, the characters, and the noir inspired atmosphere - but I thought the end of Max Payne 2 was the perfect place to leave it. Anything else would just be gilding the lily.



So it's with some degree of nervousness that I await the release of Max Payne 3 next week.

The game looks great. Any doubts I had before that Rockstar would dilute the "death-ballet" style of gunplay that made the games so unique have long been dispelled by the series of slick gameplay demos and trailers Rockstar is so good at making. From everything I've heard, Max has never been in finer form when it comes to killing scores of thugs and gangsters.

But it isn't the gameplay that has me worried, it's the story.

One of the things I always enjoyed about the Max Payne series is that they never pull any punches. Every time you think Max's life can't get any worse, he finds a new and exciting rock-bottom to hit.

Whether he's spiked with drugs and forced to play out a twisted re-imagining of his families murder, or the one person who can prove his innocence turns out to have been working against him all along, or his new girlfriend is shot in the head – things just go sour for Max.

If Max Payne wasn't such a irresistibly clever moniker to name the series after, it could have just as easily been called "It Got Worse: The Game"



It's an age-old writing technique, and one that is absolutely appropriate for a series that cleaves to a noir aesthetic. As hard as they may be to read or watch, I never can resist a good dour story that delights in dashing the hopes of characters I like and desperately want to succeed. I might cringe with each new devastation or bad decision, but I can't stop myself from wanting to see how it all ends.

From everything we've seen, MP3 looks to continue the trend. This certainly won't be a feel-good-sunshine story. Max's life has descended into rampant alcoholism, a morally ambiguous employment situation, and eventually falls straight into a pit of head-shaving self-loathing for all his many failures and flaws.



But even I wonder if we need to see Max suffer more. As much as I enjoyed the often heartbreaking ride through MP1&2, I was satisfied with where it ended. Max has been through so much, his lessons so thoroughly learned that it almost seems cruel to put him through more.

I think one of the things that will either make or break this game for me is how they bridge the gap between these titles. How do we get from the resigned, melancholy-but-healing Max of the end MP2, to the drunken self-hating wreck we see in MP3?



This is also the first entry to lack Sam Lake's writing talents, being replaced with long time Rockstar pen-monkey Dan Houser. While Houser is a great storyteller in his own right with heavy hitters like GTA4 and Red Dead Redemption under his belt, I'm worried that that MP3 is going to miss that Sam Lake magic.

Sam Lake has this way with meta-fiction that gives his work a unique tone. From the show-within-a-show fun of the Twin Peaks clone Address Unknown in the first MP game to the total protagonist/author/audience melt-down of Alan Wake, he's always known how nod at the camera and play with genre-tropes in a way that gives the story more depth.

Rockstar loves to play with shows-within-a-show too, but for them it's usually in the vein of scathing satire. You could sit on Niko Belic's sofa and watch hours of fictional entertainment in GTA4 squarely aimed at mocking the vapidness of mainstream pop culture. Not to mention the hundreds of not thousands of radio ads, billboards, and random street dialogue clips all designed to take the piss out of modern culture.



While I love that social commentary edge in the GTA series, I'm worried that flavour is going to creep into MP3 and smother one of the most unique aspects of the series.

The clips of TV shows and scraps of comics you found in the MP games could be funny. It was hard not to laugh at the outrageousness of Address Unknown or the overly hard-boiled action of Dick Justice. But as fun as they were, they were meant to provide insight into Max's situation – not just provide comic relief.

My fears may be unfounded, but I'd hate to see MP3 stuffed with GTA4-style satire and bereft of the meta-fictional play Sam Lake lent to the originals. To me that self-awareness is one of the staples of the series and it would be a shame to watch Rockstar mess it up.

I don't know if Rockstar can top what Remedy did in the final moments of MP2. I'm sure the gameplay will be great, the graphics spectacular, and heck, even the multiplayer looks interesting. But when it comes to an emotional pay-off, it will be a tall order to even compare with that legendary ending.

I hope Houser and Rockstar pull it off. It would be nice to have a new perfectly crafted line to haunt me into the next decade.

Capcom is the best at making fighting games. Sure, there is a hatedom out there that likes to take the piss out of everything they do, but c'mon. Street Fighter is sill the gold standard of the genre for a reason. This generation we've been graced with the sublime thinking man's Super Street Fighter IV, the manic fantasy dream of Marvel vs Capcom 3, and even the quirky but endearing Street Fighter X Tekken. All of them great games, and worthy of the legacy of their fore-bearers.

Too bad the online experience sucks.

Capcom may be the best at making a fighter, but when it comes to making an enjoyable online experience, they don't have a clue. It's just something the company consistently stumbles with in all their latest fighters. Maybe it is an archaic perception of who is actually playing their games. Stubbornly hewing to an arcade aesthetic that doesn't exist in the West anymore and a tournament scene that leaves out 90% of the people that buy their games. Maybe it's just that Western developers have become so good at making rich online experiences that Capcom seem outmoded in comparison.

Western developers like Bungie, for example. They know how to make a great online game.

Imagine a perfect world. A world where Capcom was big enough to swallow their pride and shop out the multiplayer portion of their game to a developer with industry-leading online chops. Imagine if Capcom and Bungie collaborated together to make a game baby. That's a world I want to live in.

Across all of this generations titles, lag has been a enduring thorn in the fighting game players side. In a genre of split-second reactions, one-frame link combos, and delicate positioning, lag has been screwing players over from day one. Latency is a reality, and it is foolish to think that Capcom could somehow banish it to the nether realm, but when you compare how the most recent fighters have managed lag to the most recent FPS games, you have to wonder if they are really doing their best with it. While FPS games have been delivering smoother and smoother experiences due to clever net code and subtle tricks to ensure an even and perceptually accurate game, fighting games seem to be taking a downward turn. I've always found SSFIV to be an occasionally slow, but by-and-large entirely playable game online, but UMvC3 was often like fighting underwater, and SFxT was a slide-show pestered with roll-backs and glitching sound effects. Why are Capcom games getting worse while all the other companies are getting better at hiding latency?


-You sure were Ryu, you sure were.

It is frustrating how long it takes to get into a match in Capcom's latest games. Whether you are shuffling through multiple redundant menus, waiting for the game to check for DLC, or just stuck in the purgatory of a matchmaking system that goes nowhere, it takes a shocking amount of time to get your fight on.

Halo: Reach on the other hand is wonderfully efficient at getting players in a game. The menus are super clean and let you access all your stats, preferences, and see which of friends are playing all at a glance. Matchmaking is quick and takes mere seconds to put you in a game.

One of the great things about fighting games is that they are discrete piecemeal experiences easy to get into and out of. You aren't wrapped up in a story, or haggling over costs at the item shop; you are there to fight. Slowing down the process of getting into the game and into a fight WASTES that potential. Why is it faster to link up with 7 other players for a round of Slayer in Reach than it is to find ONE guy to fight with in SSFIV? Ridiculous.

Matchmaking has been a ongoing problem in Capcom's fighters. Whether it's pairing you up by your accumulated Player Points in SSFIV, you're win/loss in Marvel, or the complete randomness of SFxT, finding an opponent of similar skill level is a crapshoot. Capcom would do well to take a page from Bungie's book.

The matchmaking in Reach is second to none. I'm not a fantastic Halo player – it's not my game and I don't have any real interest in getting better. Still I played tons of great matches in Reach, and that's thanks to the matchmaking system. Blow-outs were fairly rare. The only times I ever felt significantly outclassed or on a ROFLstomp was when I was linked up with a larger party of friends. Either one of my buddies of a higher skill level was dragging me into a shark tank I couldn't swim with, or the combined might of our awesomeness was flattening the opposition. This is a reasonable limitation, and the fact that it happened so rarely is a testament to Bungie's online prowess.

Playing with friends is one of the best parts of Reach. I bought Reach because I had a few extra dollars in my pocket and the sheer hype for the game was hard to resist. But even under the tidal wave of peer pressure, I was sure I would just play through the campaign and maybe check out a few matches online. But I ended up playing WAY more than I thought I would because of my friends.

Imagine if it was as easy to link up with friends, not to mention friends of friends, in a Street Fighter lobby. I would play a lot more if those games were as conducive to a party atmosphere and group experience as Reach is.

Of course it goes without saying that Reach is buttery smooth to play. Bungie does a great job of tucking latency under the rug. I'm not sure how they do it, but somehow Bungie can get 16 future soldiers chucking grenades, belting off space machine guns, and diving in and out of Banshees and Warthogs all at the same time without dropping the ball. Capcom seems to have trouble telling if one dude actually punched the other dude or if they should roll-back the action. Not impressive.


-Buttery smooth. Like a plasma sword cutting through warm meat flesh.

Then you have the options and preferences. I LOVE that you can set that kind of thing in Reach. Want to play with chatty players in the good-time zone? Go for it, Bungie will seek out similar dudes and match you all up. "Shut-up it's time to headshot" pro? Right this way. You can filter for maps, game-types, all sorts of stuff – it's beautiful.

I would love to see that kind of deep selection process in a fighter. Imagine a system that gave you a better chance to get paired up with like-minded players. Set yourself as a casual enthusiast or a no-fun-allowed tournament player and be matched with your kind. Want to practice against Sagat? Tell the filter, have the matchmaker try to steer you towards a skill equivalent player that frequently chooses Sagat. Want to avoid a certain character because he's giving you fits? Tell the matchmaker to avoid players that frequently choose him (although I might have a built in timer that makes that request expire eventually, just so players don't get too complacent.)

I bet a lot of hardcore fighters might deride that kind of matchmaking, but who cares? I know too many people that love the idea of fighting games but hate to play them online because they either get schooled hard, find themselves facing the same characters over and over again, or just have a personality clash with the community. If there were more robust internal filtering and matchmaking options I guarantee you would see more enthusiast interest in fighters.

Bungie does some neat behind the scenes things to encourage a fun online experience in there games that could really help Capcom's fighters. For example, if a player is frequently muted by others in Reach, that player will be flagged as disruptive and automatically muted for others. UMvC3 did something similar, pairing players that frequently disconnect mid-match with each other in a sort of “quitters-hell” and it's a great start, but why not go further? There are all kinds of annoying troll activities that plague fighting games - stalling at character selection, lag switches, disconnects, ect. With Bungie's expertise they could ID players that like to troll and separate them from the population of upstanding players.

But this collaborative dream team isn't just about what Bungie can fix in Capcom's online game, it's about what they can add

Imagine the deep stat tracking Bungie had for Reach with Bungie.net applied to a fighting game. Doesn't that just give you a tingle?

SSFIV has a serviceable stat screen. It tells you your win/loss ratio overall and against specific match-ups. It includes some of the interesting tidbits that get my geek dander up, like times you've dizzied an opponent or perfected a round (few in my case). SFxT recently added a replay analyzer that has some neat ideas, but I want MORE.


-Hummm stats.

I want the calibre of experience delivered by Bungie.net and Battlefield 3's Battlelog. I want DEEP stat tracking on all my games. What characters I pick, match-up results, what moves I used the most, which hit, which lead into combos, what did I get hit by the most, and on and on. I'm sure this kind of info would be great for a serious pro looking to dissect his game, but I just want it because I'm a geek. I get a giddy thrill from looking at my Battlelog results and seeing how my accuracy is with the FAMAS is or how many times I've been killed, and I would love the chance to nerd out over my fighting game results in the same way.

In fact, the only thing better than drooling over your own stats, is creeping on your friends. I've wasted a good chunk of my life checking out my friends BF3 stats. The combined factors of morbid curiosity and a competitive streak creates a NEED for me to know how I stack up against my buddies directly and check out the different ways we play the game. The ability to share this kind of info with friends in a fighting game would be a boon. Options for things like uploading replays to your profile to share with friends who could watch them in game, or showing off your various achievements and accomplishments would go a long way in building a better more cohesive multiplayer experience.


-The shotgun kill count of the beast. See, if I wasn't stalking my friends, I wouldn't have shots like this.

I want to see a fighting game backed by Bungie.net style stat tracking keeping huge swaths of info on the entire community. Which characters are picked the most, match-up records, graphs of peak player activity, all the statistical gooey goodness you can think of. That kind of tracking isn't just for the curious, it could be used to make something like an official tier-list or at least help identify systemic imbalances or problems in the game. Now that I put it like that, I'm astounded that Capcom doesn't do something similar already.

Bungie style official forums would be a welcome addition. Right now you have an official forum in Capcom Unity, which is this mess of a site that's hard to navigate and filled with junk, and the next-best-thing with SRK. SRK is the place to go for deep fighting game knowledge and is much more accessible than Unity. Problem is, SRK is filled with abrasive jerks, shit-talkers, punitive mods, and all sorts of other unpleasantness. It is THE fighting game forum, but it is a tough place for a neophyte or casual player. Of course there are a dump truck load of other big name FGC sites, but they all lack that clean professional design of an official site. I really believe fighting games would benefit from a less fragmented and more inclusive platform to introduce new players to the community. An official forum that you could link right to your fighter profile would be a welcome addition.

One of the biggest problems with SRK and its sister sites is that THE PLAYER has to search them out. There is nothing in SSFIV or UMvC3 that directs the player there, it's up to the individual to decide to either get more involved with the community or improve their game and seek these sites out. Bungie would never stand for that. They don't hope that Halo players form a community and interact with each other and build loyalty to the game, they GO TO THEM. Things like Bungie.net, community challenges, blog updates, ect, they are designed to actively build the community. Capcom is blessed to have such a loyal fanbase, and they have made some effort to reach out to them with a more active tournament presence and community front-man Seth Killian, but mostly they seem content to let the community handle and grow itself. That's no way to do it in this day and age.

While Bungie is doing all this wonderful stuff for Capcom, why not go the extra mile and throw in all the bells and whistles? Progressive unlocks and customization are an important component of any good multiplayer game these days. SFIV started on the right track with the customizable name tags and icons (some available to everyone, many locked behind certain conditions and challenges) you could select to represent yourself online with. Bungie could run with that. Include more personal customization and unlocks. I know it's too much to ask for unlockable costumes and colours (Capcom's entire dreadful DLC strategy seems to be based on charging as much as possible for that shit) but even just having more customization options available to your nameplate would be a treat.


- Let the player make their own tag. Choose the text, background, image, ect. I'd dig it.

Combine that with some of that good external scripting you see with Xbox live gamertags and games like BF3 and CoD that would let you share that customized plate and some relevant stats about your play as a message board signature and you have yourself a winner.

Capcom makes fantastic fighting games. There is no reason for such great games to have multiplayer that languishes so far behind the times. I know this is just my pie-in-the-sky dream idea for a silly wish-list blog, but the more I think about it the more I want to see it actually happen. The folks at Capcom are professionals when it comes to putting together a top-notch fighting game. Bungie knows exactly what it takes to make a premium online experience. If you put them together you'd have an unbeatable tag-team.

A bandwagon you say? Well I sure would like to hop on it sir, that I would.

Here are ten things you don't know about me. See if you can stitch together the tattered tapestry of my life with them.


1. I have a dog.



That I dote upon excessively. Her name is Freyja. She's an mini American Eskimo, and the cutest thing in the entire world.

She isn't a smart dog, but I suppose that's my fault. She barely knows any tricks, won't come when I call, and thanks to the unfortunate timing of having the roof re-done while she was in "fear imprinting puppy mode" she still freaks out when she hears any hammering or knocking.

Don't care. Best dog ever. If I ever get a tattoo, its going to be a bigass mural of Freyja jumping away from a explosion on my back. Let everyone know exactly where my mind is at.


2. I used to be super fat.

I used to weight an embarrassing amount. Eventually I got to a disgusted self-loathing point where I basically had to lose some weight or go full on morlock style and never leave the basement. Erring on the side that there might be something out in the big wide world that I would like to see or do one day, I opted to lose some goddamn weight. I dropped close to 90 pounds in a year and it really improved my life. It's sad to say, but people really do treat you differently based on how you look.

Sometimes I regret all the time I spent as a big guy, but at the end of the day I'm kinda grateful for it. I wouldn't be who I am without those sometimes painful formative experiences and I think I'm a richer, more rounded person for it.

Get it, rounded, like fat? Doh ho ho, I mock myself.

3. I love Batman.



Physically.

In some ways, I've never matured at all. I was 6 or 7 when Tim Burton's Batman came out. My mom took me to see it at the theatre on the agreement that I would cover my eyes when she told me to (I DIDN'T!), and I've loved the Dark Knight ever since. A man dressed as a Bat and a pasty guy in a hand-me-down Prince suit are are still my favourite hero and villain pair to this day.

I don't read the comics obsessively, back when I was a kid it was too expensive and my access to comics too limited to read month-to-month. Now as an adult, I find monthly issues tend to drag on and on with no payoff. I can't keep up with all the cross-overs and I hate half the artists that work on them. But one-shots and TPBs? Oh my goodness. I have a good and proper nerd hoard I sporadically add to in my personal Batcave.

4. I used to wear a cool cap like Gobun's.

But I didn't have the swag for it. Probably because mine was lame ass fabric and not glorious leather.

I rocked this kickass old man style cabbie cap around university for a bit. I guess because I'm a hipster or something? I thought it was cool at first but then started having second thoughts. I didn't want to be "the hat guy". Plus it made my hair curl out to the sides and I started looking like Captain Boomerang – and ain't nobody wants to look like Captain Boomerang.

5. A hippie girl in high school called me an "old soul" and I've never quite come to grips with it.



So I knew this girl in high school who was basically a mash-up of every Dharma/Phoebe/granola girl stereotype you see on your average TGIF prime-time line up. She was both sickening and cute at the same time. One day I'm chilling with the usual group in the breezeway where all the cool (or at least desperate for acceptance) kids hung out, and she's going on about people's auras and chakras and such. Alex has a orange aura, Megan might have been a tree frog in a past life, yadda yadda. Then some clown asks "hey, what about Nic?" and in the most dismissive offhanded way she glances over her shoulder in my direction and says "oh Nic? He's an old soul." She shoots me this sort of half-smile and goes back to speculating on other more interesting boys previous incarnations as wolves and eagles and motorcycles.

That's a backhanded compliment to get when your 16 eh? I mean, maybe she meant it to as flattering. "Oh Nic, he's so smart and mature. All that wonderful wisdom and insight" *swoon* That's nice isn't it?

But lets face she meant "Oh Nic? He reminds me of my Grandpa. A big grumpy know-it-all. Also he smells weird. Not like you Alex, you have a 'pick me up at 9:00 in your T-Bird and we'll fuck on the school's roof soul'"

Yeah. Bitter.

It's a complisult that always rang uncomfortably true with me. In some ways I really do feel like a crusty old man. I make the most of it though. Wear my pants too high, tell kids to get off the lawn. It's a life.

6. Music really is my aeroplane.

I've made it clear to my employer that the day they won't allow me to bring my personal stereo and iPod into the back room is the day I quit. I don't think I could get through the average work day without having my tunes as a mental pacifier.

I listen to a wide variety of genres and artists. Sometimes I like to put my iPod on random just to see how jarring it can get. I don't think my coworkers like me much.

7. I'm of half Irish/English decent.

But I only ever mention the Irish part. Why? Because it's funnier.

Irish jokes are hilarious when you can use them as affectionate self deprecation and not casual racism. The Irish people have a very interesting history and a lot of weird/cool figures to point to, lots of literary greats and charismatic criminals. A knowledge of Irish names is a great thing to have when you don't know what to call your newest Elf Paladin or Gnomish archer.

You may think it's poor form to pick and choose one's heritage based on what makes the better party banter, but I've got to live my life with red hair. You can be damned sure I'm going to get something out of it.

8. I bought a really fancy camera but never do much with it.



I've always had an interest in photography. It's the gear. All those lenses, bags, tripods. The finely engineered parts. The oh-so specific dials and buttons crammed all over the surface of a modern DSLR. The stage setting, lights, filters. I just love that kind of thing. So after years of lusting over camera magazines and forums, I finally took the plunge last Christmas and got one a nice entry level DSLR using my tax return. I was so excited when I got it.

But boy are those things complicated.

It turns out I love all that technical wizardry when it's being demonstrated or talked about, not so much when I'm actually expected to do it. For someone who was so into it at a distance, it's shameful how little I've used it. Hopefully by sharing this with some of my Dtoid bros I'll feel the necessary guilt to man up and learn how to work the damn thing.

9. I went through a voodoo phase.

Straight up, there were a few months in there were I though voodoo was the coolest shit in the world. Not in a practising "true believer" way of course, I just loved the ideas.

Grave dirt collected in the dead of night, lucky coins tucked neatly into mojo bags, and this weird blending of Catholic imagery and ancestor worship spiritualism. That stuff is bananas. Interesting in both an intellectually stimulating anthropological way, and as great B-movie pulp material. I am genuinely surprised you don't see more of its imagery or ideas in games (other than Shadow Man for the N64, but that game sucked).

When I saw there was going to be a witch doctor/voodoo-esq character type in Diablo 3 I flipped my shit. Jokes on you Blizzard, I was already going to buy Dialbo 3. You didn't have to go to all the trouble just to make a class for my dollars, suckers.


10. Dtoid is the only online community I've ever really been a part of.

I am a chronic lurker.

I've frequented several forums and communities over the years, but I've always somehow avoided actively participating. Not sure why. I don't like repeating what other people say or the tiny short replies that typify most forums, so maybe that has something to do with it. Mostly though, I'm just not very social. It was very nearly the same for Dtoid. I lurked under a different account here for more than a year posting the occasional comment. Not really sure why I took the leap to actually start participating, but I'm glad I did.

The only other places I've racked up any kind of post count or casual familiarity in where the City of Heroes and TF2 fourms. After 5 years of constant CoH play I managed to rack up maybe 2000 posts – mostly on-topic to defending and blasting and masterminding. I was pretty well known on the Heavy sub-forum for TF2, but eventually got sick of it after hoards of cry babies and the misinformed invaded when a few patches had the audacity to make the Heavy more viable.

I've certainly never stuck with a place for more than a year and written multiple blogs and made actual friends with other members like I have with Dtoid. I don't just say it to flatter the community, Dtoid's C-blogs is home to some of the coolest people and best content on the net.

This place is the tits and posts like these are what makes it great. Thanks for starting the meme-wave Bbain!

There are some tropes and play mechanics in games that are intrinsically "gamey." Collection quests, high score boards, QTE's, and so on. Often this isn't an issue. Nobody begrudges complicated scoring mechanics in a Shoot-Em-Up game, that is what they are all about. Other times they are more problematic...

"Altair, it is of vital importance that you assassinate the corrupt Merchant King who is starving the people of our land. But first collect 8 hidden flags, pick 3 pockets, and beat my best time racing across these roof tops."

WHAT?

Sometimes the narrative of a game and the elements that make it a game clash. Taking you out of the story and destroying all the suspension of disbelief you might have had - possibly even making the gamey elements feel tacked on or shallow.

When a development team spends millions of dollars on top-end CGI cinematics, professional voice actors, painfully detailed photo-real environments, and a carefully constructed 20 hour story, to me it seems a little bit wasteful to shatter that illusion with a gimmicky collection quest.

I find that in many games these days, there is a certain tension between the narrative of the game and the actual elements that the player interacts with. Go too far to try and stay consistent with what is shown in cut scenes and dialogue and you end up with a glorified movie like Heavy Rain. But at the same time it can be jarring when the action of a game doesn't match at all with the setting or atmosphere presented in the narrative.

Enter Batman: Arkham City. This is a game that I thought had an excellent balance between presenting it's story, character, and franchise accurately, while keeping a lot of video game red meat in there. Managing to fold gamey elements into the narrative structure of the game, Arkham City is chock-a-block with really video gamey stuff that never interferes with the illusion of being the Dark Knight.

Combat



Remember the old Batman games? The 16-bit beat-em-ups on the Genesis and SNES where you would run through levels just like Shinobi or Final Fight and pound on random thugs until one of them got lucky and killed the Batman? Yeah they sucked.

Combat has always been a problem in Batman games. In the cannon, Batman is a badass skilled in literally hundreds of martial arts, equipped with a plethora of gadgets, and is known to take on ridiculous numbers of hoods at the same time and come out on top as a matter of course.

Translating that into a video game has some difficulties. Some are aesthetic. How do you make him such a badass without making the game too easy? How do you make it that it's not galling when Batman is beaten? Others are pragmatic. How do you represent and control so many skills and abilities at once?

Arkham City handled it flawlessly by, counter-intuitively, making combat really freaking gamey.

Building on the free-flow combat system introduced in Arkham Asylum, combat in Arkham City is based entirely around fighting large groups of enemies, building up a combo counter, and countering enemy attacks to avoid both damage and combo interruption.

It is extremely gamey. Batman's strikes gets progressively faster and more damaging as the combo-count builds. After a few hits he gets access to powerful take-down moves that will reset (for all purposes) the counter in exchange for instantly taking out a thug or permanently breaking a weapon, or other special move. If you let the count get even higher without using one of those techniques, Bat's will go into a "free-flow state" where he gains ridiculous speed and suped up versions of his gadgets.

This is such amazing system for a Batman game. Off the hop, Batman can't just waltz into a large group of gangsters and beat them half to death without breaking a sweat, you need to start slow – so enemies have a chance to be threatening and you have to pay attention to what you are doing. But once he gets going, he becomes The Goddamn Batman we known and love, snapping arms like toothpicks and tossing out Batarangs like they were rice at a wedding.

There are these lovely spikes and payoffs mid-combat that let the player see something very cool and effective, but resets the combat so you don't just plow right through the entire group. Awesome system.


THAT'S IT! I'm breaking all your toys now. Are you happy with yourselves?

The two different usages of the combo-count serve as a fun risk-to-reward choice, which is always a mechanic I enjoy. Do you build a small combo and take out a troublesome crook? Maybe you just want to get that annoying as hell stun-gun they keep zapping you with out of the fight – removing a dangerous weapon may be more valuable than just taking someone out.

Or do you build that combo till you get to the focus state? Try to ride that powered-up mode as long as possible or toss out a super version of the freeze grenade that will stick everyone to the ground? It keeps the combat a lot more interesting than just swinging away until everyone is unconscious.

Something that annoyed me about the game at first was that Batman can't block. Not traditionally anyway. Rather than having a button you can hold down to defend yourself, Arkham City works on a system of manual counter-attacks.

When you see some criminal scum creep up on Batman with a baseball bat, a quick tap of the counter-button will snatch the slugger out of the air and use it to bean the offending thug. Batman can even counter multiple assailants at once, catching one punk's sloppy kick and swinging him into two other fools. Pretty darn sweet move to bust out in the middle of a pitched fight!

It took me a little while to come around to it, but I think it is a good system. Certainly makes defence more interesting and satisfying than just holding block all-day. But more than that, it also serves to show off more of Batman's prowess.

By using a bunch of small canned counter animations, we get to see Bats do all kinds of cool things (flipping dudes into each other, smacking heads together, grabbing a knife out of someones hand, ect) that would have been difficult to map to specific commands. It gives the player the feeling that they are in control of a martial arts master, when really the controls for Arkham City are fairly simple.

After all that good design stuff, combat in Arkham City just has a very satisfying pace and flow to it once you get it down. It just feels FUN. Maybe this should be expected, Arkham Asylum was originally envisioned as a weird rhythm game with a structure similar to Rock Band after all. But the marriage of very gamey elements with highly stylized and cannon appropriate animations really work to make something that is fun to play and watch.

Enemy Design



Part and parcel of the combat, I think the enemies should be recognized for being very compelling, while still very gamey underneath the surface.

The thugs in Arkham City have to be taken on according to what kind of weapon they have. Different weapon, different tactic. Knife guys have to be dodged several times in a row to stay cut free. You can't attack a guard with a electric baton face-to-face without getting a shock. Guys with riot shields will break your combo (and fist) if you hit them, and so on.

The mechanics are unapologetically gamey in actualization. Essentially layering a puzzle element onto the typical brawling. You can't just mash attack to get past a diverse group of goons - the various weapons force you to approach each encounter with at least a modest amount of thought if you don't want to constantly drop your combo or eat damage.

They might even get cheeky and add a Riddler informant in the midst, a guy you want to leave till last so you can interrogate him, adding another meta-layer to the fight. This can be especially tricky if the snitch happens to be armoured or wielding an annoying weapon – takes a lot of mental juggling to keep track of all the factors in a big fight.


Sadly you can't choke the ever living shit out of every mook and leave them tethered to a gargoyle 30 feet above the ground. Sigh, maybe in the next one...

Despite the gameyness of the system at work, it's presentation is fairly justifiable. It makes a certain kind of sense that Batman can't just haul off and punch metal shields all day or that dudes in padded armour can shrug off normal hits. The predator rooms however are a tad more artificial.

The predator rooms are probably the Arkham's series best use of the Batman vibe. These are rooms where Batman must stealthly take the enemy out one at a time without being seen for some reason – usually because the goons are heavily armed or have hostages that must be saved. Everyone and his brother loves these parts. Stealth sections can sometimes drag in games, but in Arkham they are the highlight. There is nothing more satisfying than sweeping through a room like a shadow and watching the panic spread among the dwindling criminals.

But for all the thrill, the predator rooms in Arkham City get pretty gamey. This may only be more noticeable in NG+ where the enemies are more numerous and equipped with a larger variety of tools, but the gameyness is definitely afoot.

Further into the game and especially in NG+, the enemies will start tossing more and more curve-balls into the mix. Guys with thermal goggles that can scan high vantage points to blow your position, making your typical gargoyle inhospitable. Some might be wearing jamming kits that block the use of the highly useful detective vision. Others will start laying down mines, which can be a curse or a blessing depending on how creative you get. A few clowns may stick right next to a hostage and refuse to wander, or maybe one guy on a high vantage balcony happens to be a Riddler snitch, making it hard to work while leaving him for last.

I really enjoyed these curve-balls. They feel believable enough – it makes sense that the gangsters would eventually get wise to Batman's tricks and start trying to find ways to counter him out – even if they are a tad specific. But to their credit, the gimmick mooks force you to take on the rooms in a variety of ways without relying on the same tricks through the entire game. At the same time, none of the gimmicks are individual game-breakers. Batman has a tool or ability to cancel out each of these counters and retake the upper hand with the right strategy. The gimmicks do a great job of mixing up gameplay without suddenly making Batman seem weak or outplayed.

Speaking of the gadgets and tools, they are also subject to some arbitrary gameyness. Apparently that utility belt comes with some pretty funky limitations.

You only get one sonic batarang that can be used to instantly take out a mook per room, so you have to make it count. The smoke pellet can be used as a one time get-out-of-jail-free card if you are spotted, or you can toss it into the enemies midst for confusion, sacrificing your safety-net for an offensive surprise. The disruptor can be used to either detonate mines placed by the enemies or remotely jam their weapons, but only twice – so you have to decide what is more trouble, the guns or the mines (for super swag points, save it for deactivating the last thug's gun than just drop down in front of him and watch his heart rate climb when his gun jams.)


Oh I see, he only has room for one smoke pellet because he has to make room for gauze and sewing thread. Makes sense.

Do these limitations on the gadgets make a lot of sense? Well if you read the item descriptions they toss in some techno-gibberish to try and justify it, but no, they really don't. It's transparently a gameplay thing, and for obvious reasons. Predator rooms would be pretty boring if it was just a matter of hucking sonic batarangs from a gargoyle after all.

But do they intrude on the believability of the scenario? Not as much as you might think. While it is kinda gamey that you can only use the same tool once or twice per room, with the sheer number of gadgets at your disposal and the variety of ways to take on each predator room you probably won't even notice.

I think that is a really strong design choice. Arkham City's combat and predator rooms are designed to prevent you from overly crutching on one or two effective tactics. But instead of watering down what Batman or his items can do, they implemented a few gamey elements and limitations here and there to spice things up. Batman's gadgets and martial abilities are all super useful, but they have to be used in concert with each other to be at their most effective, and that is pretty damn Batman.

Detective Mode



Detective mode could just as easily been called "the-testing-team-thought-predator-rooms-were-too-hard-mode."

I kid, but I think there is an element of truth in there. The Arkham games feature dark, visually noisy areas, with complicated 3D geometry to navigate in, where they expect you to pick off darkly coloured thugs that blend in with the surroundings. If you try to go through without using detective mode at all you're likely to run into a few surprise parties (and by surprise parties I mean bullets).

The X-ray vision of detective mode and the useful HUD elements that inform you of enemy weapons and points of interest are extremely handy for planning out your attack and knowing how to best evade the enemy. As a gameplay element, detective vision is a very good thing.

Where it gets interesting to me is how they used it to enhance the narrative elements of the games as well. Detective vision lets Batman do some actual detective work for the first time in a Batman game. While it may all run off of C.S.I style forensic magic (analyzing trace elements, tracking bullet trajectories back to their source, ect) it does let you feel like a scientific smarty-pants, which is a part of Batman's personality that gets glazed over in most games. Some of the side missions that made use of detective vision, like tracking down Deadshot, were a highlight of the game to me.


Ok, so maybe solving crimes in Arkham City doesn't make you a genius. Still more fun than L.A Noire.

I would be curious to see what came first in the development process to make detective vision what it is. The desire to add detective elements, or as a response to play testing difficult predator rooms? It is likely that they managed to use the very gamey element of X-ray-HUD-vision to satisfy both goals. Pretty clever!

Riddler's Collection Quest



I've said it before, but I think the Riddler's collection quest is one of the best takes out there on a element of games I often loath.

To me, collection quests are usually very lame. A transparent way to tack a few extra hours onto the length of the game, or a ploy to sell strategy guides. The trophies and riddles you need to collect in Arkham City could have very easily fallen into the same trap, but a few key differences made the collection quest actually fun and satisfying to complete.

I have talked about the mechanics that make the Riddler's challenge work before, so I won't over labour it. Suffice to say, the ability to tag uncollectable trophies with detective vision for later, the opportunity to shake down Riddler snitches for locations, and the sheer imagination and variety of puzzles to solve make it one of the most satisfying collection quests I've ever done.

What really helps make it pop though is the way they hooked it into the story. Near the start of the game, Riddler invades an area you previously made a safehouse of sorts and takes a number of hostages. He takes great glee in discribing to you how he has hidden them away in various deathtraps and plans to kill them if you can't rise to his challenge. As you collect his trophies and puzzles, he starts disclosing their locations and you get a chance to save them and ultimately track Eddie down to his hideout and deliver some sweet justice punching.


Eddie wants to play a game.

It was a really good move. Throwing hostages into the mix adds some relevancy to the collection quest other than achievement points and gamer OCD. The fact that you get to rescue the hostages out of some really fun deathtraps and converse with the surprisingly amusing Riddler while you do it is the icing on the cake. You are motivated to do the collection quest in a way that is meaningful to the character, and rewarded with exciting gameplay rather than just meaningless points (oh don't worry, you still get achievements for it.)

The comic history of the franchise really helps here. Unlike a lot of games where the collection quest is either hand-waved away as completely arbitrary (Tiki statutes in Vice City) or given some incredibly lame justification (flags in Assassin's Creed 1), the scattered trophies and riddles of Arkham City actually make a bit of sense. It is entirely within Nigma's character and methods to set-up a bunch of dickbag challenges to test the Dark Knight.

Sure, the scope of his riddles may be a bit unrealistic (just how many giant pressure pads can one guy and his hired help set up in a open air prison without getting shot or mugged?) but it isn't especially glaring. The player is already taking a leap believing the setting (said open air prison in the middle of a city) and the premise (man dressed as giant bat is the biggest badass in the world) so excusing the improbability of some of Riddler's stashes isn't too hard.


DAMN STRAIGHT.

Arkham City is a video game's video game - but it hides it well. Underneath that super polished high-budget exterior and thick gritty atmosphere are some of the most fundamental gameplay elements we've come to expect from games. You have combo-counters, arbitrary rules, anti-frustration measures, collectables, all very standard stuff. But it never especially nags at the player or takes you out of the gameworld.

If there was one thing that really makes Arkham the best comic book franchise games ever made it is that successful marriage of licence and game. Neither narrative or game are ignored in favour of the other, instead they work together to make the raise each other up. It is a fantastic design and I hope to see future developers follow in Rockseady's lead.

Criticizing the Soulcalibur franchise for sexism is kind of like shooting fish in a barrel isn't it? When a series includes characters like Ivy and focuses their promotional material on boobs shots you certainly have plenty of ammunition at your disposal.

But what is upsetting me about Soulcalibur 5 isn't the cleavage or ridiculous stripper costumes – it's what the game assumes about women and the player base for fighting games.

The Soulcalibur games differ a bit from other fighting game series in that they like to include large time jumps in between games. Soulcalibur takes place three years after the events in Soulblade, and SC2 takes place a further four years after that. The most recent title, SC5 is set 17 years from where SC4 left off.

What is interesting to note though is which characters have managed to stay with the series over these time gaps and which ones have been dumped.

It started with Sophitia. The blonde and top-heavy sword and board fighter from the original Soulblade. In SC2 Sophitia was dropped from the roster and replaced with her sister Casandra. A blonde, top-heavy sword and board fighter that happened to be about four or five years younger.

In SC5 both of these ladies are dumped and replaced with Pyrrha, Sophitia's now adolescent daughter who is, you guessed it, a blonde top-heavy sword and board fighter.

Chai Xianghua, a Chinese fencer is replaced by her 15 year old daughter Lexia who fights with the same style.

Ninja demon-slayer Taki has been replaced by her apprentice - a teenaged bubbly blonde ninja-girl. Hrumph.

Meanwhile we have returning male characters; Sigfried the knight, undead-pirate Cervantes, legendary Ronin Mitsurugi, Maxi, Kilik, Raphael, and Voldo. None of them seem to have been replaced by younger cuter models (well I guess there is Xiba, but Kilik is right there to slap him anyway). So what's the deal Namco?

Take a look at the cast. The majority of the male characters are, or appear to be, over 30 or more. Meanwhile the majority of girls on the roster are in their teens. Even the two women with a few more years appear to be no older than their late 20s. While we have been able to watch the men grow and age throughout the series, the women are constantly subbed out for younger versions. I guess if you are a woman in the Calibur games, the Soul stops burning at 29.


"Hey Sigs, you don't think I'm too old to fight do you?" "Nah Mits, 45 is the new 20... Unless you're a chick."

For the men, age is not a negative thing. In fact, for all the regular human men it is shown as universally positive. Sig's has grown over the series from a violent and guilt-ridden youth to a meditative savior figure and military leader. Mitsurugi has become famous as one of the last true samurai. Maxi is no longer a death-seeking pirate but a guardian for a group of young warriors.

For the men, the 17 year gap between games was nothing but a chance to become even more badassed. The passage of time has given them experience, self-reflection, and has made them more interesting characters.

For the women of the series, that 17 year gap was the end of the line. Instead of experiencing any of the character growth enjoyed by the dudes, the girls were relegated to the backbench while characters who are essentially their clones (or in the case of Taki - a bizarre Caucasian girl) stepped into the lime-light.

It important to note how similar these new girls play to their predecessors. All of them adopt nearly all the same moves and play-style from their fore-bearers. There is very little evolution in play or variance to speak of. They were not brought on as replacements to spice up the game-play or do something new as a fighter. They exist solely as younger hotter versions.

It shows what Namco thinks of their characters. The men are defined by their ability and skill as warriors – age just makes them cooler. But the girls are defined by their sex appeal – a few extra years makes the character worthless and easily replaceable. I think that is a profoundly negative outlook.

There are only two female characters that appear in SC5 over 29. Ivy, a hyper-sexualized dominatrix who conquered ageing and death with a combination of alchemy and dark magic. While she has a few more years on her, she looks like she is in her 20s – so I'm not going to take her inclusion as a triumphant victory for feminism.

The other exception is Hilde, who at the ripe age of 34 is the single oldest woman in the game – her character was designed specifically to address criticisms of sexism in the SC series and continues to stand alone as the classiest lady in the series. Not coincidentally, she also happens to have the most interesting storyline and character of all the female fighters.

So is this what Namco thinks of its player base? That they couldn't possibly risk letting the ladies age alongside the men or gamers would have thrown their up fightsticks in protest? Would the disc have melted in the tray if Sophitia hadn't been replaced by her near identical but younger sister, and later her daughter?

They could have just made the original ladies super-hot regardless of their age. I would rather they include an unnaturally beautiful 40 year old woman than blatantly snub her for a younger model. At least we could have pretended the former wasn't pandering.

It frustrates me as a male gamer when developers talk down to their audience like this. Implying that the only possible reason guys would play a game like Soulcalibur is because of the titillation of the virtual ladies.

Some people will always rush to defend this kind of design. That somehow Ivy's DDD breasts and constant moaning is empowering – or that the typical lack of armour or clothing for the girls is to compliment an "evasive" fighting technique, not to simply show as much skin as possible in a game without tripping an AO rating. But it just seems like bullshit to me.

I'm not a woman, I can't speak to it personally, but I would have to assume that the emphasis on the sexuality of their female cast is alienating. I know that it would make me uncomfortable if Siegfried only wore a banana hammock cradling a massively out of proportion package and moaned like he enjoyed being spanked with every hit.


"I feel so empowered right now... In my pants.

This is especially glaring to me in the current climate of the fighting game community. For a genre and community that has such an intense desire to blow up, to go pro and become a legitimate e-sport, you think they would try to be more inclusive. I really do think one of the major factors holding the FGC back is the juvenile and sexist character designs that plague the genre.

Devs want their characters to be appealing and marketable, I get that. But I also believe you can have appealing female characters over 30. In fact, call me a rouge, but I think you can have female characters that are appealing and marketable without relying on cheesecake if you put effort into their personalities, story-lines, and play-styles.

In fact they could had it both ways. If Namco had kept the older ladies and put in the younger girls BUT with different fighting styles, that would have satisfied their desire for buxom ladies AND actually moved the game-play forward. I think that is what fighting game fans would have wanted most of all.

When I think about locations in video games, my mind drifts back to the classics. Hyrule. Zebes. Dracula's Castle. Shadow Moses. And now, I think of Lordran.

Lordran is the cursed land of the undead in Dark Souls. A mystical kingdom that was once home to Gods, kings, and a thriving populace. But now the lands have fallen into decay. The Gods have either abandoned the lands or now terrorize them in fits of madness. The Kings have fallen to darkness. All that remains of Lordran's people are spiritless zombies and twisted monsters.

It is a dark, dangerous, and often sad place. A place of disquieted spirits and haunted pasts. And its a place that, to me, has earned a spot among the greatest video game locations I've ever explored.

For all the talk about Dark Souls relentless difficulty and unique multiplayer invasion/cooperation system, its easy to glaze over the wonderful world From Software has created with Lordran. A criminal oversight – all the awesome mechanics in the world would hardly matter if the game world couldn't manage to hold the players attention or interest.

There are a pair of factors that make Lordran so unforgettable in my opinion. The first is tied to the design of the game. The deadly enemies, frequent repetition, and abundance of traps and shortcuts forces the player to become intimately familiar with the territory. Secondly is the quality of the locations and the atmosphere Lordran cultivates as you explore its many facets – the gritty and real harshness of low fantasy contrasted with wonderfully mystic and surreal scenarios.

The first time I really got down and into the Catacombs, I was terrified. I'd been here before, barely. Just at the entrance to be honest where I was greeted by a machete wielding skeleton. He nearly killed me with just two lighting quick movements of his blade. In a panic, I led him back up the stairs and with some VERY cautious sword work, was able to shatter him after a prolonged session of hacking and slashing. I poked my head down the dark spiralling stair case for a little recon when I heard a rattling behind me. The skeleton that was so hard to kill had reassembled himself in perfect condition.



“Fuck. This”

So scarred by that encounter that when I finally felt I was strong enough for the Catacombs, I didn't really want to go down there. Still, armed with a divine blade capable of making those skeletons stay dead, and my only other travel destination being the even less appealing Sen's Fortress, I mustered up the nerve and went grave robbing. Every turn I took, I looked twice and kept my shield up. Every new enemy put a knot in my stomach. Every ledge was treated with suspicion. I nearly wept for joy when I found a bonfire mid-way where I could respawn when I inevitably died.

That was then. Now when I hit the “Cats” I still watch my back, but I don't sweat it. I know how to deal with those pesky skeletons, and their necromancer bosses have long since been banished. I know what pitfalls mean death, and which can be safely jumped for shortcuts. Its not exactly a playtime in the tulip garden, but I don't think of the Catacombs as the death-pit nightmare basement I used to. It's become strangely familiar.

That is the beauty of Lordran's design. To guide the player through incredibly hostile and engaging environments until they know them like it was second-nature.

Part of Dark Souls celebrated difficulty is that there are NO maps or guides to speak of in the game. The player is given some very vague goals at the very start of the game to “ring two bells of awakening” and is left to just muddle through on their own. When a player rolls up that first character, there is simply no choice but to explore and find his or her own way through Lordran. Of course this being Dark Souls, where the school of hard knocks is always in session, this is no easy task. The first time through, you are going to be dying. A lot. The game (not-so) gently guides the player though a path of least resistance. If you are going the right direction, you should be able to just barely keep up with the enemies and obstacles you come across. Stray from the path, and next thing you know you'll be partying with intangible ghosts and face melting demons.

You are always on the razor edge in Dark Souls. One misstep and your Chosen Undead can become just another cautionary bloodstain on the ground. Because everything is so lethal, it forces the player to pay attention. I read an article on Dark Souls design, how in the very first moments you land in Lordran, the game teaches you how to move ahead and check your surroundings. Its very true. You never want to go into a new area blind. It only takes a few nasty surprises to make you cautious and thoughtful in how you walk around.



Be very careful now.

It also makes you sharp. Dying sucks in Dark Souls. Not only do you lose your progress and have to start back at the last bonfire you rested at, but you drop all the souls and humanity you have on you. That stuff is your XP, your currency, and your online pass to Jolly Cooperation all at the same time; you never want to lose any if you don't have to. So the savvy player pays attention and remembers the lay of the land well. Getting jumped by a nasty ambush once sucks. Falling for the same trick twice and having it cost you all of your hard earned souls is enough to make a grown man cry.

Not only are enemy positions essential knowledge, but you need to know the terrain as well. Both the major dangers of the location and the best usage of the geometry. You can always try and use the many traps to your advantage, leading your enemies into them; and there are many hard fights in the game that can be made very simple with a well placed boot near a ledge. You can't afford to miss a trick in Dark Souls, so paying attention to the land is key.

It's this process of learning that makes Lordran so memorable and interesting. Straight repetition is just boring. The fact that the game makes you try the same area a bunch of times isn't necessarily a good thing if its just a matter of luck or persistence to get through. Dark Souls encourages you to play smarter, not harder. It's not that “oh, you die a lot have have to keep coming back to the same place” that makes Lordran exciting. It's “oh, you die a lot, AT FIRST, then once you learn what you are doing you impress yourself with how much better you are at it.” As you play the game and learn, areas that seemed like a horrible life and death trial the first time become easier and easier.

Then there is the way the locations are laid out. Unlike its predecessor Demon Souls which featured a hub system that led to different distinct levels, Lordran is an open world. One location connects naturally to the next and several areas overlap or criss-cross.


Notice on this map of the Undead Burg area how all the locations connect together. This is only the starting area.

But not every location comes with a welcome banner or sweeping establishing shot. No, in fact for many of the areas it almost seems like a matter of sneaking in through the back door. You get to the Undead Burg by crawling through a cistern. The lower burg is accessed from a nondescript door leading to a long ladder and narrow ledge, it feels like coming in through the service hatch. The Tomb of Giants is simply a natural extension of the Catacombs – the further down you go the bigger the coffins get and the thicker the darkness. I snuck into the cathedral of Anor Londo by shimmying up a flying buttress and diving in through a balcony window. Not exactly a hero's triumphant entrance.

Combining these little mouse holes and back doors that lead to new areas with the heavy emphasis on exploration creates a weird sensation. More than a few times through the game I worried that I was sequence breaking or taking on an area ahead of schedule or through the wrong route. It is an odd tension.

But it also makes sense. If there were huge gates or “load bearing bosses” separating every new location it would feel fake – video gamey. The weird little cubby holes and serpentine routes through less than glorious paths makes Lordran feel much more like a real interconnected place rather than a series of set-pieces and levels. It makes the exploration feel more real.

All this talk of alleyways and obscure little paths doesn't mean that Dark Souls can't impress with its locations when it wants to. Far from it. Part of what makes Lordran such an amazing place to visit is its variety of locations and its mix of gritty low fantasy and bigger-than-life scale.

The Golden City of Anor Londo is a great example. You reach the city after a protracted time in a hell hole called Sen's Fortress – a cramped dark dungeon specifically designed to test you. Its filled with classic booby-traps like pendulum blades and Indiana Jones style death boulders. Its narrow hallways, pressure pads, and precarious ledges are extremely confining; you have to watch every step. Then you hit the sun soaked promenades of Anor Londo and everything changes.

Like a fantasy version of Vatican City, Anor Londo is a city of churches and temples which features extremely wide open and brightly lit areas; far more vast and open than any other area you have so far encountered in Lordran. Enemies here are literal giants – golems and gargoyles you can see from a mile off. The architecture reflects this. Archways and gates here are designed for creatures 30 feet taller than you. Those gigantic statues of the Goddess Guinevere? They're made to her actual size.




And there you are – one tiny insignificant undead. Scurrying around in a place meant for Gods and Kings. Its a wonderful change in tone that reminds you of the scope of what you are up against – just in case you were feeling big for defeating Sen's Fortress.

It's the low fantasy that makes the fantastic pop so much. When you trudge through the slums of Lordran and dive into its sewers, it feels absolutely believable. From Software took the plausibility and consistency (shout outs to Knutaf!) of their world building from Demon Souls and expanded on it in Dark Souls. Every place feels real, every place feels connected. So its all the more striking when that grit and harshness gives way to the surreal. The best example of this has to be Ash Lake.

Below the filth of the sewers is a forsaken dumping ground known as Blighttown where only the lowest of the low reside. Outside the walls of the Lordran, all the runoff from the Undead Burg and the depths comes to pool in this fetid pit where degenerate half-men have made a rickety home for themselves over a poison swamp. It's a place that will make your skin crawl. In the very bottom of the swamp, should the player ever make the foolhardy choice to explore it, one can find a massive dead tree. Through a crack in the tree are a series of false walls that lead inside the massive trunk – which is when things get weird.



Inside the tree is an area known as the hollows. And I'll be damned if it wasn't intended as some sort of dark take on Alice in Wonderland. Winding down the inside of the tree are a tangled mess of roots, branches, and thickets that the bold (stupid) can use to climb down. Way down. Keep in mind you got to this place by going through the sewers into the very depths of the kingdom. But it still keeps leading down, past twisted branches and curse inflicting lizards until the dead vines give way to petals and hugely overgrown mushroom tops. Down and through more hollowed branches until you come to... a beach?

When you finally make it out of the unfathomably huge trunk, you find yourself standing on a tiny spit of sand surrounded on all sides by dark waters. In the distance you can see other trees, massive trees that reach up to the clouds above them. Yes, clouds. Underground. The attentive player may recognize them, they are the so-called Arch-Trees of the era before time mentioned only briefly in the opening cinematic. Exploring around offers more weirdness – a Hydra, sparkling giant clams resting in the smooth sand, a handful of mushroom men – and at the end of the beach is one of the great stone Everlasting Dragons, supposedly extinct.


Is Ash Lake actually underground, or have you journeyed back in time or to another world? Who can say.

It's a totally surreal trip and it makes no sense. Very The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe type stuff. Even when I heard about the secret area secondhand after missing it the first time through, I wasn't prepared for the sheer shock of it. The mysticism of the moment floored me and I don't think I'll ever forget my first journey there.

Lordran is at once terrifying and wonderful. It is a world of horrible threats, unforgiving obstacles, and labyrinthine design. But its also home to some of the most breath taking and inspiring locations I've seen in a video game in years. Its a world that you must become intimately familiar with if you want to stand a chance, but also one you will remember fondly.